Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

too.”
    “Lena.”
    “Sorry again.” I sat there in silence for a few minutes, listening to the compound’s children as they played on their way to school. They sounded like children anywhere.
    “At least the kids seem happy,” I finally said.
    “Sure. Purity is great for kids, one big summer camp with hundreds of playmates to choose from. And don’t forget, most of them have more or less intact families, weird as those families are. But when the kids grow up, things change.”
    I watched a little blond girl about ten years old cross the dirt circle from the Utah side to the Arizona side, her long, patched dress no match for her budding beauty. I understood what he was saying. “And when the little girls grow up, those changes can get tough.”
    “Yeah, somebody always needs a new tractor.”
    At eleven I headed to Ermaline’s, first crossing over to the Utah side and the clinic. I’d planned to ask one of the midwives how Rosalinda was doing, but the groans I heard as I opened the door told me all I needed to know. I hurried to Ermaline’s house.
    Within no time I found myself grating heads of cabbage the size and density of bowling balls, all grown in the compound’s massive kitchen garden, while Ermaline hovered over me, criticizing my every move. I worked until my hands cramped as I turned the stuff into coleslaw to be served with the luncheon menu’s main dish: Sloppy Joe sandwiches. As Ermaline told me exactly how much vinegar, pepper, and mayo to add to the slaw’s unholy mess, I edged toward my questioning.
    “My heart was broken when I heard about Prophet Solomon’s death,” I lied. “I heard him speak at a library in Salt Lake City and he really turned my life around. It made me determined to come here, and so when I met Brother Saul, it was as if God himself had led me here.”
    The harsh expression on Sister Ermaline’s face didn’t lighten. “Our Great Father is living in the highest level of Heaven, waiting for all of us there. As first wife, I’ll sit at his right hand, too.”
    Personally, I doubted that the dirty old man’s waiting room was as comfortable as she believed, but I kept my cynicism to myself. Pulling a long face, I said, “Still, Sister Ermaline, it must be a great sorrow having someone you love so much taken away from you before his time.”
    “Don’t be silly. In Purity we accept the blows life deals us. Add more vinegar to that. I don’t hold with sweet slaw.”
    Our activities were interrupted once by a visit from Sister Hanna, who limped into the kitchen, eyes downcast, her pregnant belly looking almost painful.
    “Sister Ermaline, I run out of flour.”
    “Poor plannin’!” Ermaline snapped, but directed Jean to fetch some from the pantry. “You need to start making lists and keeping them updated. God hates a woman who don’t tend to business.”
    “I know, Sister Ermaline,” Hanna said, almost cowering. “I’m trying. I just can’t seem to…”
    “Try harder!”
    With a gentle smile, Jean handed Hanna a bag of flour. Before I’d come to Purity, I would have thought it was enough to feed an army; now I knew it wouldn’t last beyond one meal.
    “Thank you, Sister Jean,” Hanna said, then limped out the door.
    Ermaline stared after her, contempt in her eyes. And, strangely, fear.
    Why?
    As the morning wore on, I decided that Ermaline’s entire interest in life began and ended with the kitchen. Unless she was a greater actress than I believed, she didn’t appear to miss her husband. All she cared about was her coleslaw.
    It intrigued me enough to try something. “Sister Ermaline,” I began, “my sister died last year and even though I was a thousand miles away from her, I swear I knew the exact moment of her death. I was mopping the floor and suddenly I knew she was gone, just as surely as if I had been at her bedside. You’d been married to the Prophet for almost forty years and must have been close, so did you have a moment like that? A moment when you knew the Lord had taken him?”
    Ermaline’s busy hands stilled, and for a second I thought I saw a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. “I never noticed a thing. Not even the next morning. The prophet wasn’t at the table, but I thought maybe he was still with one of my sister wives. Then after breakfast, when some of us was still in the kitchen cannin’ raspberry preserves, Brother Earl came in and he said…he said…”
    Was that a tear on her cheek? Or perspiration?
    “But the