Promise Me (2 page)

“Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”  -
Abigail Adams

“Ditat Deus.” God enriches.  -
Arizona State Motto

“You are now beyond Hope.” 
Painted billboard outside Hope, Arizona.

“
No man can judge me.”  -
Words tattooed on Grayson Mercado’s left shoulder. 

The dress was beautiful.  The women who were to be my sister wives had shopped for it in Phoenix.  They’d meant it to be a kindness.  The four of them presented the large box to me at my mother’s house the day before the wedding in the presence of my father and the Bishop, who was also my uncle.  I accepted it with false gratitude and held it up to my body as they exclaimed over the sight in one voice.   It was a lovely material, though plainly patterned with no embellishments. The sleeves were unfashionably long to accommodate the church’s modest requirements but the bodice was fitted and the skirt was full. 

My mother brought her small dressing mirror and held it up so that I might see the way my red hair showed a stark contrast to the blindingly white fabric.  The satin was soft against my skin and I knew it had to be expensive. 

Yes, the dress was beautiful.

And I’d never hated anything more.

“Well, girl,” my uncle clucked me under the chin, “it’s been a long time coming and you’ll make a fine bride.” 

My gaze swept the beaming faces.  Only my younger sister, Jenny, lowered her eyes with sympathy.  She was the only one who suspected the dread which consumed me over this arrangement.  Winston Allred had first announced his intentions for me when I was Jenny’s age, sixteen.  My father, at the command of his brother, had agreed. 

But then several things happened at once.  The state of Utah raided our sister city due to an anonymous tip that underage girls were being forced into plural marriages with men old enough to be their grandfathers.  Families were separated and some of the prominent leaders of the Faithful Last Disciples and Saints were taken away.  And though our town of Jericho Valley was across state lines, we knew the leaders of Phoenix eyed us suspiciously.  

The men had tried to run off the media trucks which kept idling curiously through Jericho Valley.  We’d always been taught that our fame came from envy.  That the nation looked at us with the mysterious puzzlement of
the covetous and desired the simple lives we enjoyed. The women who were chosen by the select few elders of the church were blessed to carry in their bodies the next generation of Faithful.  The fact that they had no choice in the matter seemed scarcely relevant. 

Also, there had been several tragic births in recent years.  Joyous occasions turned to terrible ones.  There was only one midwife in town who wa
s able to tend nearly eight hundred women and she didn’t have too many years left in her.     

Meanwhile, the attentions of the media and the looming threats of law enforcement were taking took its toll.  My uncle pondered what to do.  One of his own daughters, a wild and beautiful girl named Rachel, had left Jericho Valley in the dead of night only hours before she was to become the sixth wife of Emory Thayne.  Her name, thereafter, was a curse.  

I supposed the fact that they chose me had something to do with my father.   He favored me among all his daughters.   Though the girls of Jericho Valley were pulled out of school by their ninth year, I had always shown an academic aptitude and was easily tutored sufficiently to pass the high school exit tests.  I supposed that was the other reason I was chosen. 

It hadn’t mattered to me why at the time.  Why I was selected.  I was elated for the opportunity to attend the Hale College of Midwifery in Salt Lake City.   My own mother had suffered a stillbirth in my childhood.  She had nearly died herself of blood loss and shock.  Once I completed the four years of training I would be enormously helpful to the exhausted women of Jericho Valley.  More crucially, my marriage to Winston Allred would be postponed until I graduated.  

And then, six weeks ago, on the day of my twenty first birthday, I finished my clinical studies and sat for the exam which would place me among the North American Registry of Midwives.  I passed easily.  

“Promise,” my sister whispered from the neighboring bed.  The room was dark and there was no moon outside.  The only other noise in the small house was the even breathing of our sleeping mother.  My father was spending the night at one of his other homes. 

I closed my eyes, letting a hot tear trickle down my cheek. At this time tomorrow I would be in the bed of my husband, doing what he required of me. 

