Alberta

Chapter One: A forbidden love

I fell for Alberta Anderson when I was a teenager, my childhood best friend. It was a slow and steep descent into an all-encompassing love. To be Allie's favorite person in the world and yet to yearn for more, to dare to yearn for more...it was torturous. Before I could ever confess it, another came along who dared to be braver than me and fell in love with her and all that she was too, my older brother Ben. Ben was sensible enough to propose and claim her for eternity with a band of gold and a sealing in our temple, all at the tender age of eighteen.

I should of known, at eighteen, that this would be the inevitable end to my first rush of love, as Ben took Allie's hand that day, because our families were several generations deep into the church, you know that one in Utah? Yeah, that one.

Allie married my brother the month he returned from a mission, that same month I would leave, the church, the state and my family. I would make the trip north to Oregon, to live with my aunt, Mary.

My aunt Mary had also left the church young, and she welcomed me with open arms when they had all abandoned me. There were many attempts to pray away the gay, Jesus was clearly not listening. My family would tell you I abandoned them, but you know, details.

So as you can imagine, avoiding Allie had been easy, she was in Utah, having joined my family and I was in Oregon, being my freshly out, gay little self, and living my life like it was all brand new, a life without rules and a life without a bishop.

Allie had a child, I went to college, and feelings got left buried, but thoughts were daily. Allie never left my mind, not for even a day, and what I didn't know, was that she was feeling the same...lost and waiting for me to return.

The first ten years went by quickly and quietly. I returned sporadically for Christmas when my Mom would guilt trip herself and then me, and they would sometimes send me tickets for family vacations hoping to visit with me and catch up outside of the state and the church congregation's watchful eyes. It seemed the church couldn't destroy a parents love and bond no matter how much they portrayed them as the bad seed, the sinner. My parents still prayed I would be straight on a daily basis, don't get me wrong, and they still felt uneasy with my staying at their house in case the neighbors curtains were twitching in their ward, but they did love me and they couldn't let me go, not entirely.

The moments I returned, those were the moments I would see Allie, my brother and my Niece Harper. These moments though, they still somehow crushed that teens heart, long after the teen had become the twenty something and then the thirty something, which is where you find me now, retelling this story, thirty six years young.

***

Willa Jameson, when I hear that name in church one Sunday afternoon, it is five years later, five years I've not seen her, but her name stirs a pain inside of me still. I am twenty three years old then, with a five year old daughter. I know we will see her in a few short weeks for Christmas. Ben is excited to see her, his younger sister who has been absent in all of our lives for what feels a lifetime.

When I hear her name, Willa, I find myself in a delirious state, I do not hear it enough and miss the days that Willa and Allie were synonymous with each other. Once upon a time I daren't go a day without a word from her, the race to the landline to call her before a sibling jumped onto the internet. All I heard of Willa now, were snippets, little pieces of Willa that came from others lips, a foreign feeling not knowing where she is, who she is with and what she is doing.

I can't carry on like this. When Willa returns I have to tell her and I have to make sure that she knows...that I can't spend another year like this... I need more.

Willa and Alberta were so close they said, they were in each other's pockets. If you saw Alberta you were sure to find Willa close behind. I was five years old when Willa joined our church with her large family from another ward, and to be quite honest that was the day my life started. When Willa disappeared and left... it felt like life ended, that day, that moment I heard...my heart broke.

My life starts and ends with Willa Jameson, and she has no idea.