50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Page 33

  After a few more minutes, I read the rest of my letter to him.

  For all the years of my life, I thought my duties were to others before you, our kids, and me. I’ve been away from home way too much, caring for everyone but you and my kids like I should have been doing. I’ve tried in many ways to control you religiously because I believed my dad’s way was the only way to salvation. I am so sorry.

  I want you and our marriage and our family to be united. I want to be open and honest with you. And I want you to be honest with me. We have to communicate! Since our relationship has proven neither of us understands the “Latin” the other is speaking, please get some help with me. Let’s see a marriage counselor. Please do this for me and for you. I do not want to be an old married couple who are still as pathetically inept at communication as your parents were, as my parents are, and as we have been. Let’s make these changes and take steps together, hand in hand, heart in heart. Please, my love, please.

  Yours forever,

  Sophia

  Mark and I talked and listened like we’d never done before. Just before we reached our destination, he profusely apologized for his anger, raging, absence and complacency for so many years of our lives. He said he wanted to make it up to me and our kids—to be a better father and husband

  On our return from helping Jake and Jenna get back on the road again, Mark and I indulged ourselves in a private pool at Lava Hot Springs Resort. We basked in each other’s arms while the hot, bubbling mineral water enveloped us. In our room we cried, laughed, and languished in each other’s embrace. Our lovemaking shifted deeper than the realm of our bodies. The soul-deep consummation shifted us far beyond our first nights of desperate passion—further than the innumerable tender and lustful rendezvous in all the past years of marriage.

  *****

  As always, word traveled like a wind-driven fire. In the fall, Gregory Maynard was at last excommunicated from the priesthood council. My father and other council members could no longer “see no evil and hear no evil” when it came to “brother Gregory,” on their council.

  We knew from firsthand witnesses of Maynard’s cruelty to at least one of his wives, of purposely keeping his wives and children in dire poverty, and of his own depraved behaviors. Now, they finally listened to a few of Maynard’s daughters tell of the years of sexual abuses they had suffered. For years they’d told their father, their brothers were molesting them. And for years Gregory sanctioned his sons’ illicit behaviors with one excuse after another. Others reported he’d welcomed vile men into his home, to “use” young girls in “supposed” holy rituals. In silent arrogance, Gregory sat across from his judges—his priesthood peers. On the hot seat of accusations he still claimed Godhood and righteous domain over his family.

  The abuse and Gregory’s complicity wreaked havoc with the lifelong stability of many of his girls.

  Some of us were relieved when a few of his utterly despicable actions had finally been acknowledged by the council, but we worried about the other terrible things, known, told and ignored. My soul was correct. From the very first time she met Gregory, she knew there was something vile about him.

  *****

  Clothes never smelled as nice and fresh as when they were air-dried in the summer sunshine. The fresh breeze and aqua blue sky held me in awe. One piece at a time, I hung laundry on four 20-foot lengths of clothesline, just as I’d always done. I thought of the past year of change in my life, of newfound friends who loved me unconditionally, and let me speak and feel without judgment or condemnation. My heart was full of gratitude.

  In February, my precious OA friends celebrated one year of physical and personal healing with me. My amazing new therapist, Scott also helped me finish the list of ten things I loved about myself as I was slowly unmasking them. Until I could comprehend my personal value outside of service, and unless they were in my immediate family, he forbade me to say yes to anyone who would most certainly continue to ask me for help. A little at a time, he would allow me to say yes to something I really wanted to do for someone; but only if the request was not accompanied by any of my past feelings of obligation or guilt.

  Quite often, especially in the beginning, I questioned this antipodal theory of my upbringing. “Me first” had not only been unthinkable but was considered “downright dishonorable and wicked.”

