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Show She would receive the b l e s s i n g of Sarah, for having shared her husband so willingly. It had not always been so. As a child, I had heard the mothers talk in soft, muted tones, of the tension between Aunt LaVonaand Aunt Gerda.Both women had been t a l l and mature, efficient and commandeering. Both had been crack s e c r e t a r i e s and fine pianists. But there wasn't much room for competition in the Principle. My own mother had repressed her competitive attitudes until she was in competition only with herself, so that her mind and body seemed to be engaged in a continuous wrestling match. Perhaps my i n a b i l i t y to assert myself was somehow related to the family-wide repression of healthy r i v a l ry among the g i r l s and women. I wondered if the submerged r i v a l r y had anything to do with Aunt JfV<*vna..' l e a v i n g . Perhaps Aunt . X had registered an unconscious g u i l t , an amorphous complicity at the divorce, and so, l a t e r on,hfd added f i v e l e s s - t h r e a t e n i n g women to compensate for the loss. I sensed a p a r a l l e l of the s i t u a t i o n with Aunt Karen. A jealousy that could not broach sharing. Children lost to their father, losing t h e i r father to the hard demand of the Principle. But AuntL a Y£n a J C h i l d r e n had lost more than their father. They had l o s t three dozen ^ o t h e r s ^ n d s i s t e rs as well. My eyes f i l l e d as I thought of my.playmates, Margot and Timmy. I hadn't seen them for a decade or more. They were tarried now, probably to a husband and wife chosen for themby the council - as was the p r a c t i c e of the 'Short Creek group.' ^ seemed sadly paradoxical that the Principle - founded on ideals of harmony and free will - could r e s u l t in divorce and forced marriage. Although I had not seen L aA7°' n?fnorr vyeeaarrss,, I knew that she called on each of the mothers to celebrate holidays: Christmas, |