Jenny had always known when I was feeling poorly.  From toddlerhood she been such a sweet girl, intuitive and kind. We were five years apart in age but were the only two of my mother’s children who had lived and that cemented a rare bond.  

“Promise,” she said again in a sad voice and I didn’t answer to my name.  Jenny knew my agony anyway and with a sigh she crawled into bed next to me, not saying a word as I sobbed and drifted off to sleep.

The morning dawned brilliantly.  It seemed unfair. I dressed quickly, leaving Jenny to sleep quietly for a little while longer.  My wedding was in less t
han five hours.  I needed to find my father. 

Ruth was my father’s first wife and she’d always seemed to bear my mother a grudge.  She greeted me grumpily on the doorstep of the tiny prefabricated home which was a typical dwelling in Jericho Valley. 

“He’s at Connie’s,” she growled before shutting the door in my face. 

I chewed on my lip as I walked the short distance to the home of John Talbot’s third and, it was rumored, most beloved wife.  I tried to piece together what I would say to him.  Finally I decided it didn’t matter how the words came out.  I simply couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t marry Winston Allred. 

“Early for a walk, Promise,” said a low, suspicious voice and I froze in my tracks.  It wasn’t my father’s voice.  It was my uncle, the grim church Bishop, a man to be respected.  And feared. 

He leaned casually against an ash tree.  His grin didn’t hide the coldness in his eyes.

“Good morning, Uncle,” I said formally, rejecting the Bishop title, wanting him to remember this morning that we were blood. 

Aston Talbot grunted.  “You’ll be wanting to get home, girl.  You females are big on preparations for a day like this.” 

I clenched my fists.  If this was where I needed to make my stand then so be it.  “No,” I said firmly.  “There won’t be a wedding today, Bishop.” 

His eyes narrowed yet he seemed unsurprised by my words.  “Get on with you,” he said dismissively.  “I thought you were one who wouldn’t let that schooling go to your head. The church has made a significant investment in you, young woman.”  He took a menacing step toward me.  “Now you will go back to your mother’s house and await the day God has ordained.” 

“No,” I said again.  “I’m sorry, Uncle.  I know it will cause some difficulty but I am not changing my mind.  There will be no wedding today.” 

I didn’t even have time to step backwards before he reached me and grabbed both my arms in a painful grip.  I winced and tried to break free but he only bruised me further.  I hated him as he chuckled, the garlicky scent of his perspiration rolling of his thick flesh in waves. 

“There will be a wedding today, Promise,” he warned, only snickering when I forcefully swept my head from side to side.  “Oh yes,” he said. “There will be.  Whether the bride is you or your sister is a question for you to decide.” 

I stopped struggling.  A cold dread the likes of which I had never known coursed through me.

“Jenny?” I whispered. 

Aston Talbot ran his
greasy hand through my long red hair.  I had not braided it this morning.  “Winston Allred has noticed for years how she resembles you strongly.  But since you were always meant to return I thought it best to keep to the original arrangement.”  My uncle gazed at me critically and coldly as if I were a farm animal.  “He’s partial to your pretty face and your coloring, the same looks as your mother.  The children you are to bear will add nicely to the pool of daughters.” 

Spitting on my uncle was the boldest thing I had ever done.  He grabbed me by the hair and I fought the urge to cry out.  The gray eyes of the Bishop were bottomless pools of evil.  His breath was fetid as he hissed at me.  “I would whip you like a dog if it weren’t disrespectful to your husband to be burdened with a marked bride on his joyous night.”

He released me so suddenly I staggered backwards.  “Your choice, Promise,” he finally said before walking away and leaving me with no real choice at all. 

My resolved disappeared.  I trudged back to my mother’s house, knowing that the day would proceed.  Knowing that my refusal would sacrifice my sister.    