  The cool breeze blew my hair and chilled the tips of my wet fingers. As I began to hang sheets and towels from a basket of laundry, a sense of peace and joy engulfed me. I wanted to savor my newly found gift! Every day, all day, I wanted to discover more of Sophia. I wanted to reach deep into her heart and soul and find out what made her such a tenderhearted, gentle, trusting, and loving person. I could hardly wait to figure out where she was going from there. Why had it taken me thirty-seven years to begin to cherish her?

  The love and acceptance I was beginning to feel for Mark was also delightful and heartwarming. Our renewed love was still blazing and thriving even after he went back to work in parts of California. Our many significant phone conversations and lengthy, evocative letters paved the way to even more devotion between us.

  In the long process of showing love and respect for myself, I realized others’ derogatory actions or words could never diminish my authentic value.

  CHAPTER 35

  Our Honeymoon and

  Questions for God

  1990

  The year 1990 helped make up for the many years of loss and heartache. Mark and I had fallen in love with each other between his long stays in California. The growing economy and our reconciliation set in concrete his decision to come home to stay.

  In the spring, our seventeen-year-old son Alan and his girlfriend Stacie graduated from high school. They decided to get married so they could raise their beautiful daughter together. They planned their wedding for August. And just before their wedding, twenty years and four months after our marriage, Mark and I finally went on a honeymoon. We decided to spend money we’d probably never have enough of anyway and take a road trip to northern California to the Mount Shasta Pageant. Two of Mark’s brothers and a sister were acting in the phenomenal depiction of Christ’s life.

  On the way to California, our old Chevy Cavalier broke down four times. But we forbade ourselves to think about our lack of money, or to acknowledge the car was so damn old we were crazy to be driving it down the street, let alone on a long trip. We refused to let “the old beast” get us down. As Mark and I waited for the car to be repaired, we had some wild escapades, making love in the root bed of a massive redwood tree next to a railroad track as a train sped by, and on top of a massive, moss-covered boulder.

  Near our destination, when the car died again and we wanted to light the damn thing on fire, we chose to start another fire instead. We nearly suffocated during our “afternoon delight” in the back seat while waiting for Mark’s brother to come tow the piece of junk—and us—into the town of Mount Shasta. Including all the repair times, most of our nine-day vacation turned into the most adventurous, romantic, enjoyable trip I’d ever been on. Of course there weren’t many to speak about, but that one seemed to make up for the lack of travel over all those years.

  Mark’s and my open-minded conversations were enthralling and supportive. We couldn’t remember when we enjoyed each other’s company and laughter more. Our eyes melted each other’s hearts. We felt and behaved like newlyweds. After all, it was our very first honeymoon.

  Our developing love was so much stronger and superior to the young, inexperienced love we’d shared before. I imagined I was Mark’s only girlfriend and his only wife. In the giant redwood forest, we renewed our marriage commitments with a mock priest and behaved like those days would never have to end.

  I hadn’t been so deeply in love for so long I couldn’t remember if I’d ever felt that way before. Without the soul connection and passion Mark and I had begun to share, I’d been able to block out most of my jealousy and despondency, at least to some degree. Every time I thought a
bout how Mark and I were together during our “honeymoon phase,” I imagined our partnership was like that all the time. So when he told me, “You know I’ll have to take Diane on another honeymoon to make things fair,” I felt a chunk of my heart break away and die. Why did he have to ruin my illusion by bringing that up? I wished she had someone of her own, so I could have Mark all to myself. Diane and I each deserved our own man. Mark deserved to be a monogamist as well. Then he wouldn’t have the anxieties caused by trying to please the two of us.

  In the eight years before Diane married Mark, there were times when he and I felt a strong, deep love—an exhilarating passion—in our marriage. None of him, I was beginning to believe, should have ever been given to anyone else. I wasn’t sure I could make it much longer. Falling in love again was making polygamy intolerable. Caring about my husband hurt way too much.

