Wheat for the Wise
By Margery S. Stewart
Chapter 2
Synopsis: Jennie Starr, whose husband Rex is not a member of the Church, realizes that, in spite of the many material blessings enjoyed by the family, there is a need for spirituality. Sabra, a sensitive and thoughtful daughter, seems to be searching for something deep and satisfying in her life.
When the candles were blown and the birthday songs silent, the children went reluctantly to bed. Jennie dressed again for the party and went downstairs.
Rex looked up from his paper.
“Do we have to go?”
“No,” said Jennie. She took off the mink stole and sat across from him.
“I’m tired,” Rex said. He rubbed his eyes. “The stock market is edgy. The world is edgy.” He looked up, “But Sabra is better . . . she looks better, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” said Jennie, heavily. “But I wish they’d take her tonsils out.”
“Not until summer. What’s with you, Jen?”
Jennie got up and lit the gas under the logs and watched the blue flames come out and lick the bark. What’s with me? she thought. What’s with me, is that I have to ask Rex for something, and this is the first time that I have been afraid he would refuse me.
She came back and pulled a cushion from the couch and sat on it and leaned against his knee. “I love you, Rex . . . empty-headed as I am . . . I love you.”
“Likewise,” he said gravely. He touched her bright hair. “So now, what is it? New drapes?”
“When I was little,” she said slowly, “Father used to talk a lot about God and things. . . .”
“Different, our family was the feckless sort.”
“When I was little,” she went on, “he used to teach me, about God and all that “
“I thought you were a little odd ball when I first met you, and then I learned about how you had been brought up, and I could see it would have that effect, looking at it from a psychological point of view.”
“But looking at it from a spiritual point of view,” said Jennie quietly, “is quite another matter. I’ve been very troubled about Sabra’s action today. I feel we have failed her.”
“We’re happy,” said Rex. “We are happy, and we’re going to stay that way. We’re what everyone dreams of being, rich, young, familied, with a proper assortment of friends, brains, and fun. Who could ask for more?”
“Sabra,” said Jennie.
“She’s always asking for more,” Rex said shortly, “the books she reads . . . brain crackers for eighteen-year-olds.”
“She’s different.”
“Agreed. We’ll have to channel her energies more.”
“How? Dancing, piano, speech, she’s still hungry.”
“I know.”
He loves her, thought Jennie, as I love her, half pain, half pride, and all tenderness and fear.
“She’s not like the others. She needs more . . . of something.”
“Let me go unearth my Phi Beta Kappa key.”
She sat away from him. “Do so. It won’t feed her. What she’s searching for isn’t found where you found the key.”
“What she’s searching for will lead her off on one tangent after another,” said her father.
Jennie turned to him quickly. “Let me go back, Rex. Let me go back to my own Church, with my children! Let me see to it that they aren’t drawn into something that will prove their undoing.”
“There was a youngster . . . not quite like Sabra,” Rex said slowly, his face troubled. “It was in high school . . . she finally committed suicide . . . she was brilliant, involved, and confused.”
“I must take them back with me.” Jennie lifted her face to his. “Let me,” she pleaded.
He sat back and considered. “We said no religion ever . . . when we married.”
“I know,” she nodded. “It was easy enough to say no religion . . . like I won’t ever eat again . . . or I won’t read another book. In love one promises impossible things.” She lifted her eyes to his. “I still am that much in love.” She bit her lip. “But now there are others besides myself involved.”
He kissed her gently. “When you are tired your eyes get such an impossible blue and so enormous . . . like Lora’s, did you know?” He folded his arms. “I don’t know anything about your Church . . . not really.”
“I’ve forgotten a lot,” she said, “and I am not good at explaining, but I remember how secure I felt as a child, with the Primary and the Sunday School lessons and Mother coming home from Relief Society after giving a lesson. It was my life.”
To her misery was added the longing for other years and other faces.
“No,” said Rex stubbornly, “I have got to think this over.”
“Even if I could give them that much . . . give Sabra that much . . . it might keep her from those endless hours in her room.”
He was silent.
“We could try it . . . for a year, say,” Jennie was beginning to talk very fast, compulsively. “One year ought to tell us if it’s the right or wrong way. Then we would know.”
He curled a strand of her hair in his fingers. “I was reading Nietsche today, his ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Even God, he claims, has his hell . . . it is his love for his children. I could agree with that . . . feeling as I do for mine.”
They stopped talking and watched the fire. Jennie had the tightrope feeling again. Above all, beyond all, this must not cost a rift between them. Whatever it was, however it led, she must walk side by side with Rex.
Rex said tonelessly, “Don Spangler’s daughter ran away. Did you know that?”
“Samantha told me.”
“And he’s a psychiatrist . . . one of the best, in my opinion. But even he could not help his child.”
“ A year is such a little time,” said Jennie. Her voice broke. “The world is such a confused and frightened world. We don’t seem to hate anybody any more . . . nor are we surprised by horror . . . we keep fighting and breaking the laws because we can’t seem to help ourselves. Rex, it’s the families who are the forts now . . . the only fortresses against the tigers.”
“A year is short,” Rex agreed. “At least we will have tried something. I was not brought up in a church, so I can’t evaluate its effect on the young mind.” He rose and turned toward the fireplace. “If she were only like the others.”
“Her difference is the thing that will make her or break her,” Jennie said reluctantly. “The other children we can understand . . . but with Sabra we grope.”
“Only a year,” he said huskily. “After that, we do it my way.”
“What is your way?” she asked in quick alarm. She watched him prepare the room for the night, turning off the fire, securing the windows. He was tall and quick and thin, his face was keen and intelligent, his friends were the best. Rex demanded the best. She could be sure of one thing — he would be watching and measuring, weighing and studying. But at least she had taken the first step and was still standing.
Rex took her hand. “I’ll be working on an alternate,” he said, “a year will give me insight and time.” He grinned at her, “After all, it just came up this evening.”
She could not contradict him, but in herself she knew the problem had existed since their marriage, shelved.
(To be continued)
This is the era in which my father, a geeky focused single-minded engineering student joined the Church. Since he died when I was very young, I know little about his conversion experience (his non-LDS siblings insist it was a case of flirt-to-convert), except a few nuggets reported third hand. His aunt (who had joined the Church a year before) told me that the first time he read the Book of Mormon he knew it was true because it was so logical. My mother told me that he had appreciated how God had organized His church, just the way he would have done. I mostly know by the actions I saw that he really believed (a heavily underlined copy of the Doctrine and Covenants, detailed attention to the services required by his calling, regular family home evening, dedication to attending church). I find myself here wondering if the husband in this story will find the same savory yet intellectual gusto for the Church that attracted my father. I suspect that he will.
Aren’t they in Salt Lake City? The opening line has her on South Temple Street. Even in this day and age, I’ve never met someone that lived in Utah and did not have opinions of and knowledge about the LDS church.