The Chosen One

  “Mother?” I reach for her. Her hair, braided long, trails like a snake on the bathroom floor. I can feel the bones of her back.

  “Go on to bed, baby,” Mother says. Her voice sounds hollow echoing up out of the toilet bowl. She glances at me. Her skin is pale, her eyes watery. She rests her face on the seat.

  “Let me help you,” I say. My stomach clenches. As many times as I’ve seen her like this—she gets sick with every baby—it still scares me.

  “I’m okay,” Mother says.

  “Are you done?”

  My mother has been sick the whole six months of this, her eighth, pregnancy. Sick enough, I know from library books, she probably should be in the hospital. She’s lost three babies already, and very nearly her life besides.

  I hook my hands under Mother’s arms and try to pull her up. Her belly is the only big thing on her. She sways a little and I try to support her with my body.

  “Why, Kyra,” Mother says, sounding all surprised. Her breath is awful. “You’re as tall as I am. When in the world did that happen?”

  If I could smile, I would. But I feel like I have been robbed of everything good. “Mother,” I say, “you aren’t that tall. Laura’s creeping up on you, too.”

  Mother, bent over some, hand resting on her belly, nods.

  “Let’s get you back to bed. Then I’ll make you something light to eat.”

  Again she nods.

  I tuck her into bed, pet her head, then start for the kitchen. I haven’t even gotten out of her room when Mother says, “Kyra Leigh. Father and I have talked. He’s gone to see the Prophet, early this morning. He’ll straighten this all out. I know it.”

  There are smears of dark blue-gray under both her eyes. I wonder how long it’s been since she has slept the night through. Carolina, on a pallet under the window, rolls against the wall.

  “I read his note,” I say. My heart pounds at her words. At his promise. I might have a chance.

  In the kitchen, I start oatmeal and applesauce muffins for my sisters and me, and dry toast with a bit of strawberry jam for Mother. I put water on to boil for her tea. I can hear Laura waking, can hear Carolina talking in her baby voice. Mother answers her. Margaret hums a church song about Jesus being like the morning. Outside the window, it’s still dark out.

  The smell of cinnamon and sugar fills the kitchen. Water boils.

  I stop what I’m doing long enough to hope that maybe Father will save me. I hurry over to his note, fold it, then stick it in my bra so it’ll be close to my heart.

  I pull my mother’s food from under the broiler and spread strawberry jam, jam I helped her make, on the toast.

  She’s lying in bed, Carolina curled up beside her, talking, talking.

  “Thank you, Kyra,” she says.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I want something to eat,” Carolina says, sitting up.

  “Come with me,” I say. I put Mother’s breakfast on the bedside table.

  “I want breakfast in bed, too,” Carolina says.

  “Do you?” Mother says. She gives Carolina a squeeze. “Then you can stay.”

  “Yippee!” Carolina throws her tiny arms around Mother.

  “How about muffins?” I say. “Would you like that, Carolina?”

  But what if Father fails? Fear rises in my chest. It races toward my throat.

  Stop thinking!

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Carolina says, her face puffy from sleep.

  What if . . . the thoughts might choke me. I think I might die right here in my mother’s room. I hurry back to the kitchen.

  Mother is so thin. So pale. I love her so much that I can almost not think about it. She’s my mother, yes. But she’s my friend, too. What will I do when I’m not living with her? What will I do when I have to move out of this trailer to Uncle Hyrum’s place? Even leaving my mother, my family, for Joshua would be hard.

  But not like this. Not like this.

  Fear is like a fist, clutching at my chest. Rising in my body, like it wants to escape from me in a scream.

  “Get rid of it,” I say.

  Laura is in the kitchen now, reading her scriptures at the table. She wears her housecoat, her hair falling loose over her shoulder.

  “Get rid of what?” Laura says, looking over at me.

