it lay plowed under for the winter. At the weatherworn double-wide, I got out of the Suburban and wrapped my parka tighter to ward off the bitter cold.
I trudged toward the back, passed the outhouse, and then turned toward the door. I still found it hard to believe that my three mothers and more than a dozen of my siblings lived in such close quarters. After father’s death, everything had become hard for the family. I scurried up the cement steps to the screen door. A Tuesday, all the children should have been in school, but before I could knock, my fourteen-year-old sister, Lily, opened the door, her cheeks flushed and her dark hair, so like mine, pulled back into a loose ponytail. “Clara!” She lowered her voice, I assumed fearful that Mother might hear. “Are you supposed to be here?”
I chuckled just a bit. “Let me in. I need to talk to our mother.”
Lily glanced over her shoulder and carefully opened the door. She had a long apron on over a well-worn green-flowered prairie dress that had probably been handed down for fifteen years from sister to sister. Two steps into the trailer, and I heard Mother banging around in the kitchen. I whispered to Lily, “Are you sick? Why aren’t you in school?”
She leaned forward and put her lips to my ear, her hand cupped to muffle her voice. “I only go to classes two days a week and do the rest of my lessons at home. Three days a week I help Mother.”
I frowned. “Go to your room while I talk to her.”
Lily nodded, turned and trudged off, just as our Mother shouted from the kitchen, “Lily, come here, girl. I need you.”
Mother had on her work clothes as well, topped by her own ragged, stained apron. Ever since I could remember, Mother had conjured up and sold herbal remedies, poultices, tinctures and the like for everything from gallstones to heart conditions. Only in dire situations, like Jacob’s, did members of Elijah’s People go to Gentile doctors. For nearly all maladies, we were told that our faith would heal us. Mother had a special place in our community as something of a healer. When Father was alive, the money Mother made bought extras; my assumption was that now it was sorely needed to pay living expenses.
Her steel-gray hair knotted on top of her head, Mother looked thinner and more fragile every time I saw her. On the table, she had dozens of small amber bottles lined up and a pile of caps with droppers. On the counter, a mixture that resembled weeds floating in dirty water filled a metal bucket. I caught a whiff and recognized Mother’s sleep potion, a tincture of alcohol, passionflower and valerian root. In her hands she held a strainer.
“Lily, come help. I only have two hands,” she said, not looking up.
I walked over and took the strainer from her. “Clara!” she said, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” I said. “While we do, I’ll help.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, irritated. “I told you not to come to the trailer, that you’re not welcome. Where is Lily?”
“I sent her to her room to study. She tells me she isn’t going to school three days a week,” I said.
Mother frowned, forming sharp arches in her dark brows. I thought she’d tell me this was none of my business, and perhaps she considered saying that, but I sensed the situation troubled her. Instead, she admitted, “Clara, this isn’t what I want, but I need help with my work. We have many to feed and clothe. We have bills to pay. And the prophet has said that girls really only need to go through the eighth grade. Lily is in the ninth.” At that Mother pursed her lips. “I don’t know why I’m explaining to you.”
“Probably because you know how bright Lily is, how gifted, and that it is wrong to keep her from her classes.” I held the strainer over a large pitcher, as I had often as a young girl when I’d helped her, and Mother poured the mixture through, filtering out the debris. The herbs had been sitting in the alcohol for six weeks, turning the clear liquid amber. “Lily needs to go to school, Mother. She’s smart enough to go to college, to get a real job.”
“Like you did?” Mother said pointedly. “So she can abandon her family?”