The sound of Talitha’s shrieking was abruptly cut off as the back door to the main house slammed shut.
“Or if you know for sure that she’s being abused, Linda? Where does it stop? When you put yourself in danger?” Kurt’s hair was standing on end, but his eyes were fierce and bored into mine.
I looked away, focusing on the cat’s corpse for a long moment instead of my husband. My own safety could not be my concern. As a mother, I had learned always to put myself second and it wasn’t a habit I could forget easily. But for now, I took another calming breath and said, “Let’s at least bury her cat.”
We’d done that for Fluffy, and for many years Samuel had gone out to look at her grave and remember her. It had helped him, though I think he had stopped thinking about the pet as much in recent years.
“All right.” Kurt reached for the cat, then seemed to think better of it and pulled back. “We’ll need a shovel and maybe an old blanket.” He stood up straight and looked at the house.
It was clear that Kurt wanted to leave. He didn’t want any of this to be our responsibility, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. But I couldn’t just walk away from a little girl who might be in danger.
“I’ll go inside and ask,” I said, trying to make this easier on him. But Kurt came with me. In the late afternoon light, we crossed the splotchy grass field, which didn’t look like it was ever mowed. I went inside the back door while Kurt scraped his shoes on the wooden slats of the porch.
Sarah was in the kitchen, her arms wet with soapy water.
“Talitha’s cat Lucy died just now,” I told her. She had to have heard Talitha hollering as Stephen brought her inside, but maybe she didn’t know what her daughter had been so upset about.
“Oh,” Sarah said with a shrug, scrubbing a pan with the rough side of a dish sponge. “Well, everything dies eventually.”
Surprised by her response, I said, “Um, I was wondering if Kurt and I could bury the cat. I’m sure it will help Talitha with her grief if she can visit the gravesite.” I didn’t mean to tell a mother what her own child needed, except that in this case, maybe I had to.
I saw a flash of anger in Sarah’s eyes. “If you think that’s necessary,” she said.
It might not be necessary, but it was a kind gesture for a little girl in pain.
After taking a long, deliberate moment finishing one last dish, Sarah wiped off her hands and showed me and Kurt into the garage, which was right next to the kitchen.
“Thank you,” Kurt said to Sarah, rummaging around until he found a shovel. “And if I could have an old blanket, as well? Just to wrap the animal in and move it to the burial spot.”
“All right,” Sarah said. We followed her back to the entryway and she disappeared upstairs for a few minutes, then came back with what looked like a hand-sewn baby quilt. It was old, but surely too precious for this. “This was Talitha’s,” she said with what I hoped was not the malevolence it sounded like.
“We couldn’t use this on a cat burial,” Kurt said, trying to hand it back.
Sarah held up her hands in refusal. “No one’s using it anymore. Waste not, want not.” She left the baby quilt on the piano bench and walked back into the kitchen.
Practical was one thing. Cruel was another. What had made Sarah act like this toward her own daughter?
As I turned toward the back door, I heard sobbing coming from the second floor. I froze, my heart twisting at the child’s pain.
“Amen to the priesthood of that man,” Kurt said, quoting from the Doctrine and Covenants, the modern Mormon scripture from Joseph Smith. He was alluding to the scripture about men who use their priesthood to intimidate or manipulate or harm others, and that they would have no sanction from God if they did so.
“He’s abusing more than Talitha here,” I said. Whether it was physical or not seemed a nitpick to me.
“But he’s smart and ruthless. I think you should consider whether we would be better able to help from the outside.”
But what about Naomi’s worry that all the children would be taken away from their mothers if we went to the authorities? That wasn’t what I wanted. It would punish the wives as well as Stephen.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. But the truth was, I couldn’t imagine walking away from this, not unless Talitha was coming with me.
“On with the burial, then,” said Kurt.
We trooped outside together. Even though it had been my idea, he carefully used the baby quilt to pick up the cat, then wrapped up the ends so he never had any actual contact with the animal’s fur.