Chapter 31
The screech of Leandra’s voice broke the silence in the room, but did nothing for the tension. Although she was a tiny woman in stature, her booming voice could alert the entire compound. And part of me wondered if it would.
“You filthy little whore,” she screamed, dangling my purse accusingly between us. “How dare you?”
I said nothing in response. There was nothing left to say, and so I listened. I took the abuse in the hopes that they’d say their piece and leave me be. Leave me to abandon this place where I never quite fit in.
“Did you honestly think you could get away with this, you foul, wicked girl?”
Her shrill voice assaulted my ears. I glanced at Lehi, and although no words came from his mouth, he was visibly shaken, obviously enraged. His chest continued to heave in and out. His cheeks were a deep tone of scarlet and his nostrils flared wide.
As I continued to watch him, memories flashed through my brain, causing my fear to build. Memories of Lehi slapping the children, and Lehi shouting at Leandra behind closed doors. Unlike Leandra, Lehi was not tiny, dainty, or small in stature. He was large, muscular, and dangerous. I watched him carefully from the corner of my eye as I attempted to turn my attention back to Leandra.
While my attention had been on Lehi, Leandra had been digging through my purse, invading my privacy. My pulse quickened as she removed an item from the bag. The cell phone.
“These contraptions are not allowed in this house!” She crossed the room and shoved the phone in my face, so close it almost touched the tip of my nose.
The door creaked open and Aspen entered. My heart raced.
Did Aspen have something to do with this ambush? The idea of her betraying me was more than I could handle.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Aspen said, “but is everything all right?”
“It seems Brinley has been keeping secrets from the family,” Leandra spat out. “Lots of secrets.” She then waved the phone in Aspen’s face.
Aspen looked at the phone, then looked searchingly at me. Did she want a reason, an answer?
“Did you know about this?” Leandra narrowed her eyes at Aspen. “Do you have one too?”
“What? No, of course not! Brinley, doesn’t have a phone!” She turned her attention to me. “Tell them that’s not yours!”
I stayed silent, unsure of what to say. No matter which words I chose, they’d all lead back to deception. My deception.
“It most certainly is hers!” Leandra shrieked. “She has messages on this thing. Hundreds of them! With someone named Porter.”
“Porter?” Aspen’s voice was shaken. “Brinley, who in the world is Porter?”
I swallowed hard. Then the tears came, brimming from the corners of my eyes.
The color drained from Aspen’s face. “Who . . . is . . . Porter?” she demanded once again.
“I wanted to tell you,” I said, my voice cracking.
Aspen looked away, looked to Leandra. And just as I had dreaded, I lost her. Lost her support, her love, and her trust.
Leandra lifted her chin. “Apparently, he’s a man living outside the compound. Someone who knows all about us.”
“He used to be one of us,” Lehi growled. “His name is Porter Hammond, yes?”
I nodded, shocked that Lehi would remember Porter.
Leandra turned her attention to Lehi. “How do you know him?”
“He worked for me, on one of my construction sites. His parents removed him years ago. He was a bad seed.”
“Sounds familiar,” Leandra said with a sneer.
I didn’t care what they thought of me; I didn’t. But I couldn’t handle Lehi reducing Porter to such a foul name. “He is not!”
“Brinley, stop!” Aspen linked her arm with mine, pulling me close to her and farther away from our seething husband. She was obviously worried about my safety. Lehi’s anger was building and she probably feared that soon he’d express it.
“There’s more to her lies,” Leandra yelled, tossing the phone on the bed and reaching back into the purse. “How did you get this money?”
Leandra clutched the eighty-five dollars that I’d been saving for months, money from Porter. It all started in the drugstore, and since then he’d given me money whenever I’d accept it. For a moment, I was thankful that I’d chosen to hide the money from Jorjina. If Leandra found that, I had no idea what would happen.
“Are you stealing from us?”
“Of course not!”
“Then, what? Where did you get this?”
“Porter,” I answered, unashamed.
“And what do you need it for?” Leandra demanded, but she obviously already knew the answer.
“I’m not going to answer that. It’s not your business.” I stood tall in defiance, my bravado hiding the fear that consumed my brain, my heart.
Apparently my defiance was the last straw.
“Our business?” Lehi roared, stepping past Leandra. He towered over me, and his rage made him a giant. His eyes bulged from their sockets. His fists balled up so hard his knuckles turned white. “You are my business. You’re my wife! The mother of my child!”
