I slung my arms around his neck, kissed his face all over.
“Kyra,” he said and his voice was low. “Kyra, I want to Choose you.”
“What?” My voice came out high in the night. Too loud for what we were doing. Loud enough to be found out.
“I’m sixteen,” he said. “Almost old enough to make a Choice.”
I dropped my arms from around his neck. “Well, not for three more years,” I said.
“I’m not that far from seventeen,” Joshua said. “And two years will go fast after that. I’d work with my father. Raise money. Get us a place of our own.” He paused. Took my hands in his. “Would you let me Choose you?”
In that moment a whole line of men, old men, went past in my head. Their mouths in O shapes, their eyes wandering like hands over some of us unmarried girls.
“Would you Choose me, Kyra?” Joshua asked. His face was close to mine, his lips touching my face.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
NOW JOSHUA HOLDS ME by the shoulders. “What do you mean?” he says.
I tell him everything, everything.
“Your uncle?” he says.
I nod.
“This isn’t good,” he says after a moment. “He’s an Apostle.”
We stand quiet, me leaning against Joshua, the two of us swaying.
“I have four Sundays,” I say. “Four.”
Joshua nods. “I’ll think of something,” he says.
And I believe him. For the first moment since the Prophet has made his announcement, I feel like maybe, maybe, I have a chance.
__________
IN THE MORNING I am awakened by Mother Sarah throwing up. The walls in this trailer are thin and I can hear her where I lie next to Laura, who snores beside me.
I came in late, late. No one was awake. I found a note from Father on the kitchen table. “I will talk to them, Kyra,” it said.
So now there are two people looking after me. Two people that I love.
I crawl out of bed and hurry in to where Mother is. The bathroom smells of vomit.
“Mother?” I reach for her. Her hair, braided long, trails like a snake on the bathroom floor. I can feel the bones of her back.
“Go on to bed, baby,” Mother says. Her voice sounds hollow echoing up out of the toilet bowl. She glances at me. Her skin is pale, her eyes watery. She rests her face on the seat.
“Let me help you,” I say. My stomach clenches. As many times as I’ve seen her like this—she gets sick with every baby—it still scares me.
“I’m okay,” Mother says.
“Are you done?”
My mother has been sick the whole six months of this, her eighth, pregnancy. Sick enough, I know from library books, she probably should be in the hospital. She’s lost three babies already, and very nearly her life besides.
I hook my hands under Mother’s arms and try to pull her up. Her belly is the only big thing on her. She sways a little and I try to support her with my body.
“Why, Kyra,” Mother says, sounding all surprised. Her breath is awful. “You’re as tall as I am. When in the world did that happen?”
If I could smile, I would. But I feel like I have been robbed of everything good. “Mother,” I say, “you aren’t that tall. Laura’s creeping up on you, too.”
Mother, bent over some, hand resting on her belly, nods.
“Let’s get you back to bed. Then I’ll make you something light to eat.”
Again she nods.
I tuck her into bed, pet her head, then start for the kitchen. I haven’t even gotten out of her room when Mother says, “Kyra Leigh. Father and I have talked. He’s gone to see the Prophet, early this morning. He’ll straighten this all out. I know it.”
There are smears of dark blue-gray under both her eyes. I wonder how long it’s been since she has slept the night through. Carolina, on a pallet under the window, rolls against the wall.
“I read his note,” I say. My heart pounds at her words. At his promise. I might have a chance.
In the kitchen, I start oatmeal and applesauce muffins for my sisters and me, and dry toast with a bit of strawberry jam for Mother. I put water on to boil for her tea. I can hear Laura waking, can hear Carolina talking in her baby voice. Mother answers her. Margaret hums a church song about Jesus being like the morning. Outside the window, it’s still dark out.
The smell of cinnamon and sugar fills the kitchen. Water boils.
I stop what I’m doing long enough to hope that maybe Father will save me. I hurry over to his note, fold it, then stick it in my bra so it’ll be close to my heart.
I pull my mother’s food from under the broiler and spread strawberry jam, jam I helped her make, on the toast.
She’s lying in bed, Carolina curled up beside her, talking, talking.
“Thank you, Kyra,” she says.
“You’re welcome.”
“I want something to eat,” Carolina says, sitting up.
“Come with me,” I say. I put Mother’s breakfast on the bedside table.
“I want breakfast in bed, too,” Carolina says.
“Do you?” Mother says. She gives Carolina a squeeze. “Then you can stay.”
“Yippee!” Carolina throws her tiny arms around Mother.
“How about muffins?” I say. “Would you like that, Carolina?”
But what if Father fails? Fear rises in my chest. It races toward my throat.
Stop thinking!
“Yes, yes, yes,” Carolina says, her face puffy from sleep.
What if . . . the thoughts might choke me. I think I might die right here in my mother’s room. I hurry back to the kitchen.
Mother is so thin. So pale. I love her so much that I can almost not think about it. She’s my mother, yes. But she’s my friend, too. What will I do when I’m not living with her? What will I do when I have to move out of this trailer to Uncle Hyrum’s place? Even leaving my mother, my family, for Joshua would be hard.
But not like this. Not like this.
Fear is like a fist, clutching at my chest. Rising in my body, like it wants to escape from me in a scream.
“Get rid of it,” I say.
Laura is in the kitchen now, reading her scriptures at the table. She wears her housecoat, her hair falling loose over her shoulder.
“Get rid of what?” Laura says, looking over at me.
“Nothing,” I say. But if I work hard enough, the fear will go away. And if I read. There’s a book in my tree. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is wedged in the branches so it won’t fall and be discovered. I’ve read it once, I could start again. Reading would get my mind off things. Or playing piano. Or maybe Joshua.
And I get to go to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels later this afternoon. I can hold on till that. I can.
I dish oatmeal and pull muffins from the oven. The girls and I have prayer, kneeling in Mother’s bedroom. Mother prays, asking God to answer the most sincere desire of our hearts.
Is she thinking what I’m thinking? Is she asking God what I’m begging for? Has Father? My other mothers?
Then I sit beside Mother in the bathroom as she throws up her few bites of toast and her tea. The strawberry jam is like hunks of blood. I pray for Mother Sarah. And me.