Naomi put up her hands wearily. “All right. If you say so.”
I felt bad for the ferocity of my reaction then, but I didn’t have the strength to explain it to her. I would have to tell her about Georgia later.
“Let Carolyn hold the baby for as long as she wants today,” I said, sure of myself. In this, I had far more experience than Naomi did.
“The body is pretty far gone,” Naomi said.
Why did she have to talk about it as a “body” and not as a child? Was that what they taught you in medical school? My doctor had acted like that, too. As if it was just a procedure to him, just so much human flesh to be disposed of. I hadn’t remembered that until now, either.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism for a professional who would see many deaths in the course of their career, but it wasn’t one I admired.
“Give her time to let go,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “When she’s ready, then you can bury him and ask her for a name to put on a stone. But first make sure you ask her if she wants any pictures taken to remember him by.”
“Pictures?” asked Naomi, disbelieving. “Of that?”
“Yes, of him,” I said coldly. “And make sure they dig a new grave. That boy shouldn’t have to share his grave with Stephen.” Though it would be easier to simply dig up the soil over his grave because it was already soft. The little boy whose death had been predicted by a vengeful father deserved better than that and I was going to make sure he had everything I could give him, however small it was.
Chapter 27
I was still shaking with emotion as I walked away from Carolyn’s house. I wanted to go home to my normal life, to a husband who didn’t need to be in control of my every action and thought, and who genuinely cared for and grieved with me. Whatever my disagreements with Kurt about the policy, he was a good husband and father. He loved Samuel and Kenneth and he was going to figure out a way to stretch his faith around them both. Maybe he was taking a different path than I was, but I had to respect that.
I had promised to solve Stephen’s murder before I left, and now I desperately wanted to go home. So I pushed myself to focus. I’d been asking everyone about the changes to the will except the one person I should have: Jennifer. She was the investment broker. She was far more likely to have known about Stephen’s financial situation than anyone else. So I headed toward her house. It occurred to me that maybe I had been avoiding talking to her just because I disliked her so much.
Jennifer was standing on the porch, staring at the rising rose of sun in the eastern mountains.
“How is Carolyn?” was the first thing she said to me.
They say news flies in a small town. In a compound like this, it must get around so fast it was practically time travel. “The baby was stillborn,” I said.
Jennifer nodded. “Yes, I’d heard.”
“It must be particularly painful to you when one of the other wives loses a child,” I said, watching her carefully. “Especially when you couldn’t have children of your own.” I was needling her—I could tell she clearly disliked children and probably never wanted any.
She frowned and then recovered. “It just wasn’t to be, I suppose. Stephen always said that we had to look to God for answers to such difficult questions.”
I was curious about why she had married Stephen when he, from what I had heard, must have expected her to give him more children. What had Jennifer really wanted from this marriage, this lifestyle? And had Stephen at some point discovered he had been duped when she gave him no children to be his in heaven?
“It bothered Stephen, though, didn’t it?” I pressed. The wooden floor of the porch, I noticed, looked like it had been replaced recently. Stephen didn’t stint Jennifer for anything, though Joanna’s house was still unfinished.
“Of course it bothered him. Being a god means having posterity for eternity. Filling the universe with your offspring.” Her voice sounded distant and she had a hand on the door to the house.
I couldn’t make her stay and talk to me, but I was hoping she wouldn’t escape into the house too soon. I spoke bluntly. “You disappointed him as a wife, then. Not giving him children.” This would have been cruel if Jennifer were the woman that Stephen had thought she was, but she showed no reaction at all.
“I’m sure I disappointed Stephen in more than just that one way,” Jennifer said, smiling as if it were a joke.
There was something very strange about their relationship, about the fact that she had been the first woman to agree to enter into a polygamous marriage with Stephen and Rebecca. She just wasn’t the same type as the others who had joined. She wasn’t needy at all, nor did she seem to be cowed by Stephen.