The friends I’d made at Hale had known that I came from a polygamous community.  Some of them did as well, although none were as strict and tyrannical as the Faithful.  Others were disdainful, calling our way of life cruelly paternalistic and backwards.  I’d never spoken of my planned marriage.  My father had made it clear enough that I was not to talk to outsiders of such things, smoothly telling me the damned wouldn’t understand.

We were the true Faithful.  The rest of them who claimed to follow the word had adapted it to suit their own needs and evolve with a modern t
ime.  They would suffer on the Day of Judgment. 

Or so I’d always been told.

But after spending time in Salt Lake City I realized something; the world wasn’t wrapped up one correct way of thinking.  It was complex.  It was diverse.  And moreover, the things I’d been taught may not be right.  It meant people deserved to be judged on their merit.  It meant I was under no celestial orders to marry Winston Allred.   

Still, I realized how badly I was needed in Jericho Valley.  Alba Thayne was unlikely to live more than a few additional years.  Since the hospitals of the common
, the nonbelievers, were not places the Faithful were willing to go, the tiredly breeding women of Jericho Valley would be endangered with no one to care for them.  

And there was something else.  Those who have fallen out of favor with the Faithful elders were banished.  If I had failed to return and perform my duty, I would never have seen my sister again.  Such was the fate of three of my own brothers.  They were run off before they were even men.  Gideon for watching an internet video and kissing a daughter of Emory Thayne.  Thomas for listening to unapproved music and refusing to cut his hair.  Daniel for a verbal altercation with our uncle, Aston Talbot.  Sometimes I would look at my younger brothers and feel a welling sadness as I realized more than half of them would likely be excommunicated, dead to their families, thrown into a world they didn’t know.

All to stack the odds. 

Male and female birthrates were essentially equal.  There were not enough women to allow each man born to the Faithful to take the three or more wives required.  So my brothers, and uncounted boys like them, were dropped off on the side of the road like unwanted pets for the crime of being competition.

The temple was plain but it was the largest building in Jericho Valley.  As I entered it beneath my veil and on my father’s arm I feared I would vomit. 

“Prom
ise,” he said, giving me a satisfied grin, “I am very pleased with you.”

“Thank you, Father,” I said dutifully, though really I wanted to scream at this man and pound on his chest with my inadequate fists.  He was giving me away as he’d given daughters away before.  As he’d give them away again.

Not Jenny.

I’d made up my mind on that count the moment I realized my lot was set.  I couldn’t escape this.  But I would make damn sure that my little sister could. 

Winston Allred waited for me at the end of the aisle and I tried to smile weakly.  As men went he’d never seemed too terrible.  He was in his mid-forties, thick-chested and balding. He had already taken four wives.  I hoped this would mean an easier time for me. 

My stomach lurched at the thought of what would come later as Winston firmly took my arm from my father’s grasp. 

I didn’t remember the vows.  I figured they didn’t matter anyway as their legality only existed in Jericho Valley and places similar to it.  I no longer believed these men were ordered by God.  When the words ended Winston kissed me chastely on the lips and he settled his arm definitively about my waist. 

The law of the world outside wasn’t pertinent.  I was his all the same. 

I faced the temple full of people as the fifth wife of Winston Allred.  My mother, standing beside my father, smiled at me nervously.  Behind them were John Talbot’s other three wives and a mix of my fourteen siblings.  In that moment I longed for my older brothers.  My father wouldn’t protect me, but they might have. 

My head kept sinking and I kept trying to raise it and smile wanly at the wedding guests.  This was what I had agreed to.  This was my lot.  Aston Talbot nodded at me with stern approval as we exited the temple and walked the short distance to my mother’s house where a meal would have been laid out. 

  My mother kept trying to coax food into me but I could not even fake an interest in my stomach.  I closed my eyes and thought about the happy years I’d spent at school.  During the course of the four year curriculum, I had been fascinated by the brief introduction to psychology.  There were so many unanswered questions about why people did what they did.  I had looked at the happy bustle of students surrounding me and felt lost in the mercurial world of people. You could try to sort them out.  Apply names to them.  Propose to make them neat and orderly.  But in the end they still might shock you and behave completely differently than how you’d predicted.   

