I hung up and was walking down the hall, wishing I’d asked Tony if he
could lend me the money to get to Vegas, when a gruff voice called to me.
“Hey, Siddle Lister. Come here a minute.”
Shawn’s bedroom was filthy. Dirty clothes littered the floor, and I could
see the butt of a handgun poking out from under a pile of stained T-shirts.
The bookshelves strained under boxes of ammo and stacks of Louis L’Amour
paperbacks. Shawn was sitting on the bed, his shoulders hunched, his legs
bowed outward. He looked as if he’d been holding that posture for some
time, contemplating the squalor. He let out a sigh, then stood and walked
toward me, lifting his right arm. I took an involuntary step back, but he had
only reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet, opened it and extracted
a crisp hundred-dollar bill.
“Merry Christmas,” he said. “You won’t waste this like I will.”
I believed that hundred dollars was a sign from God. I was supposed to stay
in school. I drove back to BYU and paid my rent. Then, because I knew I
wouldn’t be able to pay it in February, I took a second job as a domestic
cleaner, driving twenty minutes north three days a week to scrub expensive
homes in Draper.
The bishop and I were still meeting every Sunday. Robin had told him that
I hadn’t bought my textbooks for the semester. “This is ridiculous,” he said.
“Apply for the grant! You’re poor! That’s why these grants exist!”
My opposition was beyond rational, it was visceral.
“I make a lot of money,” the bishop said. “I pay a lot of taxes. Just think of
it as my money.” He had printed out the application forms, which he gave to
me. “Think about it. You need to learn to accept help, even from the
Government.”
I took the forms. Robin filled them out. I refused to send them.
“Just get the paperwork together,” she said. “See how it feels.”
I needed my parents’ tax returns. I wasn’t even sure my parents filed taxes,
but if they did, I knew Dad wouldn’t give them to me if he knew why I
wanted them. I thought up a dozen fake reasons for why I might need them,
but none were believable. I pictured the returns sitting in the large gray filing
cabinet in the kitchen. Then I decided to steal them.
I left for Idaho just before midnight, hoping I would arrive at around three
in the morning and the house would be quiet. When I reached the peak, I
crept up the driveway, wincing each time a bit of gravel snapped beneath my