know me before I even opened my mouth. (In a way he did; Robin had told him plenty.) He said I should enroll in the university counseling service so that one day I might enjoy an eternal marriage to a righteous man.
He talked and I sat, wordless as a brick.
He asked about my family. I didn’t answer. I had already betrayed them by failing to love them as I should; the least I could do was stay silent.
“Marriage is God’s plan,” the bishop said, then he stood. The meeting was over. He asked me to return the following Sunday. I said I would, but knew I wouldn’t.
My body felt heavy as I walked to my apartment. All my life I had been taught that marriage was God’s will, that to refuse it was a kind of sin. I was in defiance of God. And yet, I didn’t want to be. I wanted children, my own family, but even as I longed for it I knew I would never have it. I was not capable. I could not be near any man without despising myself.
I had always scoffed at the word “whore.” It sounded guttural and outmoded even to me. But even though I silently mocked Shawn for using it, I had come to identify with it. That it was old-fashioned only strengthened the association, because it meant I usually only heard the word in connection with myself.
Once, when I was fifteen, after I’d started wearing mascara and lip gloss, Shawn had told Dad that he’d heard rumors about me in town, that I had a reputation. Immediately Dad thought I was pregnant. He should never have allowed those plays in town, he screamed at Mother. Mother said I was trustworthy, modest. Shawn said no teenage girl was trustworthy, and that in his experience those who seemed pious were sometimes the worst of all.
I sat on my bed, knees pressed to my chest, and listened to them shout. Was I pregnant? I wasn’t sure. I considered every interaction I’d had with a boy, every glance, every touch. I walked to the mirror and raised my shirt, then ran my fingers across my abdomen, examining it inch by inch and thought, Maybe.
I had never kissed a boy.
I had witnessed birth, but I’d been given none of the facts of conception. While my father and brother shouted, ignorance kept me silent: I couldn’t defend myself, because I didn’t understand the accusation.
Days later, when it was confirmed that I was not pregnant, I evolved a new understanding of the word “whore,” one that was less about actions and more about essence. It was not that I had done something wrong so much as that I existed in the wrong way. There was something impure in the fact of my being.
It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you, I had written in my journal. But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.
* * *
—
I STOOD OUTSIDE THE bishop’s office on a cold night in February. I didn’t know what had taken me there.
The bishop sat calmly behind his desk. He asked what he could do for me, and I said I didn’t know. No one could give me what I wanted, because what I wanted was to be remade.
“I can help,” he said, “but you’ll need to tell me what’s bothering you.” His voice was gentle, and that gentleness was cruel. I wished he would yell. If he yelled, it would make me angry, and when angry I felt powerful. I didn’t know if I could do this without feeling powerful.
I cleared my throat, then talked for an hour.
The bishop and I met every Sunday until spring. To me he was a patriarch with authority over me, but he seemed to surrender that authority the moment I passed through his door. I talked and he listened, drawing the shame from me like a healer draws infection from a wound.
When the semester ended, I told him I was going home for the summer. I was out of money; I couldn’t pay rent. He looked tired when I told him that. He said, “Don’t go home, Tara. The church will pay your rent.”
I didn’t want the church’s money. I’d made the decision. The bishop made me promise only one thing: that I wouldn’t work for my father.