Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (44 page)

Last Custody Case

B
efore Christmas vacation was over and my kids were back in school, I got sick. It felt like the flu on top of all the morning sickness I had ever had. I was so weak and disoriented that I could barely walk across the room. I was vomiting and running fevers.

It was almost impossible to marshal enough energy to cook for my family.

Betty decreed that her brothers and sisters could not help me. She insisted that since I’d taken them away from their father, I was responsible for all the work. My sickness was proof to her that God was answering Merril’s prayers. I think that her strategy was to make things so difficult for me that I would have no choice but to cave in and return to Merril.

I was sick for a month. There was no way I could keep up with the laundry. I still cooked simple things for Harrison but came to rely on prepared foods for everyone else. Taking my children to six different counseling appointments each week in addition to Harrison’s doctor and therapy visits kept me on the run. It was also becoming a full-time job staying on top of the paperwork required to keep our welfare checks coming.

I was sinking fast. Life on the outside was so hard.

I had started seeing a therapist myself after leaving the shelter: Larry Bill, who worked with domestic violence victims. We talked for a while about my history. I told him that everything would be a lot better if I could just shake this flu.

Larry looked at me. “Carolyn, you don’t have the flu. You have post-traumatic stress disorder.” I had never heard of PTSD before. He told me what it was. Physical and mental symptoms can develop that last for years. It’s common in combat veterans, survivors of sexual trauma and domestic violence, and anyone who has endured relentless stress or been through a natural catastrophe such as a hurricane, earthquake, or floods.

Larry asked me if I was having nightmares. I said they’d started the third day after I escaped and never stopped. They were often about Merril or Barbara or someone in the family attacking my children. Other times the focus was on my being forced to do something in the cult I didn’t want to do. Nightmares are a classic component of PTSD. Larry said it was a chronic condition that could be managed and treated but would never completely go away.

I felt blindsided. PTSD on top of everything else? How could I take care of everyone if I was sick? I asked him how I was supposed to cope.

He told me to stay as functional as possible. He couldn’t tell me when I would get better because every case was different. But he stressed that the more I surrendered to PTSD, the worse it would get. I had to fight this and it wouldn’t be easy, but he made it clear to me that he’d be by my side.

For six weeks I had been crawling to the bathroom to vomit. What kept me going was the thought that in a few more days I’d be better. Now I was being told I had a long-term condition with no end in sight.

My head was spinning as I walked to the parking lot. I tried to put the key in the ignition and was shaking so badly the keys dropped to the floor. I was coming undone. My biggest fear was that if Merril learned I had a mental disorder I would lose custody of my children.

I had barely been making it when I was well. Now this. Without my health I could lose everything. If I lost my children there would be no reason to remain on earth.

Then an image came back to me. I remembered being in the accident on Black Ridge, feeling frozen and close to death. I remembered being claimed by a fatigue so deep that I wanted to lie down in a snowdrift and sleep forever. What had kept me going then was that I knew if I did, I would never see Arthur again.

If I could find the strength then, I could find it again. Beneath everything, I still wanted to live.

I had to get hold of myself. I would do it five minutes at a time, fewer if necessary. The big picture was too scary. Minutes were not as bad.

I vowed to tell no one about the PTSD. No one. Everything I said to another person found its way back to Merril. I couldn’t risk him finding out I had PTSD.

A plan formed. I would get my children to school and ferry them to their appointments. If we all showed up for everything, no one would get suspicious. I could cook and clean in five-minute intervals, then rest.

I picked up my car key from the floor and turned on the ignition. It took several tries. I took a few more breaths and started the car.

As soon as I got home I started my five-minute plan. Cook for five minutes. Rest. Clean for five minutes. Stop. It was slow going, but when I went to bed that night I felt I had at least tried.

PTSD was a reality I could face five minutes at a time. But another reality slammed into me hard and fast: I was out of money. I learned that the Section 8 vouchers I needed for housing costs were now on an eighteen-month hold because of limited funding. I was out of cash. The money I had saved while I was living at Dan’s was gone. I knew if I went to him he would help me, but I hated asking him for everything I needed, and I didn’t want to run to him every month. I was determined to do everything possible before going to him. But I could not pay my utility bills and didn’t know what to do.

One morning after I dropped my children at school, Patrick and Andrew came right back out and said there was something for me in the office. The boys stayed with Harrison while I went in. Patty, a woman in the office who always gave Merrilee lots of hugs, handed me a card and said the children’s teachers wanted to do something special for me. I thanked her and asked her to thank the teachers. I walked to the van, card in hand.

Inside the card was close to two hundred dollars with a note from the teachers saying that they all admired my courage. Shaking with joy, I went right to the post office to mail my utility bill. The next hurdle was a notice from the welfare office that my case would be closed the next day unless I returned several forms to them within twenty-four hours. All the forms had to be signed and dated by someone at each of my children’s schools—all five of them.

A storm had moved into the valley and it was starting to snow on top of the few feet of snow we already had. I called the welfare office and said I had a handicapped child and a toddler and I couldn’t do this in twenty-four hours by myself. I asked for an extension. I was told there was no way. If I didn’t make the deadline, my case would be closed. Then I would have to reapply. I figured it would take months to get my benefits again.

The next day I cancelled every appointment I had and headed out into the snowstorm with Bryson, Harrison, and Harrison’s wheelchair to make my rounds. I was still struggling with PTSD. My five-minute plan wasn’t much help on a day like this.

Harrison’s immune system was compromised from his hormone therapy. I worried that he would get sick. It was blindingly cold. At each school I had to take the wheelchair out, set it up, settle Harrison into it and bundle him up, and then get Bryson from his car seat.

