Raw Edges: A Memoir

Doves Descending

: : 147 : : David didn’t register any seismic shock when I told him about the gardener . He sat at his desk, surrounded by stacks of files he’d made for every idea and theory that came to him at 4:00 a.m. I felt as if I were a young girl coming to Daddy to tell him she’d proved something, that she was a Big Girl now, that she wasn’t a scaredy-cat. I sat in the chair next to his desk and crossed my legs at the ankles. He raised his bushy eyebrows and said, “Really.” He was quiet, then looked up at me as if looking at his wife for the first time ever. He tilted his head. I cleared my throat. “You’ve wanted me to be more open-minded, you know.” “That’s true.” “Are you happy now?” I asked this question with an edge in my voice. “Are you happy now?” he answered. I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t admit I had things to learn. I also couldn’t say out loud that the shattering of my vows, my promises, my ethics, and my loyalty seemed a harsh sacrifice. Because he subscribed to a different set of ethics, David didn’t understand the magnitude of this sacrifice. “Different people want different things,” I said. “My mother and father. You. The Church, society, the Sixties, free love, the Seventies, open marriage , people with closed minds, people with open minds. Whom should I listen to and why should I listen to everybody else anyway?” :: The Doves Descending :: 148 : : r a w e d g e s “What do you want for yourself?” He put his hands flat on top of his knees and turned to look at me directly. “What’s important to you?” “I want us to be happy.” Open palms. Tented eyebrows. Slight pleading in my voice. A pause from David. A consideration of evidence. A look at me. A look away. “Let’s make this agreement,” David said, fiddling with a letter on his desk. “If I don’t like who you’re involved with, I’ll say so. Same with you. If you don’t like someone I’m with, then tell me. Checks and balances.” “All right,” I said. “That seems simple enough. And we won’t lie to each other or hide anything, will we?” “No.” he said. “Do we need to shake on this?” We both laughed. Not long after our deal was struck, after eighteen years of battle over what the lds church meant in our marriage, we pondered whether or not to end our involvement and withdraw cold turkey. David told the powers that be at the law school that he was struggling with whether or not he should stay in the Church. The man to whom he reported told him to be patient and prayerful and to come and see him again later. After many weeks, days, and hours of angst, I finally decided that not being involved with the Church on a daily basis was a good idea because, plain and simply , it didn’t work for me if it wasn’t working for other members of my family. As a couple, we’d never fit comfortably. The religion of our birth was always a sore subject surrounded by too much tension. I was tired of sitting without my husband at church, of dragging my children to church to sit by my side unwillingly because they knew their father was home alone. Too much edginess. Besides, Lady Chatterley had lain with the gardener. Both David and I could be excommunicated or dis-fellowshipped should someone in authority choose to shine a light on our doings (though I felt I could justify mine on the basis that I was trying to keep my marriage intact). Maybe we could find something that would bless our lives rather than create problems, something that didn’t claim to be the only truth or the only answer. The Doves Descending : : 149 Christopher, our fourteen-year-old, was surprised, especially at me who’d always been the stalwart. “It’s like we’ve been going along for all these years believing one thing,” he said, “and now you throw it out the window.” It wasn’t so hard on Jeremy, who’d often resisted church as if he were oil on top of water, or on Brad...