A Song for Issy Bradley (19 page)

Claire tears the letter in two. Perhaps someone might have noticed how ill Issy was if Ian hadn’t disappeared to coax Brother Anderson to the hospital. Why would Issy appear to Sister Anderson and not to her own mother? Clearly she wouldn’t, she just wouldn’t. She wads each half of the letter into a ball and stares at the empty space above the sink.

A
T FIRST SHE
tried to carry on. She walked Jacob to school and survived the playground, feeling like a member of the royal family as she greeted people and collected flowers. Things quieted down in a matter of days—once people had expressed sympathy they didn’t have much else to say. Grief enclosed her like an invisibility cloak, and with no one to talk to, she thought about the empty chair in Issy’s classroom and wondered whether her teacher had removed her name badge from her desk and unpeeled the little sign above her coat peg.

On the walk home, she meandered around the park scuffing through piles of fallen leaves, thinking about where she was in relation to memories of Issy, which were everywhere, poking her from all directions—she couldn’t stop them, it felt wrong to try. At home, she couldn’t pass Issy and Jacob’s room without entering it. She opened drawers, searched for Issy’s scent on things, and her sadness fastened itself to ordinary objects: unfilled slippers, abandoned toys, and empty clothes hanging in the wardrobe, waiting. It began to feel as if these objects ought to leave of their own accord, disappear quietly in order to save her feelings. She hovered in the bedroom,
haunting the vestiges of Issy’s life, and watched from the window as the hedge sobbed leaves and the breeze huffed them into every corner of the garden.

Things changed after General Conference weekend. She experienced the newly familiar horror on waking that Monday morning, but it also felt as if there was something heavy in her chest, pressing her into the mattress, and she longed to fall back into the oblivion of sleep. Her legs ached as she stepped into her clothes and she could hardly lift her arms as she hung out the washing. When she dropped Jacob off at school the Reception teacher stepped into the playground holding Issy’s PE uniform.

“Mrs. Bradley, I—this—I didn’t know—do you want it?”

Claire took the bag and walked home with it pressed to her chest. She carried it straight upstairs and hung it on the hook on the back of Issy and Jacob’s bedroom door. Then she stood at the window and looked out at the garden as she thought about the story the prophet had told at Conference.

The prophet usually tells stories about himself. The stories are heartening and refreshingly straightforward, replete with uncomplicated goodness: hospital visits, Christmas presents for the needy, small acts of kindness—the things Claire values, the things she believes are at the heart of religion. But the story he told this time was different. When the prophet was just a boy he left a five-dollar bill in his pocket. He realized his mistake only after his clothes had been sent to the laundry. He was worried about losing the money so he prayed and pleaded with Heavenly Father for its safe return. The clothes came back and the five-dollar bill was miraculously intact; the prophet’s prayers had been answered. When the broadcast ended and the chapel lights were switched on, Claire looked around at people she considered to be friends, hoping one of them might whisper, “It must be hard for you to hear about the miraculous rescue of a five-dollar bill,” or even dare to murmur, “Maybe the prophet was mistaken and it was just good luck that saved the money.” But no one said a thing, she didn’t encounter so much as a
sympathetic eye roll, and although she thought the story might bother Ian too, she was wrong. “You’re not criticizing the prophet, are you?” he asked.

She watched through the bedroom window as the breeze buffeted the clothes she’d pegged on the line and stared at the fallen apples, unfazed by the waste. She imagined the prophet as a little boy, panicking about the money, praying that everything would be all right. It was easy to feel sorry for him, to understand his need, but it wasn’t an answer to prayer or a miracle—God would
never
exercise His power to save money, even for a child. He wouldn’t.

She was weary, utterly tired of trying to get everything straight in her mind: faith, miracles, prayers, blessings … She turned away from the window and crossed the room to lift Issy’s covers, and for a moment she could smell Issy’s skin and hair. That was when she decided.

