God to come to America and meet the prophet Joseph. They saved for
the journey, but after two years they could bring only half the family.
Anna Mathea was left behind.
The journey was long and harsh, and by the time they made it to
Idaho, to a Mormon settlement called Worm Creek, Anna’s mother was
sick, dying. It was her last wish to see her daughter again, so her father
wrote to Anna, begging her to take what money she had and come to
America. Anna had fallen in love and was to be married, but she left
her fiancé in Norway and crossed the ocean. Her mother died before
she reached the American shore.
The family was now destitute; there was no money to send Anna to
her fiancé, to the marriage she had given up. Anna was a financial
burden on her father, so a bishop persuaded her to marry a rich farmer
as his second wife. His first wife was barren, and she flew into a jealous
rage when Anna became pregnant. Anna worried the first wife might
hurt her baby, so she returned to her father, where she gave birth to
twins, though only one would survive the harsh winter on the frontier.
Mark was still waiting. Then he gave up and mumbled the words I
was supposed to say, that he didn’t understand fully, but that he knew
polygamy was a principle from God.
I agreed. I said the words, then braced myself for a wave of
humiliation—for that image to invade my thoughts, of me, one of many
wives standing behind a solitary, faceless man—but it didn’t come. I
searched my mind and discovered a new conviction there: I would
never be a plural wife. A voice declared this with unyielding finality;
the declaration made me tremble. What if God commanded it? I asked.
You wouldn’t do it, the voice answered. And I knew it was true.
I thought again of Anna Mathea, wondering what kind of world it
was in which she, following a prophet, could leave her lover, cross an
ocean, enter a loveless marriage as a second mistress, then bury her
first child, only to have her granddaughter, in two generations, cross
the same ocean an unbeliever. I was Anna Mathea’s heir: she had given
me her voice. Had she not given me her faith, also?
—I WAS PUT ON A SHORT LIST for the Gates scholarship. There would be an
interview in February in Annapolis. I had no idea how to prepare.
Robin drove me to Park City, where there was an Ann Taylor discount