the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels and tell him, “Don’t come back. This is me just telling you good-bye. Good-bye and thank you.”
Just thinking the words makes a lump come up in my throat.
As I walk past the Temple toward the chain-link fence, I wonder if I should have shared this with Laura. The sun is hot. I’ve kept two secrets from her. Both secrets about men: Joshua and Patrick.
“But secrets will keep her safe,” I say to myself as I edge my way out of the Compound.
The God Squad sees me go. From the corner of my eye, I watch them watch me.
But I always go, I think. Always.
I don’t run. I act bored. I act the way I always act. Right?
Can they see my heart beating?
Can they smell my sweat?
I look behind me over and over as I walk away.
No one follows. Not one person. At last I can breathe air that isn’t coming between clenched teeth.
It’s when I’m waiting for the van of books to come pulling up—hoping Patrick will come, but maybe, maybe he won’t—that panic sets in. Maybe he won’t maybe he won’t come by here again maybe because he was stopped once before and Sheriff Felix is scary maybe he has come by and I missed him and I should be home working on the veil for the ceremony The veil that will shield my face from Uncle Hyrum when we are married maybe he has been by and why should he stop now I wouldn’t if I saw Sheriff Felix and he did and everyone is watching me they all are.
I wait, in the shade of the Russian Olive trees. I wait, just in case. And I decide right then, I can still read. Even if I am married.
I can read.
Women can read.
Their husbands don’t have to know. I could do it in between all the other things a youngest wife has to do, including being available to her husband in case he wants her, because I cannot get to heaven if I don’t have babies.
A young mother can read. If she wants it bad enough.
I could, I think in the shade, watching first one way down the road and then the other, I could read to my babies. No one would know. Uncle Hyrum is an Apostle. He might be gone a lot. He’d never know.
I could go to my trees. I could say I’m visiting my mother. I could walk right out here, if I wanted. I could.
An even better idea comes to me. Why, I could memorize the books. Just come to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels once a week and write out a few pages of Hop on Pop or Go, Dog. Go! I could do that. I could. And then whisper the words in my babies’ ears.
“You are crazy, Kyra Leigh Carlson,” I say right out loud and that’s when I see him. Coming from a distance. That big van, lumbering toward me. There’s the Big Gulp cup on the dashboard. The fans are working, turning, and the closer the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels gets to me, the more my heart throbs, like it’s squeezing in on itself.
“I won’t stop coming here,” I say to the wind. It’s picked up some. I can feel it blowing, carrying bits of sand. “Just because I’m married doesn’t mean that I can’t check out books. And I could memorize things. Or I could hide the books and . . .”
There are tears in my eyes as I climb the van’s stairs.
“Kyra,” Patrick says when he sees my face. “What happened to you? Oh my gosh, what happened to you?”
And without a thought to how I shouldn’t, I tell Patrick everything. Everything.
About The Chosen and Joshua and about Abigail coming too early because I got Mother Sarah so upset. I tell him everything. Standing on the steps, I start, then on the inside of the van. I lower myself to the floor. Words pour from me like water from a spigot, I speak that fast. So fast the words seem like they are all one. I’m not even sure he understands it all.
Patrick listens, crouching next to me.
I tell him all of it. Uncle Hyrum and those who have run and Ellen and the dead twins and my marriage and the beating. All around me are the smells of fresh newspapers and books. There is Patrick’s smell, something sweet.
“I cannot believe this,” he says after a moment.