Chapter 2
That night I made a special dinner, Kurt’s favorite pot roast and mashed potatoes with peas. Homemade rolls were just coming out of the oven when I heard the garage door open. I tensed, worried that the conversation I would have to initiate about Kenneth would lead to another big argument between us. Kenneth had left this for me because he thought I could deliver the message to Kurt better than he could, but I wasn’t sure it was true.
Kurt stepped into the kitchen through the garage door but stopped on the threshold. “Are we having guests tonight?” he asked.
“No, just us,” I said.
He loosened his tie. “Did I forget something?” he asked. I could see he was going through the list of occasions in his head. It wasn’t our anniversary. It wasn’t my birthday or his.
“Kenneth came over this morning and told me some things we should talk over,” I said.
Kurt nodded. “Let me get changed, all right?”
“Do you have any church appointments I’m not thinking of?” I asked, because I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to talk this through. It wasn’t something he could start and then leave off while he went to do interviews at the church.
“No, nothing tonight,” he said. Right then, his phone chirped at him.
“Go ahead, check for messages,” I said. If there was a ward emergency, I’d eat this lovely meal all by myself. Or maybe I could pack it up and send it to another ward family who would enjoy it.
Kurt looked at his phone. “It’s fine,” he said. “Nothing important.”
“Do you want to go answer it and then come back?” I asked, trying to be understanding.
He hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I promise I’ll be back in just one second,” he said, and headed into his office.
It was actually about five minutes until he came back, but luckily, by then, the rolls had cooled just enough for me to put them on a plate and set the table with the nice china (I never used it for family occasions because we only had four settings). I’d put down the lace tablecloth Marie had given us for Christmas last year.
“This looks delicious,” said Kurt stiffly. “Thank you.”
I passed him the roast and then the potatoes. I’d already eaten one of the rolls fresh out of the oven, so I wasn’t as hungry as I might normally have been. I watched Kurt. He was clearly nervous, and he kept glancing up at me as if he were afraid of me.
“I need to talk to you about Kenneth,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “Kenneth.” He swallowed hard and then put his fork down, waiting.
“I don’t know how to put this,” I said, hesitating.
“Just get it out, Linda. I’m a grown man. I know bad things sometimes happen.”
But it wasn’t as if Kenneth had a terminal cancer diagnosis. Except that to Kurt, this might be even worse. Dead, Kenneth would still be part of our eternal family. We would know he would be in the celestial kingdom, the highest part of heaven, if he was a baptized and temple-endowed Mormon and died without sin. But resigning from the church would mean no matter how good he was, he could never be with us in heaven. He had rejected the truth and denied his temple covenants. That was worse, much worse, than never being a Mormon in the first place.
“Kenneth resigned his membership in March,” I said. After I got it out, I expected to feel relief, but it didn’t come. I waited for Kurt to respond. It wasn’t as if I thought he’d throw things, but I also knew he wasn’t going to just accept this.
“He resigned without even talking to me?” said Kurt in a pained near-whisper.
“It was because of the policy change,” I said. Maybe it was selfish of me to say that, because I was using Kenneth to prove my own point, that the policy change was a big deal, that it wasn’t just an extension of everything the church already taught, as Kurt had argued with me before.
“I see,” said Kurt.
There was a long silence. I had more to say, but I wanted Kurt to react to this first. When several minutes had passed and he still hadn’t spoken, I finally blurted out, “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“I don’t see that what I have to say matters, does it? Kenneth has already done this. He clearly didn’t want my opinion.”
That was true. He hadn’t asked either of us. A part of me wanted to defend Kenneth and mention his mission companion, Elder Ellison. But I couldn’t bear to hear Kurt’s dismissal of a young gay man’s suicide as his own problem and not the church’s, so I left it unsaid.
“I think we need to make sure Kenneth sees that we’ll treat him exactly the same as before and show him our love for him will never change, no matter what.”