  “Nothing,” I say. But if I work hard enough, the fear will go away. And if I read. There’s a book in my tree. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is wedged in the branches so it won’t fall and be discovered. I’ve read it once, I could start again. Reading would get my mind off things. Or playing piano. Or maybe Joshua.

  And I get to go to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels later this afternoon. I can hold on till that. I can.

  I dish oatmeal and pull muffins from the oven. The girls and I have prayer, kneeling in Mother’s bedroom. Mother prays, asking God to answer the most sincere desire of our hearts.

  Is she thinking what I’m thinking? Is she asking God what I’m begging for? Has Father? My other mothers?

  Then I sit beside Mother in the bathroom as she throws up her few bites of toast and her tea. The strawberry jam is like hunks of blood. I pray for Mother Sarah. And me.

  “REMEMBER,” PROPHET CHILDS has said. “God punishes those who sin.”

  Prophet Childs, as sharp as my Russian Olive thorns, has preached that a woman who dies pregnant or having babies is a sinner. He’s said manufactured medicine is from Satan. He’s said doctors meddle and take away our God-given freedoms.

  Here’s what I’d say. Here’s what I know. If someone, anyone, would listen to me I would whisper in their ears. I’d say, I know my mother. She’s as good as the sun on a cold day. She’s sweet to me as honey from the comb. Some nights I crawl in beside her, when Father is with another wife. She always smoothes my hair. She always says, “Kyra, you are music to me.”

  Prophet Childs has said it’s wrong to think outside the fences of The Chosen. To think of taking from people outside of our fences.

  “We make do with our own and for our own,” he’s said.

  But I have read in the newspapers that the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels brings me once a week. I know there is more help for pregnant women. Outside of here. Away from here, there is help.

  I HAVE SISTERS and brothers running all over the place. My mother is Father’s third wife. Our trailers, one for each Mother with her children, sit in a group, like wagons circling a fire. This is the way it is all over the Compound, not just with us. Fathers with all their wives grouped together. Making a circle. Like how we’re one eternal round in heaven.

  Sometimes we meet as a family, in the early morning, as the sun rises, and read scriptures and have prayer, all of us together in that center.

  But not this morning. Not this morning because Father has gone to talk to the Prophet in the belly of the Temple, where the Apostles and Prophet meet most mornings before the sun has risen.

  Not this morning. While Mother lies in bed, my sisters and I work in the garden. All the homes here in the Compound have huge gardens. They are cut out of the red sand, fueled with manure and rich dirt brought in from the outside by the truckload. Or from the barns where the cows stay the nights. Or from the chicken yards that each trailer has.

  It’s still early and there is the promise of sun. The sky to the east lightens, and everything around us seems like an old photo, kind of gray. The way I feel, I think, worn out and gray.

  “Jesus loves the little children,” Carolina sings, her voice thin and high, just like a baby’s. Only all her ls make w sounds. Her dress is covered with an apron. Her tennis shoes splotchy with dirt. She has a bit of oatmeal on her chin.

  Margaret, who is always grumpy in the mornings, stands nearby with the watering can. She has a hand on her slim hip, just like me with Joshua, just like Mother Claire. Margaret’s dark hair is loose from last night’s sleep. Her lips are a flat line, not a bit of smile coming from her. Her eyes, a fierce brown.

  “What??
?s the matter?” Laura asks. But Margaret won’t say. For one brief moment I wonder if maybe she knows my sick stomach. Does she realize that I’m leaving home and won’t be back? She must. Ten is nearly a woman.

  “The morning’s grand,” Laura says to Margaret.

  “Don’t be such a sour face,” I say.

  Margaret looks away. “Your face isn’t happy,” she says.

  I ignore what she’s said. I can’t even look her in the eye. “Work fast,” I say, pulling weeds right next to singing Carolina. “Water please, Margaret.”

  “You’ll leave soon,” she says.

  I nod.

  “Don’t talk of that,” Laura says to Margaret. Then she smiles at me from where she searches for bugs, squishing them between her fingers. Laura’s a lot tougher than I am. “I’m not even worried about this. Father has said he will talk to the Prophet and he will. If anyone can change a person’s mind, it’s Father.”