  Near the end of our long trip, I still wanted to pretend Diane didn’t exist in our lives as Mark’s wife, but I couldn’t help being concerned for her feelings. I suspected he had slipped away to call her, and I hated for him to, since it never turned out good. But I pictured the fear, loneliness, and the turmoil she must be feeling. I’d start to cry when I put myself in her shoes. How would I feel if the tables were turned? I’d be in so much grief I probably couldn’t function.

  On our fifth night away, and just before Mark was ready to shower, I finally asked him if he’d called Diane. “No, I haven’t called her,” Mark said angrily. “And I don’t want to!” He was quiet for a moment before adding, “I’ve been putting off the inevitable—the crying, yelling, cussing-me-out session I’m in for.”

  “You should have called her days ago, and then it might not be as bad,” I suggested.

  Still, after all those years, even on our honeymoon, I, just like my mother had taught me, was trying to help keep the peace between Mark and Diane. I had always done that to some degree, and was sure I always would. But deep inside of me, on our honeymoon, I wished polygamy had never been our way of life.

  I plopped down on the hotel bed and found myself worried about Diane again. I knew exactly how she must have been feeling. She was surely feeling as suspicious and resentful as I had felt many times before. Her guts must have been tearing her apart. I, too, was sure she’d get angry and upset at him. She always did. But he still had to call her. The stupid part was I hoped she would control her emotions for everyone’s sake like I did when she went on her honeymoon. At least, I wished, she would wait to explode until it was her turn with him.

  Tears filled my eyes and overflowed onto the pillow. “I’m so sorry! I am sorry to be the cause of your pain!” I wanted to call out to Diane and have her really hear me. “I’m sorry I am the woman who is away with your husband. I am sorry for both of us to have to go through all this stinking, irreconcilable-differences crap. For what, whom, and why? Do we really need to have all this pain in our lives so we can continue to be servants to our husband, if or when he or we ever make it to the celestial kingdom? I doubt it!”

  I screamed inside my head, as if Diane could hear all of it. “This is insanity to the max! I still can’t believe a loving God would require this of His children!”

  The shower stopped. After a while Mark went outside to call Diane; I heard his quiet mumbling and then his angry, defensive voice preface a yelling tirade.

  Even though I felt bad for Diane, I wanted to haul myself out the door, grab the pay phone from his ear, rip it off the wall, and fling it across the gravel parking lot. It never failed—she expresses her jealousy and insecurities, throws a fit, and ruins things for us.

  When he finally came back inside, his body was tense with anger. “You see now why I didn’t call her, Sophia. Well there’s the damn proof I shouldn’t have!”

  His response didn’t surprise me at all. I’d heard his complaints about Diane’s insecurities, and his justifications because of her demands and jealousies, so many times over the years, they were practically engraved in my mind.

  “Diane keeps count and track of everything I do, and every second I spend with you. Any time I take you somewhere, she expects me to take her there too. If I go to the store with you, I have to take her to the store. If I buy you something, I have to buy her something. She thinks she’s got to have everything you have! And now I’ll have to take her on a long, drawn-out trip I can’t afford! I get so sick of hearing her crap and ruining things for us, I could—”

  I dried my tears, reached across the bed, where Mark was still ranting and tickled his sides.

  “Mark, please stop bitching about Diane’s complaints. You’re doing the same thing. Don’t let your issues with her ruin our time together. We’ve had a wonderful time up to now. Let’s keep it this way.”

  Our planned five-day trip turned into nearly nine days. We’d already spent a fortune on car repairs and rooms on the way to and in the city of Mt. Shasta. Just before we reached Susanville, heading south on Highway 89, the car broke down again. Mark had to come up with $800 to repair the catalytic converter. Then the damned old Chevy’s engine blew up fifteen miles west of Elko, Nevada. Mark and I hitched a ride into the city with the tow-truck driver and got a cheap motel room where we could wait out the long, hot day and part of the night to be rescued.

