She walked up the concrete steps leading to the chapel, her breathing punctuated the cool winter air with puffs of steam jetting out her nose. Dread was her companion. Molly’s stomach was tied into knots with the impending Bishop’s interview looming ahead of her in the coming hour. She hadn’t eaten a thing all day and as she ran her tongue towards the back of her mouth she tasted a hint of metallic… she ignored how empty her stomach felt. There was satisfaction found in its emptiness as it mirrored how crumpled into a corner her entire being felt right now. She didn’t deserve to eat.
The chapel’s black metal-framed front doors usually invited her in each week but this time she sensed only an awful foreboding. She imagined the doors locking themselves loudly as she neared them… she didn’t feel welcome. Molly felt alone and ashamed and completely horrified that she would now be telling her darkest moment in life to a man she barely even knew. From what she had read and studied and learned in her Laurel’s class, confessing to the Bishop was the essential step in getting her life back to normal.. if that were even possible. She had felt like a wretch for weeks now. The guilt was eating her up, consuming her ability to concentrate on homework and her debate team.
Molly pulled on the doors. They weren’t locked and they opened easily. She chased the disappointment away in her head over that. She crossed herself angrily for wanting an easy escape from this interview. The confession had to be done. There was no other way. She would allow this man an all access stage pass into her mind, her heart, her very soul so that the Holy Ghost would finally come back into her life and allow his sweet spirit to flourish once again. She needed Jesus to forgive her like parched desert soils need the rains. Her mind was raked over with fear yet somehow she placed one foot in front of the other and stepped into the building and onto the brown church carpet. She turned the corner and to her horror, there sat Sister Harris, her Laurel’s advisor… all smiles, arms folded neatly.
“Oh Molly! How nice to see you!”, bubbled Sister Harris angelically. In an instant, she knew something was drastically wrong when Molly could not make eye contact.
“Oh. Hello Sister Harris. I’m uh, just here to see the Bishop”, replied Molly.
Awkward pause
“Hmm. I see”, said Sister Harris. “I’m running very early to my temple recommend interview with Bishop Jones, I was just in the area sooner than I thought and thought I’d just stop by anyway and now here you are!”
“Yeah, uh, I am right on time to my appointment”, Molly blurted out.
“Oh… Molly, uh, I wanted to tell you how wonderful your talk was last Sunday. I can’t tell you how lovely it is to have such a faithful and beautiful young woman like yourself explaining why it is important for young people to be virtuous, lovely and of good report. You certainly hit the nail on the 13th article of faith’s head now didn’t cha?”
If Sister Harris said anything else, Molly didn’t hear it. She just sat down next to Sister Harris and stared straight ahead kind of at the floor. Those words were enough to send Molly traveling backwards in time into the seas of hypocrisy that encompassed that talk she gave.
“Virtuous, Lovely. Of good report. Praiseworthy. I am supposed to seek after these things.” She reviewed. There was no virtue garnishing her thoughts unceasingly… she had allowed herself to wander off into forbidden lands with Brian Nelson. And not just once… two different times! And what made it all the more horrible was that she really really liked it. How could something that felt so good and right be so bad and evil. Well of course sex was bad, look at what sex had done to her in reducing her to merely a pittance shadow of her former self.
Suddenly, she was overcome with a self-loathing so powerful that she screamed inside herself the same mantra that had cloaked her every waking moment lately:
I hate myself I hate myself I HATE MYSELF!
Molly looked over at Sister Harris and smiled. She hoped Sister Harris did not hear her mental torture chamber at work.
Sister Harris and all the other young women’s leaders had warned plainly against boys who meant well, but could not control themselves very well. And this was very true. Brian was the Senior class seminary president, an eagle scout, and 1st advisor to the Priest quorum. That meant Brian was the Bishop’s right hand young man. Brian’s dad was 1st counselor in the Bishopric and Brother Nelson was revered in the ward as a strict disciplinarian with several very obedient children to show for it.
Molly knew that confessing to the Bishop would pretty much seal the deal for Brian not being able to serve a mission. The Prophet had recently been pretty clear about that. This only piled on Molly’s guilt. Brian had told Molly that he was willing to lie temporarily rather than suffer the social disgraces and wrath of his father. Brian told Molly that he could not bear to be seen as a failure in his father’s eyes. All 5 of Brian’s brother’s had served faithful missions. He begged Molly to keep things quiet and he would repent when he got home off of his mission. That seemed to be a plausible way of dealing with it except Molly did not count on her conscience choking the life out of her. These past several weeks had been awful and only continued to get worse.
The door to the Bishop’s office swung open. Molly looked up into the smiling face of Bishop Jones. He seemed so tall. Molly could not remember this man being so tall… and looming. The lights from inside the office shone brightly behind him into the hallway and created an ominous shadow that surrounded Molly making her feel all the more insignificant and small. She noted that she actually felt like she was going to vomit. Supressing that feeling, she stood up on trembling legs. The Bishop’s mouth was moving, sounds were coming out of it but she heard nothing… but a muffled tone that represented English yet no comprehension was registering.