  “You’re right,” I say. It feels like there’s a band around my throat. The band grows tighter and tighter, squeezing my breath away. “Father has gone to the Prophet.”

  From behind the other two trailers, I can hear my other brothers and sisters working, laughing in the morning, hurrying. A rooster crows, calling to the dawn.

  “But he said he had a vision,” Margaret says. “Can Father change a vision?”

  Laura is quiet.

  “Father can do anything,” says Carolina.

  Now Margaret just waters.

  I work, pulling weeds from the damp soil. When the wind is just right I can hear our own chickens clucking, and smell them, too.

  Voices call out from the other trailers. I stand, stretching out my back, and listen. There’s Adam’s voice. And Emily’s.

  What happened after I left, when everyone went to their own homes? Did Mariah keep screaming? Did they all cry? Did Father comfort them? Or did they say the marriage was a blessing?

  Uncle Hyrum. Uncle Hyrum.

  In the garden I squeeze my eyes shut.

  This must be because of my sins. It must be.

  Carolina stops singing. “Can I water now?” she asks.

  I nod. “Of course you can.” Quick like, I hug my little sister. Carolina lets me squish her up close for a minute and kiss her. Her face is fat under my lips.

  At that moment I see everything, plain. I look at Laura, my very best friend. Look at grumpy Margaret. Feel Carolina close. Her body warm in my arms. The smell of the morning. The sun throwing all those beginning colors into the sky. All of it should save me. All of it should free me of my fears. But instead I have a horrible thought.

  I see each of my sisters married to the oldest man in the Compound, Brother Nile Anderson. Married to him. He has to be 150 years old. In my head, I can see his spotted hands, yellowed nails, and those fat blue veins that look like they might pop any second.

  This comes into my mind because of last night. Of course it does. Because that is what our lives are, I realize, holding on to my little sister.

  We are here for the men.

  I try to make my mind remember the last time there was a marriage of a young man and a young woman. I can’t think of any, not any, not for a long time. It seems all the old men are marrying the young girls.

  Like my uncle and me.

  It’s as though someone punches me in the throat.

  Carolina wiggles, pushes away, and starts to water radishes and peppers, sloshing water from the heavy bucket. She’s singing again. But Laura, she looks at me.

  “What?” she says. “Did a rabbit run across your grave?”

  It’s something Father says when one of us shivers.

  I can’t even nod.

  “Kyra?” Laura says, and she reaches for me, touches my wrist with her buggy fingers. “What’s the matter? Is it last night?”

  I shake my head no. I can’t say I’m worried for you. I can’t say this is all wrong. So instead, I say, “No. It’s not last night.”

  But this little voice of Carolina’s? Her little singing voice? It crawls under my skin, burrows toward the gash in my heart. If I didn’t know better, I would think for sure I’m bleeding out.

  WHEN MOTHER IS ASLEEP, when the gardening is done, I stand on the back porch and look to where I know Amaretto City sits. It’s a few hundred miles away, but it’s a big place. Big enough for a girl to get lost in.

  Marrying Uncle Hyrum is enough to send me away from here.

  But if Father can help me . . .

  If I ever leave

  (should I even think this?

  no, I shouldn’t even think this)

  if I ever leave

  (maybe I could)

  I’ll find me a house

  with a piano

  and doctors to help

  my mother

  and no old man

  no uncle

  to be my husband.

  THE THIRD TIME I went to choose a book, the guy in the ball cap said, “Hey, since we’re getting to be book friends, I should tell you who I am.” He stuck his hand at me. For a moment I didn’t even move.

  Men and women never shake hands in the Compound.

  “I’m Patrick,” he said. His hand still out there, like it was hanging in the air. Like it had a mind of its own.

  “Okay,” I said, reaching forward, just touching his fingers. His hand was cool.

  “Patrick,” he said. “Just so you know.”