  I begged Mark to call anyone but Diane. I didn’t want her involved in the end of our honeymoon—even the car’s demise. We’d had such a wonderful time. I felt chopped up inside when Mark had no regard for my feelings. I was sure there were several other people who would’ve come to our rescue. Diane’s emotions had already come way too close to spoiling the last several days of our honeymoon together. During the second phone call the night before, she had accused Mark of unfair treatment, of lying and making excuses for taking longer than we planned. In her jealous rage she screamed, cried, and carried on until Mark was so upset he could hardly be decent to me.

  No matter how hard I encouraged, coaxed, and tried to seduce Mark into giving in to me, so nothing could ruin our last day and night together, he was no longer able to spin our mishaps into happiness. His positive, amiable attitude was exhausted. While he complained and slept through the day, I walked and cried. Our honeymoon had no promising ending; instead it came to a close in an abrupt and brutal crash landing.

  “Why did you insist Diane come and get us?” I finally dared ask Mark. “Even you agree every time you call her when we’re away, she ruins our time together! No matter how jealous or hurt I’ve felt, I haven’t ranted at you when you two have been on trips together.”

  Mark defended his decision as if his masculinity and survival depended on it.

  Damn! How I wished I had a Tom, Dick, or Harry I had to call while I was away with Mark. How would it be to hear T, D, or H, bitch and moan about me spending too much time away from him, and how unfair I was treating him?

  In fuming retrospect, I not only wanted to slap the phone right off Mark’s ear, I wanted to pound him with it while Diane listened! In all of those fights, I resented both of them for being so disrespectful of me.

  While Mark slept, I caught the casino shuttle and went into town. I thought it was a female prostitute’s world, so I was shocked when three male prostitutes tried to proposition me before I got to JCPenney’s. There I purchased a cascading, bright pink dress for Alan and Stacie’s wedding, which was only two days away.

  With my nerves flying high and raw, I decided to burn off some adrenaline and walk the ten blocks back to our motel room. It would also save me from having to deal with male harassment again. When I arrived at our room, I opened the curtains a little and smooched and caressed Mark’s body again. He knew I wanted one last go-round before Diane showed up and it would all be over. Too soon, we’d be back to the time-sharing grind tearing away at my guts while we tried to qualify to live with a God that I didn’t even like or trust.

  Mark might as well have flung me out the door and into the arms of those twat-coveting gigolos when he angrily rejected me out of concern for his insecure, lonely, deje
cted second wife’s expected arrival.

  I didn’t speak another word to him for the rest of the evening. At first I relapsed back into my old patterns of codependency. I began to wallow in Mark’s misery and his depression. I was supposed to be sweet—to kiss up to him, hug him, and let him know he was the boss and doing the right things. It was my duty to make everything and everyone feel better. But I didn’t want to! I decided Mark could have his “insecure, lonely, dejected” wife. I would start looking for another life—with a man of my own.

  When Diane finally arrived, I waited under the covers in the dark, dreary room while she and Mark hooked the piece-of-junk Cavalier to her dad’s van with a rented tow bar. They hauled out our suitcases, and when they were ready to go, Mark told me to “get off the bed and into the car.” I wished to God and the whole nation I had the money and time to take a bus home. If it were safe, I’d have hitchhiked. How on earth, I wondered, could either of them behave like such insensitive asses? During their honeymoon days I’d stayed as far away as hell is.

  On the way home, Diane snuggled so tightly to Mark she might as well have been on his lap. I sat in the back seat, feeling desperate for a deep, dark sleep that would put me out of my wretchedness. And I wished I was the kind of first wife who could have reached up and banged my inconsiderate sister-wife’s and husband’s heads together with one swift knockout.

  As Diane draped herself all over Mark, it seemed she was making a statement about the position she held in our lives. And though I would have kept my distance and never rescued them during their honeymoon, I knew how she must have felt while Mark and I were gone; with her imagination going full speed ahead. I didn’t blame her for any of those feelings. All of us sister-wives who were not numb, celibate, or lesbians already knew those depths of hell. We just didn’t dare admit it to anyone.