because what I wanted was to be remade.
“I can help,” he said, “but you’ll need to tell me what’s bothering
you.” His voice was gentle, and that gentleness was cruel. I wished he
would yell. If he yelled, it would make me angry, and when angry I felt
powerful. I didn’t know if I could do this without feeling powerful.
I cleared my throat, then talked for an hour.
The bishop and I met every Sunday until spring. To me he was a
patriarch with authority over me, but he seemed to surrender that
authority the moment I passed through his door. I talked and he
listened, drawing the shame from me like a healer draws infection
from a wound.
When the semester ended, I told him I was going home for the
summer. I was out of money; I couldn’t pay rent. He looked tired when
I told him that. He said, “Don’t go home, Tara. The church will pay
your rent.”
I didn’t want the church’s money. I’d made the decision. The bishop
made me promise only one thing: that I wouldn’t work for my father.
My first day in Idaho, I got my old job back at Stokes. Dad scoffed,
said I’d never earn enough to return to school. He was right, but the
bishop had said God would provide a way and I believed it. I spent the
summer restocking shelves and walking elderly ladies to their cars.
I avoided Shawn. It was easy because he had a new girlfriend, Emily,
and there was talk of a wedding. Shawn was twenty-eight; Emily was a
senior in high school. Her temperament was compliant. Shawn played
the same games with her he’d played with Sadie, testing his control.
She never failed to follow his orders, quivering when he raised his
voice, apologizing when he screamed at her. That their marriage would
be manipulative and violent, I had no doubt—although those words
were not mine. They had been given to me by the bishop, and I was
still trying to wrest meaning from them.
When the summer ended, I returned to BYU with only two thousand
dollars. On my first night back, I wrote in my journal: I have so many
bills I can’t imagine how I’m going to pay them. But God will provide
either trials for growth or the means to succeed. The tone of that entry
seems lofty, high-minded, but in it I detect a whiff of fatalism. Maybe I
would have to leave school. That was fine. There were grocery stores in
Utah. I would bag groceries, and one day I’d be manager.