She popped downstairs briefly to fetch Issy’s glasses from her handbag. As she passed the telephone, she bent down and unplugged the cord. When she got back upstairs she changed out of her clothes and into her nightie. Then she climbed into the bottom bunk where she lay, holding the glasses. She unfastened them and ran her fingers along the arms where they’d hugged Issy’s head from temple to ear. The vacant round lenses gaped
“Oh”
at her, as if they were aching to be animated by the arcs of ears and the underscore of a smile. She positioned them on the pillow next to her. Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

When the front door burst open, she jumped. She heard footsteps racing down the corridor, followed by the fling of the living-room, dining-room, and kitchen doors. The feet attacked the stairs and dashed along the landing to her bedroom, then up the second flight to Zipporah’s room before pounding back down to open Alma’s door, the bathroom door, and finally the door to Jacob and Issy’s room.

“You’re here!” Ian was out of breath. His hands braced the door frame. “You’re here! I was so worried. What’s going on? Are you all
right? I had a call asking why no one had picked Jacob up. I tried to get through, but the phone just rang and rang. I thought—”

“I unplugged it.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“You can’t just unplug the phone! Jacob was waiting. He didn’t know where you were. I had to leave work. What are you doing?”

“Resting.”

“In here? Why? Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Come on, you’d better get up.”

“No.”

“Come on.” He stepped into the room, slipped his hand under the blankets and searched for her arm. His fingers squeezed hard. “Stop being silly.”

“Get off. You’re hurting me.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” He grasped her and tugged until she was half hanging out of the bed. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to go limp. He’d never touched her like that before, never. He yanked her farther until her head and back touched the floor, then he leaned in to move her legs out of the bunk. The covers slid away, Issy’s glasses must have slipped onto the carpet, and when Ian tried to grab her ankles there was a crack as the glasses shattered under the sole of one of his sensible shoes.

Upturned and frightened, Claire kept her eyes closed while he determined the source of the noise. She heard his intake of breath when he realized and the creak of the floorboards as he knelt down to pick up the pieces, but she didn’t open her eyes because she knew if she watched she would feel sorry for him and she wasn’t ready to forfeit her anger.

“I’ve broken Issy’s glasses,” he said. “We can get some new ones, can’t we? They’d let us, wouldn’t they? In the shop, they’d let us buy some without her … They’re in pieces. Look what you made me do.”

She didn’t move, she lay perfectly still with her back on the floor
and her legs in the bed. He waited for a moment and then she heard his feet on the stairs.

She kept her eyes closed as she maneuvered her legs out of the bed and onto the floor. She knew she’d done something terrible by not collecting Jacob and by refusing to get up when Ian asked. She felt ashamed, but not enough to go downstairs and apologize. It was something of a revelation to realize that her daily life was fueled by expectation and its structures were fragile and easily transgressed. She scrambled onto all fours and climbed back into the bed.

She didn’t join the family for dinner. She didn’t wash the dishes or bring the laundry in off the line; she lay in bed rehearsing years of tentative, often reluctant, obedience and pondered the dimensions of a proportionate punishment.

“
C
ONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR
eternal marriage! Now you can get on with the things that really matter.”
Although she laughed at the note that accompanied Ian’s parents’ baby-quilt wedding gift, Claire was pregnant before finals. Swept away by everyone’s happiness, she read baby magazines and allowed the older sisters to fuss and stroke her belly in the church corridors, listening as they offered unsolicited advice about breastfeeding and suitable baby names.

Ian’s parents were at the hospital within an hour of Zipporah’s birth. “You’re a lovely girl, aren’t you?” his mum cooed as she held her first grandchild. “Yes you are! And you’d like a little brother, wouldn’t you? Yes you would!”

“Give us a chance, Mum,” Ian laughed.

People at church began asking Claire when she was going to have
“the next one”
before Zipporah was three months old and she didn’t mind because she thought it would be a good idea to have two children quite close together.

When Alma was born, Ian’s mum was ecstatic. “Hello, future missionary,” she said as she held him in the hospital. “You’d like a little brother too, wouldn’t you? Yes you would!”

That was when Claire realized she wasn’t going to get away with just the two.

Alma was busy blowing the roof off her life with his noisy toddler tantrums when Ian’s mum asked whether she had started trying for
“number three.”
Claire explained that she didn’t want any more and Ian’s mum said, “I’d have had at least half a dozen if I’d been able … I always think it’s a shame when women don’t throw themselves into motherhood. After all, it’s what they’ll be doing for Eternity. They may as well get the hang of it now.”