Pause.
The Bishop’s hand knifed outwards towards Molly. It was huge and looked calloused. Her instincts responded, and the cue to shake hands was successfully returned with a limp hand flopped forward unenthusiastically. Somehow Molly was able to smile. That act appeared to be attached to the shaking hand instinct for it certainly did not feel authentic.
This time, Molly picked up on the Bishop’s invitation to come into his office and have a seat. He waited for Molly to start walking. Molly willed her legs to extend forward and finally they obeyed. She walked past the Bishop whose left hand still held the door wide open. She found a chair set directly in front of the large mahogany colored desk and she took her seat. Molly began to perspire… the room was already unbearably hot.
No sooner had Molly sat down than the Bishop floated over just past her left shoulder in his journey to the other side of the desk.
“This is happening way to quickly” thought Molly
“In 5 minutes, I’ll be in the middle of it” she realized.
She watched the Bishop round out his path to his chair and plop himself down into it. He had a big grin on his face. He was in a very good and seemingly playful mood. Why was he acting so unBishoply? He grabbed the desk with both hands and in a jerk, he scooted himself irreverently up closer to the desk.
“Well, it is certainly HOT in HERE!”, He boomed.
Without waiting for an answer, he jumped back up away from the desk and practically danced his way over to the thermostat. In another bound, he was just as quickly back into his seat.
“Wooooosh, there that should do the trick”, He said playfully
Molly took a brief minute to observ the surreal nature of her environment. She saw the brown thread bare carpet on the floor. There were the three large photographs of a smiling President Hinckley, Monson, and Faust set neatly on the wall behind the Bishop’s head. Right now she did not need to see them. She’d rather not. She would have rather seen a photograph of Jesus Christ. She scanned the room and finally found one way off to the right as if it were sort of contrived as an afterthought. Jesus was looking out over Jerusalem in the picture. That’s odd… and kind of funny that she did not hear the type writer clacking away in the adjoining room before. Clackclackclackity clack clack clack…. Pause…. Clackclack Clackity… It was so loud!
“Molly, what can I do for you? My executive secretary indicated that you needed to talk to me about something”. The Bishop loudly exclaimed.
This was the Bishop’s ice breaker? Give me a break. No small talk? No review of my impending scholarship to BYU Idaho? No talk about my concert piano skills? Couldn’t we even briefly discuss my 3.9 grade point average? Please! I need to establish that in spite of what I am about to tell this man, I have done several things in life that indicate I quite possibly could maybe be considered still as a decent person.
Molly began to feel extremely vulnerable.
She had no idea what to expect from this meeting.. but this was not how she thought it would play out. Not in a million years had it occurred to her that she would just sit down and quickly blurt out “Hi, Bishop, it’s me, Molly, and I have had sex with Brian Nelson”. That made no sense but her she was about to vomit forth this exact same sentence.
She looked into the Bishop’s eyes, they weren’t exactly kind right now… more like they were puzzled. She knew that she was making this stranger uncomfortable with this awkward pause… but somehow by pausing, she hoped that he would make the much needed small talk. But something clicked inside of Molly. She remembered how Sister Harris explained that the Bishop is not only the Father of our Ward, but also the judge in Israel who had authority to receive inspiration in behalf of whatever problem we brought to this man. And such inspiration came directly from God. She now knew that the Bishop needed her to proceed so that God would reveal to him what was needed in this gross abuse of the procreative power she was involved in. Of course!
Molly blurted out, “Brian Nelson and I have had sex and not just once either!”
Pause. A very long pause. Bishop Nelson did not say a word and reached out towards the phone on his desk. The pause of silence continued and was so long that to Molly’s horror, she noted that the clacking noises of the typewriter that had been clacking loudly away for the last 4 minutes completely and utterly stopped. This was a horribly awkward pause.
The next realization hit her like a ton of bricks. Oh no. No it’s not. Yes, yes it is! The person typing away in the next room was none other than Brian’s rigidly authoritarian father Brother Nelson! Here was the 1st counselor to Bishop Jones doing his faithful duty late at night here… at the ward building.
Oh no. No no no no no no NO!!! This was horrible. She sensed herself slipping out of the footholds of reality and into some mental terror state. The Bishop began to dial out. What??? Was she imagining this? Why was the Bishop on the phone? Who was she calling!!
Bishop Jones held the phone up to his ear, tried to crack a natural smile back at Molly but it didn’t work and instead looked like clown make up. Molly tried to ask as question but the Bishop placed his index finger to his lips and pantomimed a shhhh!
He loudly began to speak into the mouthpiece.
“President Garner, hello it’s me again. We have a situation…”
What tha… why call the stake president? What is going on! Her worst nightmare was coming true. She heard an excited tiny phone voice babbling on from inside the Bishop’s phone… and it finally paused.