So many times I had told myself that I would not come back.  My cousin Rachel had left one desperate night, a penniless and unworldly seventeen year old girl but with more gall in her small finger than I had in my whole body.  I certainly should have the gumption to leave too.  But I knew what the penalty would be.  My parents would never be permitted to see me again.  Jenny would be alone. 
No
. I told myself I had to come back. 

As I stared into my lap at my primly folded hands, I wondered about Rachel.  At school I had been required to use the internet in order to complete coursework.  I was shocked to Google ‘Rachel Talbot’ and find her smiling profile on Facebook.  My cousin was still beautiful.  I knew how any interaction with a disobedient daughter would be condemned if discovered, so we corresponded via private messages.  Rachel was living with a man in the desert on the border between California and Arizona.  She was free.  She was happy.  I said nothing to anyone about having heard from her.  Not even Jenny. 
I searched for my brothers as well in the vast online world. I did not find them. 

I remembered the last message Rachel had sent me.  It was a week before the completion of my studies, a week before I would be returning to Jericho Valley.  She’d been trying for some time to persuade me not to go back.

“Promise, they’ll always lie.  They’ll always tell you it’s your duty to be whatever sick role they have imagined for you.  It’s all bullshit, sweetheart.  I knew that.  You know it.  Leave them.  Today, next week, next year.  You can always come to me.  I love ya hon, Rachel.” 

They’ll always lie. 

On my wedding day those words kept ringing in my ears as if Rachel herself were standing by my side insistently whispering them.  And then the first syllables fell away and became only one, repeated over and over. 

Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.

My gaze fell on the open window where I could see the handful of men huddled together on the other side.   Aston Talbot.  Emory Thayne.  Winston Allred.  John Talbot.  Four men.  Twenty two wives between them.  Twenty three including me. 

They were old, unattractive.  They pushed out their chests and practically preened over their imaginary piety.  I’d watched them my entire life, accepted the things they’d taught me
before I knew better.  And as I sat quietly watching them in my wedding dress I realized that I hated them.  I close my eyes to blot them out. 

Soft arms hugged me from behind.

“Jenny,” I sighed, the word too much like a sob. 

My sister understood and held me more tightly. 

I pushed back a little, trying to weakly laugh.  “At least I’ll be nearby now,” I said.  The tiny manufactured house had already been assembled for me within the boundaries of Jericho Valley, close to where Winston’s other wives lived so that he would not be required to travel far between homes.

Jenny didn’t smile.  She smoothed my long braid and sat quietly by my side.  “At least until they make plans for me.”  My little sister looked at me mournful
ly.  “There’s been talk.  From Father and Bishop Talbot when they don’t realize I can hear.”  She frowned.  “Or perhaps they don’t care if I can hear.”

A cold feeling started to grow in my chest.  “What sort of talk?”

“About marrying me to one of the elders of Delta City.” 

“What?” I gasped, rising out of my chair.  Several of my father’s wives turned and looked at
me sharply.  Delta City was our sister city on the other side of the state line, but was an even stricter community than Jericho Valley.  The town was under the thumb of a man named Josiah Bastian who was purported to keep at least fifteen wives.   Despite attempts at intervention by the state of Utah and the sound condemnation from Salt Lake City, they still married their daughters off long before the legal age of consent.  Unions were not infrequent among first cousins.  And worse. 

My hands clenched into fists so tightly my fingernails gouged my palms.  My sister would not suffer such a fate.  Winston Allred did not seem to be an unreasonable man.   He might be eager to please the new bride he’d waited years for.  I knew if he wanted to he could influence my uncle to discard this plan.  

And Jenny would be safe, for a little while.  Until I could think of something else.