When I got to my brother’s to fax in the paperwork, I was shivering so much my teeth would not stop chattering. When I woke up the next morning I had a hard time breathing. I had a fever and knew I had pneumonia. I couldn’t get out of bed. LuAnne started taking care of Harrison once she realized how seriously sick I was. Betty even started making meals and doing some dishes.

For the first time, my kids were worried. By Monday morning, I was still burning up with fever. I was too sick to call anyone and too afraid that if I did, someone might find out about my PTSD. Merril was already accusing me of being mentally ill. I knew that some women who tried to flee polygamy ended up locked into mental institutions and had their children taken away from them. I would risk anything to avoid that fate.

I told my children I was too sick to take them to school. I didn’t even have the strength to call and cancel my appointments. Amazingly, Betty and LuAnne started bringing me tea. I was able to sip the tea, but I couldn’t eat.

Tuesday morning was no different. But Betty didn’t want to miss any more school. She was worried about keeping her grades up and called Mitzi, the PTA president who had taken Merrilee, Patrick, and Andrew under her wing.

Mitzi took the children to school and said she’d do so as long as I needed help. Then she made me a big batch of chicken soup. I tried to sip some every two hours. Mitzi also bought me some over-the-counter medicine and a vaporizer, all of which helped. By the time the weekend was over I knew I was strong enough to take my children back to school.

The next time Merril had visitation, he didn’t bring the children back. I called my attorney on Sunday night, and she called Rod Parker. He said Merril was too sick to drive. I knew this was a game. I was also told my father was too busy. When I called him he said he couldn’t bring the kids back that week and he was sorry. I didn’t believe him, but I let it go.

The next day I called the schools and explained why my children were absent. My van wasn’t in good enough shape to make the trip. Mitzi said she and her husband would drive down to Colorado City. I couldn’t thank her enough.

Merril went nuts when he found out Mitzi would be driving his children back to Salt Lake. I had called his bluff. Moments later, my father called. He said he’d drop everything and drive the children back. I told him to forget it. Merril had already broken the court order by not returning the kids on Sunday, so I’d made arrangements for their safe return.

Merril’s family went ballistic. No one knew who Mitzi was, and they tried to claim they had no way of knowing if the children would be safe with her. My father returned with the children after all. Mitzi and her husband had made the six-hundred-mile round-trip for nothing. But Merril never tried this trick again.

Word found its way back to me that Merril had married five more wives since I’d left. Each had been married to someone else until Warren Jeffs had ordered her to marry Merril Jessop. I knew that some of the families who had joined Merril’s had a history of physical and sexual abuse among their children.

I told my attorney that I didn’t feel safe sending Merrilee into that environment. She was too young and too vulnerable. I feared she’d be molested by one of the older boys that were now part of her “family.”

We moved to get the case back into court as soon as possible. Lisa agreed with me that the situation for Merrilee was too dangerous.

My children’s therapists were frustrated by Merril’s behavior. They were trying to help them heal, but after every visit to Colorado City they came back injured and lost ground. The violence was always reported to Merril’s attorney. Rodney Parker began pushing to keep the case out of court and got three postponements. When he tried for a fourth, my attorney objected and stood her ground. A date was set. Parker said he had a conflict, and another conference call was scheduled among the lawyers and judge. But Parker wasn’t in his office, so the judge said the date would stand: June 24, 2004.

With no hope of getting subsidized housing for at least eighteen months, I knew that all of my income was going to be used for rent. I started every month knowing I didn’t have any money to pay utilities or purchase anything except food.

Patrick was having a play at school and needed a sword. I promised him I would try my best to figure something out. But this was going to be hard to pull off. Patrick got more and more agitated as the days went by. After two weeks his counselor took me aside and said that the sword was a big emotional issue for him. The counselor said she felt that the sword would make Patrick feel more secure about his life and my ability to take care of him. I told her I didn’t know where to get one and didn’t have the money. She said I could pick up a sword at Wal-Mart for five dollars.

I had six dollars to my name. I’d been saving that for laundry soap, but now I realized the sword came first. We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home. We bought the sword. Patrick acted as though the weight of the world had disappeared from his little soul. It had been fun to buy it for him. But now what did I do for laundry detergent?

The next day, Connie, the homeless-shelter coordinator who’d helped register my children in school, stopped by to check on us. She brought along a box of laundry soap samples that she’d picked up from the shelter. “I knew with all your children you could probably use this.” Connie also gave me some gas vouchers. What a relief.

I could do my laundry, but I was still not going to make it through the month. Then Leenie called me and said a costume director from HBO was in town and was looking for someone who could help design clothes for the series
Big Love.
Leenie thought I could make some money by sewing at home. I leaped at the opportunity and got hired to sew several pairs of long underwear. I sewed like mad and finished the order in a few weeks. The job was a godsend. It gave me enough money to pay my utilities through the summer.

On the appointed day, I arrived at the courthouse at 9
A.M
. I was scared but also hopeful. Rod Parker was not going to be there and had arranged for a substitute attorney to take his place. The guardian ad litem was not there, either. But my attorney was, and the small courtroom was filled with my supporters. Merril looked a little taken aback. For once he didn’t act as though he was holding all the cards.

Lisa argued that Merril should be allowed to continue to see our children, but in Salt Lake City. She made a persuasive case for why it wasn’t good for the children to be forced to travel to Colorado City every two weeks. The fill-in for the guardian ad litem admitted she didn’t know much about the case but said she didn’t see why the children couldn’t travel back and forth.

Lisa was brilliantly prepared. She outlined in great detail the incident that had happened, the stress and anger the visits caused, and why this was damaging to the children.

When the judge finally issued his opinion, the courtroom fell still. Our lives were on the line. He spoke deliberately and in an even tone.

“While I believe it is important for the children involved to have a relationship with their father, I find there is enough evidence to support the need to have the visitation restricted to the Salt Lake City area.”