  I felt glued to where I stood.

  “Go on. Look things over,” Patrick said, waving his greeting hand. “See what we’ve got today.”

  Then he slid around in his seat, watched as I moved in toward the books, slow.

  “And my wife’s name is Emily,” he said, surprising me. “We have one little boy, Nathan.”

  I hesitated, that day, my mouth full of words. Me, too, I wanted to say. I have those names in my family, too. I wanted to say, I’m not the oldest. There’s Adam and Nathaniel (like your Nathan) and Finn. I wanted to say I have a sister named Emily—just like your wife. She’s older than me. But her mind is slow. I wanted to say all that, but I just kept searching for a book. At last I found The Borrowers and checked it out. Then I went to the back of the van and slipped the book into the body of my dress.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to Patrick, when I came up front with the book good and hidden.

  “You bet,” he said. “I’ll be here next week.”

  I leapt to the ground, dust puffing up around my feet, and headed toward home.

  The engine of the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels started behind me.

  I moved off the road and, as the van got right next to me, flapped my arms at Patrick.

  He slowed the van. Rolled down his window. “Want another book?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m Kyra,” I said.

  “Well, nice to meet you, Kyra,” Patrick said and he grinned so big I noticed his front teeth were a little crooked.

  I nodded. Stood there.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “Then I’ll see you next week.”

  And off he went, with all those books.

  __________

  LAURA COMES OUT onto the back step with me. She stands beside me, quiet. Neither one of us says a thing for a moment.

  Then she reaches for my hand, links her fingers into mine.

  Tears spring to my eyes.

  “I love you, Kyra,” Laura says. Then she leans right into me. I can smell the shampoo we use in her hair. “I love you.”

  I don’t say anything. Just put my face close to hers. Try not to cry. Hold her hand and hope.

  I’M MY MOTHER’S FIRST CHILD, born when she was almost fourteen years old.

  “Think of it,” I said to Laura when I turned twelve. “I’m almost Mother Sarah’s age when she was married.”

  Laura looked at me, her squinty eyes even more narrowed. “You could have your own old man as a husband,” she said.

  “S
hut up,” I had said.

  And she had laughed.

  Being the first child is more than just being married early (or first). It means responsibility.

  If I were a boy, I’d get to do more stuff, like the boys do here. I could drive any time I was needed (with permission; Mother has taken me out in the family van several times. I’m not too bad considering, though she’s said I’ve given her whiplash.). I could work with the Prophet by carrying messages to families or running errands among him and the Apostles. I could go into town with the others more often. Be a part of the God Squad. Receive revelation for my family.

  Choose who I wanted to marry.

  MOST DAYS ARE SLOW. With work to fill them up and no time for me to get to the piano or sneak off and read.

  But today zooms past. And all I want it to do is slow down. Give me time here with my family, safe, I think. Let my father talk to the Prophet. Let things change for me.

  “Kyra,” Mother Sarah says. This afternoon she’s not as sick and this gives me more time to worry about what is to come. She sits propped in her bed, spooning chicken broth into her own mouth, and sharing bites with me and Laura and Margaret and Carolina. “Kyra, you’re such a good help,” she says. “This soup tastes like Mother Claire’s homemade.”

  “I used her recipe,” I say. This is almost the truth.

  It is Mother Claire’s recipe, but I stole the soup from her pot yesterday, before all this happened, and replaced it with water. Something like guilt catches in the back of the throat. Is this why I am marrying my uncle? Does the Prophet know that this whole pregnancy I’ve stolen food from the other mothers so I wouldn’t have to make it myself? Does he want to teach me a lesson?

  I look away from Mother because I know she never, never stole soup from another woman’s cooking pot. Especially not as many times as I have.

  “Mother,” I say, getting ready to tell her everything, like how hard it is to cook dinner for so many. Like how I want to play the piano. Or read. Or see Joshua. But not cook another meal.

  She looks at me, her face almost relaxed.