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Show in my father's house/ 3 the land of the free, he strode up and down the dismal concrete meetinghall, his silver-blond hair transformed into a beacon by the Sunday sunlight, his lanky form dignified even in agitation. We were as surrounded by Mormonism as by mountains in the Salt Lake Valley -- nearly 360 degrees worth, eclipsing our view of any other way of being. Like all Mormons, (or Latter-day Saints as we called ourselves) my father felt we were living on "the Saturday Night before the Sunday of Christ's Reign on earth." And like most Mormons, he felt an imminent responsibility to bring as many souls as possible into the world before its upheaval, -- but my father set about it as tho all the cherubims waiting to be born counted entirely on him. I was his twenty-eighth child, delivered at home like the others, without anesthetic to dim early memory of his long-fingered hands on my newborn skin. On that fall day when I first noticed the shadows impinging on our province of light, my father returned from a baby case at dawn. The slam of his car door awakened me to his feet crunching gravel toward the barn. I was out of bed in an instant, forcing on my shoes and racing for the door. "Just a minute, young lady." My mother sent me to dress, then insisted that I have my face washed and hair combed. "We want to look our very best for Daddy," she reminded me, stuffing my arms into a sweater. Then I was outside, the chill damp air stinging my eyes and cheeks as I stumbled down the |