“Not so fast,” Leandra said, her voice wicked, mischievous. “My dear, there’s one more thing in this bag. Something I neglected to show you earlier.”
“What is it?” Lehi asked, annoyed.
And I knew right then, right there, that I was finished. I was done. I would never see Porter again. Or Tiffany. Or the light of day.
“Care to tell us what these are, Brinley?” Leandra held the small plastic disk in her hand, opening the lid to reveal ten pills remaining in the pack.
Her smug grin enraged me, but there was nothing I could do. My anger was moot. I was caught in their web, and there was no escape.
“Medication?” Lehi asked, confused. “You’re on medication?”
“Lehi, dear, this is not medication. Brinley is perfectly healthy.” Leandra strolled past Lehi, planting her feet right in front of me. “No, these tiny little pills prevent pregnancy.”
“What?” Lehi roared.
Leandra pursed her lips and said, “Our little Brinley is on the birth control pill.”
“Birth control pill?”
Lehi snatched the disk from Leandra’s hand. After inspecting the half-empty case, he stormed toward me, pushing Aspen out the way and pressing me up against the wall. Hard. So hard, I thought my muscles might bruise on contact from his thick fingertips digging into my skin. The case dropped to the floor.
“How did you get these?” he demanded. “Why are you taking them?”
“Lehi, please,” Aspen begged, pulling on his forearm. “Let her go. She’ll explain. I’m sure she’ll explain everything. Don’t hurt her, she’s pregnant!”
“You silly girl,” Leandra said to Aspen, pulling her away from Lehi. “You do realize what this means, Lehi, dear.” Leandra crossed her arms in front of her chest.
Lehi snarled, loosened his grip on my shoulders, and glared at his first wife. “What?”
“Our dear Brinley isn’t pregnant. She never was.”
And then it happened. Before I could react, the back of Lehi’s hand smashed against my cheek, sending me flying against the nightstand. The corner of the furniture tore into my side and I screamed, then fell into the lamp, which tumbled to the floor, its light bulb shattering into tiny pieces. I stumbled to fall facedown on the quilt of my bed, until Lehi pulled me back into a standing position.
He slapped me again, catching my other cheek this time, and I fell onto the bed. Both sides of my face burned in searing agony. My ribs ached from the nightstand, my head spun, and I couldn’t focus my eyes.
Again and again, Lehi yanked me up, pulling me to my feet before striking me again. My face, my belly, my ribs. Again and again, he punched me, yelling obscenities and cursing my name as Aspen pleaded with him to stop. A few sister wives tentatively entered the room, glancing at each other in horror while others gathered in the hallway, watching with wide eyes as the drama unfolded in the small room.
“You pretended to carry my child!” Lehi boomed. Another slap, and this time his wedding band cut the skin just above my eye. “You’re going to burn. Do you hear me? You’ll burn in hell for this!”
“Leandra,” Rebecca said softly, “you promised! You promised she wouldn’t be hurt.”
“I promised nothing,” Lehi said, throwing me to the floor. “No one deceives me like this! No one makes a damn fool of me and gets away with it!”
I couldn’t see Leandra’s expression, but even in my haze I knew she was feeling vindicated. Somehow she’d convinced Rebecca to spill my secrets, and made empty promises to get what she wanted. She wanted this. She wanted Lehi to be enraged. She wanted me on this floor, bent over in pain, blood pouring from my face.
She wanted all of this.
“You did this?” Aspen screeched.
“I-I didn’t—” Rebecca sputtered as she tried to explain, but was interrupted.
“She did what she needed to do. This girl is wicked. And she needs to be purged from this family.” Leandra’s words sent a chill down my spine. Purged? I was going to be purged?
Lehi’s foot collided with my stomach, a violent blow that knocked the air from my lungs. My knees jerked up in response. Instinctively I curled into the fetal position, a belated attempt at self-preservation. But I knew it was futile. Lehi would continue to beat me until I was within an inch of my life.
Of that I was certain.
“Stop him!” Aspen screamed, and I assumed she was yelling at my sister wives who had congregated in the room, watching Lehi abuse me. They stood there helplessly as I clung to my throbbing muscles, watching as blood pooled on the floor beneath me.
“No!” Aspen yelled. “You can’t do this! I won’t let you hurt her anymore!”
I curled tighter into a ball, covering my head with my hands, when I heard retreating footsteps. Someone had left the room, but I couldn’t raise my head high enough to see who had gone, who had turned their back on me. My vision was fuzzy, but I could see several figures in the room. Leandra, Lehi, Rebecca, and Brenda. But I couldn’t see Aspen.
