Free Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage by Kody Brown, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown, Robyn Brown Page B

past this man on my way to the bathroom. He was sitting with a group of women. In my bitterness at my own emotional vulnerability, I thought, He is probably an idiot . I dismissed the whole encounter entirely.
    A month later I visited Reba again. On the afternoon I was getting ready to leave, she had a group of friends over at her house. While I was standing on her front lawn, packing the kids into the car to head home, the same man I’d locked eyes with in church drove up in a white convertible. There was a woman riding in the passenger seat. The man stopped the car and started talking to my cousin. It was like a party exploded out of that car—he was so dynamic and full of energy.
    Reba introduced me to Kody Brown and his wife Meri. I fought to suppress the memory of that electric sensation that I’d felt in church a month earlier. She-Rah was screaming at me from inside my head, warning me to not even look at Kody. It was difficult to ignore him—he was so animated and loud—but I did. I focused on Meri instead. She was sweet and engaging.
    Eventually Kody noticed that I wasn’t part of the small crowd that had gathered around him. So he turned to me and said, “And who is your husband?”
    “I don’t have one,” I said.
    Then he teased me about marrying me off to one of the guys sitting around on my cousin’s lawn.
    I thought nothing of it as I drove off. I imagined that somewhere down the line I might become friends with Meri. But that was as far as my thinking went concerning the Browns.
    A few weeks later, my mother started bugging me about attending a church dance back in Lehi. I had no interest in going. I was embarrassed about showing my face as a single woman again, a divorcée. After all, everybody knew my story. I had been married to the son of a very prominent family, so my dirty laundry was public knowledge. It made me uncomfortable. But my mother insisted that I “get my scent out there.” I agreed to go to the dance, but only to escort my brother and sister, who needed a social outlet.
    When I got to the dance, I felt like an idiot. But my mother was right, at least in part. I needed to put my face out there and show people that I wasn’t ashamed. I was validated in the breakup of my marriage and had nothing to hide.
    At the dance, I ran into Meri. She immediately rushed over and starting talking to me. She was so friendly and sweet.
    “Thank you so much for talking to me,” I said. “I feel like such an idiot right now. It’s so nice of you to think of me.” After a while, Meri returned to Kody and their friends.
    When the second to last song of the night came on, Kody asked me to dance. I was shocked. I remember thinking that Meri must have taken pity on me and made her husband dance with me. I felt like a complete loser, but I let Kody have his pity dance, and I thought it was kind of Meri to send him over.
    When Kody and I started dancing, we were immediately at ease with each other. I felt relaxed around him. Kody was easy to talk to. Eventually we stopped dancing and stood chatting in the middle of the dance floor. During that song and the next, we opened up to each other like it was the most natural thing in theworld. I forgot about the dance, the hall, and all of the people around us. For ten minutes, it felt as if Kody and I were the only people in the world.
    All of a sudden Kody said, “Will you excuse me, please?” They were saying a prayer to finish the dance and I hadn’t even noticed. I’d completely lost track of time and place. It was as if Kody and I had escaped to an island together. I’d been so involved in our conversation that I’d forgotten where we were.
    After the prayer, Kody and Meri came up to my sister and me and started talking. The four of us talked until they kicked us out of the hall. Then we stood on the steps in the dark of the building and talked until two in the morning.
    I was curious about Meri and wanted to get to know her better, but she was