Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

I pass the entrance exam! Maybe someday I’ll even make it into med school. I’ve already just about memorized this.” She held up the second book:
Gray’s Anatomy.
    “I thought Sister Jean took it to the dump!”
    Cynthia grinned. “It’s about the hundredth book she promised Mother she’d trash. But she always sneaked them back to me.”
    A happy ending for Cynthia, then.
    We sat and chatted for a while until I finally got around to asking her about the blind child.
    Her face became guarded. “That’s Sister Sharon’s child. She was born blind.”
    “How about the others? While I waiting out there, I counted several children with albinism. Are they getting the proper care?”
    She looked down at
Gray’s Anatomy
and caressed its cover. “I don’t know.”
    I understood. Ermaline had promised Cynthia she could move to Salt Lake as long as she didn’t discuss Purity with Outsiders. Maybe Cynthia would be more forthcoming later, maybe not. My betting was not. Most of the women and girls who escaped the polygamy communes didn’t want to risk being cut off from their extended families, especially their mothers. Regardless of how badly Ermaline had treated Cynthia, a strong bond remained.
    But I doubted that Cynthia felt as protective about the man who’d raped her.
    “Okay. I can understand your not wanting to talk about the children, so I won’t push that.”
    Her face relaxed.
    “I’m curious about one thing, though, Cynthia. I’ve been racking my brains to figure out why in the world the Circle of Elders forced your mother to give you to a monster like Earl Graff, knowing all the while that his own wives were terrified of him. After all, you’re Prophet Solomon’s daughter, and that should have counted for something.”
    Cynthia looked up from her beloved anatomy book. “I was setting the table one evening and Earl was in the living room with Father Prophet, and, well, I heard an odd conversation. I couldn’t make any sense of it, but at the end, Father Prophet told Brother Earl that if he kept quiet, he could have me.” She stopped.
    “And?”
    She shook her head. “It made me so upset I ran into my room and cried. I didn’t like Brother Earl, not even then. But I can tell you what he told me during our, uh, wedding night.”
    It was pretty much what I’d expected. Earl, after he’d finished raping Cynthia for the first time, completed the humiliation by crowing about his great coup over her father. During one of Earl’s trips to Zion City, he’d run across a business associate of Solomon’s. The man inquired about a particular business deal, one Earl had no knowledge of. Suspicious, he checked around and discovered that Solomon had set up a series of private accounts at various banks, and had been skimming money off Purity’s operating accounts for years. Enraged, Earl confronted Solomon and demanded Cynthia and Saul’s house in payment for his silence.
    “My father sold me to Brother Earl, plain and simple,” she finished, her voice sorrowful.
    Usually, it’s the blackmail victim who kills his blackmailer, not the other way around. But sometimes…
    Brother Earl remained a viable suspect.
    I struck Ermaline off the list, though. Before I’d begun to understand the compound’s power structure, I’d believed she might have killed Solomon out of jealousy when she discovered he planned another marriage. I knew better now. With the prophet dead, Ermaline had lost everything. Sure, the men of Purity held all the power cards, but each polygamist household adhered to a strict pecking order. The first wife ruled the roost, with newly acquired wives falling into the power structure in marriage order behind her. As long as Solomon was alive, Ermaline, the first wife, maintained the highest status. She would not willingly give up that honor, because with it came great power among the wives themselves. Powerless people take their perks wherever they can find them.
    As I sat there musing about the vagaries of fate, Cynthia’s eyes closed and I realized how much my visit tired her. I told her I’d drop by later, then kissed her cheek and tiptoed out.
    In the hall, I ran into Jean. After saying a few hard words about Brother Earl Graff, she invited me into the kitchen for a glass of orange juice and a chat.
    “You’re from the Outside, Sister Lena,” she said, as I settled myself at the table and she poured me a glass of what appeared to be fresh-squeezed juice. “Is it really as