Where was Aspen?
“Mommy?” a little voice called from the door. One of Brenda’s children, I think. A fuzzy figure left the huddled group above me and shuffled to the door.
“Let’s go. You can’t be here,” she said.
They left the room, but I heard the young voice again. This time I recognized her. It was Bonnie Jo, Brenda’s nine-year-old daughter. She sobbed as she asked, “Why is Father beating Mother Brinley?”
Not only was Lehi placing scars on my body and my heart, but he was scarring the minds of his children who would remember this day. Bonnie Jo in particular would remember me beaten and bloody, lying on the floor while the other adults watched.
More footsteps, this time entering the room. I lifted my head to see. I hated the idea of another child witnessing the horrendous acts of their father. I recognized the shoes and the dress immediately.
Aspen.
She’d returned.
“Step away from her. Now!” Aspen yelled.
“This is not your concern!” Leandra snapped. “Brinley has sinned against her husband, against the prophet and Heavenly Father. And she must be punished.”
“Lehi!” Aspen yelled, standing in front of me to block Lehi’s blows. “Do not touch her.”
“You don’t tell me what to do! None of you! This is my home. My house and my rules. Do you hear me?”
And then I heard the sound of Lehi’s hand making contact with skin. He’d slapped Aspen. I yelped to protest, but no words left my aching mouth.
When I looked up, I could see the blurry image of what appeared to be Aspen holding up some crumpled pieces of paper.
“I know what you did,” Aspen said softly. “And if you touch her again, everyone will know. Everyone.”
“Where did you get those?” Lehi demanded. “Leandra, how did she get those?”
“I found them in Leandra’s room.”
“How dare you!” Leandra shouted.
None of their exchange made any sense to me. But I listened, wanting desperately to know what Aspen had discovered.
“I wasn’t going to do anything with them, not yet anyway. I was saving them until I could figure out the truth. But now you’ve shown the depths of your vile nature. And you’ve forced my hand. Forced me to reveal the evil nature in this room. In the two of you.”
“Give those to me!” Lehi shouted.
“Even if you managed to pry them away from me, it doesn’t matter because I have others. So many others. You must have practiced writing these quite a bit . . . had to get his handwriting just right, hmmm? Was it you, dear husband of mine? Or was it your first wife?”
“Shut your mouth, you wicked girl,” Leandra screeched again.
“I know you’re involved, you witch. Or these wouldn’t have been in your room!”
“You sneaky girl, you wretched, wretched thing,” Leandra screamed.
“You let her go,” Aspen demanded. “Give me the keys to your truck. And you let her go.”
“Or what?” Lehi said through clenched teeth.
“Or I’ll tell the prophet.”
All movement in the room came to a halt.
“I’ll tell the prophet,” Aspen repeated, “and you’ll be gone. You’ll never see any of us, any of your children ever again. Your home, your business, everything you hold dear. Gone. In an instant.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Leandra cried out.
“The proof is right here.” The papers crinkled in her hands. “All I have to do is say the word. Don’t force me to reveal this, Lehi. Because I will. You know I will.”
The room grew silent as Lehi considered Aspen’s threat. I prayed it would work and that I’d escape the Cluff house alive.
“Wait,” Rebecca whispered. “What . . . what are those? Is that—”
“Silence!” Lehi shouted and keys jingled. “Take her away.” His words were rushed, sounding almost as if he were . . . frightened?
Aspen snatched the keys from his hand before Lehi continued. “But when you return, all of those papers, every single one, will be given to me.”
Aspen nodded. “Understood.”
“And if I ever find another, you’ll be the one who’s gone forever. Do you understand? I. Will. Kill. You.”
I inhaled sharply at Lehi’s threat, unable to imagine what he could have possibly done. I had to know. I just had to.
Aspen’s arms looped through mine as she hoisted me from the floor by my underarms. My legs were too weak to stand, my vision was blurry, and the metallic smell of blood overwhelmed my senses.
“Someone help me,” Aspen snarled. “Now!”
Rebecca joined Aspen and wrapped her arm around my waist, supporting my weight.
“I’m sorry, Brinley,” she whispered. “So, so sorry.”
“Porter Hammond. You know who he is?” Aspen asked.
“Yes. I met him months ago.”
“Okay, while I drive, you need to make contact. Grab her phone. Call him, send a message, ask him for his address.”
“I can do better than that,” Rebecca said. “I’ll take you to him.”