“I’m not sure I want to keep reproducing for Eternity,” Claire confided. “I don’t think it’s my thing. I mean, I love the children, but I don’t want to do this forever.”

“But it’s exactly what you’ll be doing! You’ll be populating whole worlds—not by yourself, of course; Ian’s other wives will help.”

“His other wives?”

“In the Celestial Kingdom.”

“There’ll be other wives?”

“Of course. Polygamy is eternal—just because we don’t practice it now doesn’t mean we don’t believe in it. It’s in
Mormon Doctrine
. We gave you a copy before you got married. Where is it? I’ll show you.”

Claire fetched the book and listened as Ian’s mum read aloud from the section that dealt with the Ennobling and Exalting Principle of Plural Marriage. She learned that the Holy Practice would commence again after the Second Coming and she felt nauseated for the remainder of the afternoon.

“It’s just the way it is, Claire,” Ian said when he got home from work. “It was that way in the Old Testament and it’s that way in nature. You won’t mind in the Celestial Kingdom, you’ll be perfect, so you won’t feel jealous. It’s silly worrying about it now.”

“You said polygamy was in the past. I asked you about it before I joined the Church and that’s what you said.”

“It
is
in the past.”

“You said it all ended more than a hundred years ago.”

“It did.”

“You didn’t tell me the truth.”

“I answered the question you asked.”

She thought about it for days, humbly at first, and then with growing indignation. She couldn’t believe in it, but that wasn’t enough, she wanted to stop him believing in it too. She bought unauthorized underwear that exposed her thighs and belly and wore it before bed so he could enjoy removing it. She did things she had previously heard him describe as
“immoral”
and
“impure.”
He was startled, but she quashed his objections. She maintained a heightened level of attentiveness for several weeks until life caught up with her and she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm for perpetual sexual acrobatics, no matter how eternally binding. She resolved not to think about polygamy and retreated to their familiar, hokey-pokey sex that was nice because it was comfortable, and she knew all the words and moves by heart.

Not long after, Ian asked about having another child. The decision was mostly hers, he said, but the Lord would show her the way. The Lord kept quiet, giving Claire the impression that He wasn’t especially bothered. Ian was. He explained his theory that
“replicating”
was the best way to describe the creation of two children;
“multiplying and replenishing”
required three or more. She agreed to have another, deriving a secret glee from her body’s refusal when nothing happened. Ian was patient. “The Lord’s time isn’t our time,” he said. But his mum wouldn’t leave it alone, she tugged and worried at it like a dog on the end of a shoe. She gave advice about ovulation and offered to babysit Zipporah and Alma overnight, if it would help. Eventually, once Alma had started school and Claire had begun to daydream about part-time jobs and separate bank accounts, she got pregnant again.

Not long after Jacob was born, Ian’s mum started to say things like, “Three is an awkward number,” and, “Alma’s got that middle-child problem, hasn’t he?”

Claire prayed about it and made a deal:
“One last time, but I want a girl.”
As she lay on the bed in the scanning room, it felt as if her whole life hinged on the revelation of the baby’s sex. She knew she wasn’t like the other women at church; she didn’t have spiritual experiences, unless she counted the way she felt when she walked on the beach. She never knew what to say in Testimony Meetings; she couldn’t muster tearful declarations and statements of absolute truth like Sister Stevens: “We were on vacation in Disneyland and I couldn’t stop crying because we have the
gospel
—we were the happiest
people
in the happiest
place
on Earth.” She couldn’t speak like Sister Campbell either: “I
know
the Church is the only true Church on the face of the Earth. I
know
Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I
know
we have a living prophet who converses daily with Jesus Christ and leads the Church by revelation.” Whenever possible, she avoided bearing testimony, and on the occasions when she was compelled to as the Bishop’s wife, she simply stated that joining the Church had made her feel a part of something good. The sonographer said, “You’re having a little girl,” and Claire felt like Hannah in the Old Testament, as if she had prayed Issy into existence.