An Instrument in His Hands

Part 3 Chapter 8

Part 3

Chapter 8

Leahla became weaker as her time grew near and I stayed with her, feeding her soup flavored with rice and herbs brought to me by the healers. I was determined that she not die before her baby was fully grown, and I prayed for the miracle that she not die at all. I did all that lay in my power to help the miracle come about.

‘I have two requests,’ she told me. ‘The first is when my time comes to deliver this child, that you not send for Aaron.’

‘What?’ I exclaimed.

‘He is about the Lord’s work and I do not want to interrupt it. It is sacred.’

I protested. ‘He would want to make that choice. He would want to be here with you.’

‘No. You must promise me this. The work he does is more important than my life. Surely you must feel this when he is teaching the very people that you love.’

‘But, Leahla, does he not love you?’ Seriously, how could he put her in this condition and leave her?

‘You must understand. I want this child desperately. I want this child for all eternity and am willing to sacrifice my life to give it life and make it part of my family. Can you not see my determination?’

‘But…’

‘You do not approve of me. I will tell you another reason I do as I do. How could I live with myself if I did not offer my husband all the love I have in my heart when he comes home after serving the Lord as Aaron does? I have seen his sacrifices. What sort of a wife would I be if I did not love him in this way? What sort of family would we be? Do you begin to understand me?’

I marveled at her ability to sacrifice.

‘I do not wish to take Aaron away from his duties to his God. Instead, God has provided you to me.’

‘Certainly a poor second.’

‘You are not a poor second. You are a miracle. You are found. It is God’s will. Which leads me to my second request.’

I waited for her to go on.

She pointed to a covered basket in the corner. ‘Open that,’ she requested. ‘Then bring me the bundle wrapped in leather.’

I did as she asked.

Leahla opened it carefully and handed me a scroll. ‘Open it and read,’ she commanded.

It was a betrothal contract – for Aaron, signed in the year…the year that I left Zarahemla, in the old manner of counting years. I looked up at Leahla and she nodded her head. It was a legal document signed by his father, King Mosiah the Second. There was a blank place where I would have signed it had I stayed in Zarahemla! ‘What? Why? How did you come by this?’ I finally asked.

‘When I die,’ she began bravely, ‘I want you to sign this. I want him to have someone to come home to that loves him.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’ve been planning this out since I’ve been here, haven’t you?’

‘I planned it before you came.’

I turned away from her and walked about the room, a thousand questions banging against the walls of my mind.

‘I will not leave you until you sign this,’ Leahla stated. ‘My spirit will linger.’

‘You are going to haunt me like a ghost?’ I joked.

She was serious. ‘Yes.’

‘You can’t do that!’

Her eyes grew large. ‘I can and I will!’ she threatened.

She would.

‘Is it legal?’ I asked after a few paces. I saw that Leahla was pale now against the bedding after her effort to persuade me.

She whispered, ‘It is. After my death is confirmed with the authorities, then you may sign and date it.’

I came and knelt beside her persuasively. ‘Leahla, this is a preposterous conversation!’

I saw that she did not think it preposterous.

‘ What if Aaron does not agree to it?’ I reasoned.

She coughed, then whispered, ‘He will. I have written him a letter to go with it.’

‘But if he does not?’

‘Then you may burn the document, and nobody will know. But he will not object,’ she said as she shook her head.

I lowered my brow. ‘How can you know this?’

Leahla handed me the rest of the package which I opened – and gasped! It contained the shank of golden braid that I had left with Muloki to give to him. ‘How did you come by this?’ I asked her incredulously.

She smiled and said, ‘When we married, Aaron gave these into my keeping, with his heart, so that he would be totally loyal to me. Yet, these things he carried with him to the Land of Nephi, for fourteen years. They were his treasures.’

I could not speak and sat back on the floor.

To think that he had kept this with him through travel, and hardship and imprisonments, for fourteen years? How he must have loved me!

I had to ask. ‘Was he, was he looking for me there?’ I whispered.

‘Yes,’ Leahla responded.

In every village. In every family.