“Brian Nelson…”, said the Bishop.
“Yes, President, that’s her… how did you know?” asked the Bishop.
More rapid firing of the tiny phone voice ensued. Molly’s eyes began to roll back into her head as she realized how utterly wasted and ruined her life would now be. She crumpled back into her chair and hugged herself for comfort. Molly wished she had never stepped into this office… what was she thinking? What an IDIOT! She despondently began to curse herself for not taking the bottle of pills instead… that now seemed like the most perfect solution.
“Yes, that’s is correct.” Continued the Bishop. “Brian turns in his mission papers in about 6 months”. He droned.
“Yes president, we will wait” and Bishop Jones hung up the phone.
“Molly, President Garner wants to have a word with you. We are going to wait for him here.” he said disappointedly.
The Bishop began to fidget uncomfortably with the tissue box on his desk and in an attempt to cut through the deafening silence he lamely offered Molly one. Oddly, Molly was not crying. Instead, she was distracted by something on the floor.
Out of the corner of her eye, a trembling Molly saw what looked like a thin metallic pencil slowly protruding out from under the door clearance. Molly noted that there was at least a half inch clearance between the bottom of the door and the carpet. Oh, of course! Not much there to insulate a private conversation like this one. Brother Nelson had heard everything. And obviously, Brother Nelson was being resourceful.
The pencil device continued to creep slowly forward and then it stopped 6 inches past the door. Molly heard a tiny click pop from the other side of the door and then the pencil device popped a one-inch mirror upright in an instant. Molly rubbed her eyes at this. This was not an illusion. This tiny and strange mirror really was there and it seemed to be searching for her. Molly felt disgustingly violated. She felt cheap and filthy. She wished she could crawl under the chair and disappear.
The Bishop seemed to be oblivious to the spy mirror to his right. Molly pinched herself. She was quite lucid. She watched in horror as the mirror device turned 45 degrees and then stopped. The mirror shook ever so slightly as if whoever was looking into it was experiencing a surge of angry rage build up inside them.
There was this pause from the mirror, borne out of an obvious recognition. The person behind the spy mirror suddenly retracted the object and in a flash it was gone. It made a small clack! as it hit the wood door on it’s way back under to the other side.
“What was that?” asked the Bishop
“I, uh… saw a small mirror over there...” began Molly
pause
“You…. uh saw it?” asked the bishop, his eyes growing very wide
and in a flash the door burst open. Any cloak of privacy was now officially banished. There stood a rather large Brother Nelson taking up practically every inch of space contained in the doorframe. His tie was loosely hanging around his neck, beads of sweat formed all over his angry red face and both fists were clenched very tight. Brother Nelson’s chest heaved up and down and he appeared to be struggling for breath. He sucked a huge amount of wind into his lungs so that he could loudly bellow his accusation out to the four corners of earth,
“Why… you smart little TART!!!” screamed Brother Nelson. He punctuated the last word and spittle flew out across the room towards Molly as he said it. Then Brother Nelson staggered a step into the room and with much effort, poked a long accusing finger at Molly.
“HOW CAN YOU DARE YOU DEFILE MY SON!!!”
Molly felt the room begin to spin. She threw up the empty contents of her stomach into her mouth. Bile nearly choked her. She looked at the ceiling and it seemed to heave itself up and down as if it were on the verge of spewing condemnations weighing a thousand pounds on top of her. The Bishop tried to intervene but it was too late.
Brother Nelson succumbed to his rage and clutched his chest as he sunk to his knees. His head came in contact with the arm of a wooden chair as he whipped recklessly to the floor. THUNK!! Massive head trauma. Sister Harris knocked quietly on the Bishop’s office door so as not to be too intrusive.
“Is everything….. all right in there??” she quavered fearfully
“Oh it’s fine, oh it’s all fiiiiiiine…” chirped the Bishop in a sickly sing song voice but he shot a despondent glance over at Molly.
“DO SOMETHING!!” yelled Molly, “CALL THE AMBULANCE” and she watched in horror as the Bishop crouched over Brother Nelson and began to administer CPR. Molly had to look away. She picked up the phone and dialed 911. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Bishop’s lips seal over Brother Nelson’s in an attempt to save life.
Instead of the 911 emergency dispatch operator, Molly heard a familiar voice speaking to her through the phone
“Now my beloved sister Molly, as your Prophet, Seer, and Revelator I declare to you that you have cast your pearls before swine and have given up what is most precious and most virtuous above all other things a woman must hold dear to her heart. You must repent! You must go talk to your bishop immediately!”
Molly dropped the phone and sank to the floor passing out from the hysteria.
When she awoke, she was in her bed and felt her bedshirt soaked with sweat. The exact moment she realized it was all only a dream she felt a resolve well up inside of her where she knew that she would never tell a soul about what she and Brian had done.
The phone rang downstairs. She heard her mother talking to Bishop Jones.
Molly….? Bishop Jones wants to talk to you… says it’s very important.
The End
