The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(94)

I was a mess. My kitchen was a mess. My house was a mess. My family was a mess. My whole world was a mess.

I had tried to help Kelly Helm, and I had failed and I was never going to make up for the daughter I had let die. She was always going to be dead and there would never be anyone to fill the hole in my heart.

We ate in near silence, though I could see Kurt and Samuel sharing meaningful glances over the table. As soon as Samuel had cleared his place, he skedaddled, leaving Kurt and me at the dinner table. I stood up, swayed with exhaustion, and broke into tears.

He eased me back down, moving his chair close enough to mine that I was half sitting on him. I wished I didn’t feel so squished against him. But the reality was that when you got to be our age, it seemed like things didn’t fit the way they used to.

“You’re allowed to cry, you know,” he said.

Which only made me cry louder. “Thanks.”

“Bad day?” he asked.

“You could say that,” I said, though I didn’t elaborate.

“You know, it makes me feel like there is something wrong with me, that you almost never let me see you cry. About anything.”

I realized we were actually talking about what was wrong, the deep wrong that had been put away. “You know, you haven’t cried about it in ages, either,” I pointed out.

“I cried about it at the time. For weeks, if you recall. And I kept waiting to see you break down. Other women would have spent days at home alone. But you didn’t. You just got right back up and moved on with your life, as if nothing had happened. As if there was nothing wrong.” He had pulled away from me and was examining me. It reminded me of nothing so much as when Alex Helm had looked down at the pebble in his hand after he’d cleaned it in his mouth.

That was the problem between us. It had always been the problem. I was worried that Kurt was judging me and finding me wanting. It had become even worse since he was called to the bishopric. He was the one who was superior. He had better access to God. He had the priesthood and could use it to give blessings, to call down God’s voice with his own words. What did I have? I was a mother, and I had lost my way and wasn’t sure I was ever going to find it again.

“Say something,” Kurt begged. “I always know you’re all right if you’re talking.”

I sighed. He wanted words. Fine. I would let them out. “It was just that I couldn’t see how it would ever be right again. And saying that out loud—it felt like I was being unfaithful. Like you would tell me I wasn’t allowed to be so broken.” I looked up to search his face, but he turned away.

“I don’t know what I would have said then, Linda. I can’t say I would have known the right thing. But I wish we hadn’t gotten into the habit of silence.”

“People always try to talk about the compensations. That you get blessings from trials. That you have little angels watching over you if you have lost children. But I don’t feel like she is here with us. I never feel it. It makes me wonder why. If there is something wrong with her. Or with me. With us.”

“I don’t know. I don’t feel her, either. But maybe we’re keeping her away somehow. Maybe it still hurts too much to feel her.”

“So it’s my fault?” I said softly. “Because I’m still sad?”

“No. I didn’t mean that.” Kurt tried to move the chairs closer, gave up, and let me slide away from him onto my own chair. But he grabbed my hand and held it tightly. As if he and I were crossing the busiest street in the world together. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you, when you needed me. How you needed me. I’ve always wondered how it is that I could be called to be bishop, to be there for other people, when I wasn’t there for you.”

“And now?” I asked.

He let out a short, barking laugh. “Now I know that being bishop is just God’s way of letting you see all your flaws. It’s not just you I haven’t been there for. I try to do what I can, but afterward, it always seems like it wasn’t enough, or it was at the wrong moment, or that I said the wrong words to the wrong people.”

“So you discovered that you’re not enough for anyone?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Kurt let out a low breath.

“Join the club,” I said. I told him about what had happened with Alex Helm. Kurt was my bishop, as well as my husband, and at times that felt awkward. But at the moment it felt good, like we could connect on even more points than before.

“And Gwen Ferris came to visit,” I added after a moment’s hesitation. Was it my secret to share? She hadn’t sworn me to silence. I wasn’t her bishop. There was no expectation of confidence. But she had trusted me, and I couldn’t share lightly.

“Did she tell you what she would never tell me?”

“You knew?” I said.

Kurt shook his head. “I don’t know what it is. But I know she’s held something back. Some heavy burden. I wasn’t even sure that Brad knew about it.”

“He knew,” I said, and then I explained it. All about Gwen Ferris’s father, and about Carrie Helm’s, as well. Aaron Weston, the man I had felt for a moment as he spoke at the funeral would be an apostle or possibly a prophet. How was it that we could ever believe that we had real inspiration after an experience like that? But I couldn’t give up the hope that next time, I would have learned better to tell the difference between a good liar and God’s truth.