Down from the Mountain (20 page)

August

Thirty-Two

Chicago

To: [email protected]

Hi Rachel,

I’m glad you’re still going by Rachel. It’s perfect for you. I agree that since Ezekiel let you pick it yourself, it truly belongs to you, not him.

Thanks for your call. I’m so happy you’ll try to come for Christmas. Dad will pay for your ticket, of course. And Trevor’s too, if he can make it. I really hope you’ll both come. I have so much to talk to you about. All that time when we had to be careful with our words, and now we can finally talk about anything.

At least we both have email addresses and our own computers. Dad got me a laptop right after I moved here and helped me get into a class so I could navigate better.

I have more freedom than I ever had at Righteous Path, but sometimes Dad and I argue because he wants to “be a Dad” and give me all these restrictions. But I’m done with restrictions and I just want to explore everything. I feel more like an adult than a child. So we butt heads a lot.

Still, Dad is exactly like I remember him from when I was little—warm and protective. He puts me first and spoils me with compliments and affection. Sometimes it’s as if I never spent a day away from him. At those times he’s my daddy and I’m his little girl.

One thing Dad is pretty open about is clothing. He doesn’t mind the idea of me wearing shorts or even a bathing suit for swimming. What kind of clothes are you wearing these days? Do you ever wear shorts? I’m not ready yet. Every time I hold up a pair, my cheeks get hot and I hear Ezekiel calling me a whore.

I’d love to fit in better, but whenever I go shopping, I end up buying longish skirts and modest tops that make me look dowdy and old.

How do you like working as a receptionist? Are the doctors you’re working for nice? It must be amazing to get a paycheck every week and know exactly what it will be. I hope it’s enough money so you can have all the food you want and some for clothes too.

Did I tell you that our house in Hyde Park is only four blocks from the building at University of Chicago where Dad teaches? He walks or bikes to work every day. We are also only two blocks from the home we lived in before Mother and Dad got divorced. It’s so easy to get around in Chicago with buses and trains and cabs. Dad only drives a couple of times a week. Can you believe that after all those trips up and down the mountain, I won’t be eligible for a license for another year?

You wouldn’t believe all the studying I’m doing—or maybe you would. I had to take these tests—placement tests—two weeks after I returned to Chicago. It was crushing to find out how far behind I am in every subject. But Dad and the counselor said that the tests don’t show how smart I am. They only show what I’ve had the opportunity to learn. Which isn’t much.

So I’m working with a very smart tutor to catch up. And I love every minute of the tutoring.

I want to go to a regular school and be a regular kid. But it looks like that’s going to take some time.

I still haven’t heard from Annie or Jacob, but I sent my address to their social workers a long time ago. Maybe they don’t want to communicate.

I talked to Trevor, though. Dad thinks Trevor is wonderful because of how he helped me during my last months at Righteous Path. He’s really looking forward to both of you joining us for Christmas.

Write back—and please come if you can.

Lily

August 22

Dear Lily,

Thanks for making sure my social worker had your address. I don’t use computers so I’m sending this the slow way.

I’m living with Mother Helen and most of the other mothers and Annie. We rented a huge house in Boulder so we could stay together. I was in juvenile hall for the longest month of my life. It’s not hard to see most of those kids as the heathens Ezekiel said they were. Anyway, I’m on probation for two years because of shooting at you. But that’s better than Ezekiel. He’s still in jail and his trial isn’t for months. I hear he could be locked up for a long time.

It’s hard to say this but I really don’t want to write to you right now. I’m confused about so many things, and hearing from you is too hard. We’ll probably see each other sometime—maybe at Ezekiel’s trial. My social worker said we both may have to testify, so who knows?

One good thing I can tell you is that I got new teeth. I got this health card that pays for those kinds of things. It makes a huge difference in how I look and feel.

Also, Annie is getting treatment for her asthma and is doing better, but she still thinks she may be committing a sin by using modern medicine.

If I don’t see you again, I hope you have a good life.

Jacob

November

Thirty-Three

To: [email protected]

Hi Lily, Trevor and I made plane reservations to visit you at Christmas. We’ve been hanging out sometimes and decided to travel together. That way your dad won’t have to make two trips to the airport.

I’m excited about seeing you and seeing Chicago too. I’ve never been there. One thing I want to try is Chicago pizza. I hear it’s wonderful!

To: [email protected]

Yes, Rachel, Chicago pizza is wonderful. If I could, I’d eat it every day. Chicago hot dogs are terrific too. When I study at the campus library, every couple of hours a hot dog truck stops outside and the owner rings a bell. The library practically empties out with people lining up to get their Chicago-style dogs.

Only three weeks till I see you. Thanks so much for coming. Think warm clothes because winter is cold here.

I grab my hat, check the pockets of my thermal jacket to make sure my mittens are inside, and grab my backpack.

“Bye, Dad,” I yell up the stairs. “See you this afternoon.”

“Wait a second.”

I know what happens next. Sure enough, he bounds down the stairs, wraps me in a teddy-bear hug, and gives me a kiss that smells like aftershave. I roll my eyes to remind him that I’m not a little kid, but secretly I love Dad’s hugs. We owe each other so many from all those lost years.

He inspects me up and down. “You look properly dressed to deal with a Windy City winter, but where’s your scarf?” He reaches in the closet and pulls out my purple scarf. I wrap it around my neck. I look like a grape because my coat and gloves are purple too. I love it.

“Off to school,” he says. “Don’t be late.” I wave and fly out the door.

I’m not really going to school. I’m going to see my tutor. Daddy’s helping me get involved with other things so I’ll meet other kids. So far I have gymnastics and a choir group.

On my way to Mrs. Paul’s, I pass my old house. It’s red brick like most of the houses in the neighborhood. If I look at it, I get a lump in my throat. If I don’t look, it’s like I’m not squarely facing my life, like Dr. Jack suggests. Today I don’t hurry past it or pretend it’s not there. I stop and look at it. I figure that if I force myself to face it, maybe it will stop hurting so much every time I pass it.

The wooden swing on the porch rocks back and forth in the wind. When I was four,I used to sit on that swing for hours and watch for Daddy to come back. Now I think of Mother. I miss her. But I’m angry too. She lied to me about Dad when she said he never wrote or called. And I still have so many questions that, now, she’ll never be able to answer. Why did she want to keep me from Dad? Why did she join Righteous Path to begin with? I know she really loved Ezekiel. I could see it in her eyes and how happy she seemed when she was called to his trailer for the night. But was joining Righteous Path also a way to hide me from my dad?

Dad says she was all alone in the world except for me. Her parents died before he ever met her and the only friends she had were the friends she made through his teaching job, and they stopped being friends after the divorce. He says that she was perfect prey for someone like Ezekiel.

But I didn’t choose Righteous Path. And I can’t help wondering how my life would be different if none of this had happened. I imagine my family—there’s been no divorce and we still live in my childhood home. But that doesn’t work because even in my imagination my parents just fight.

I picture them divorced. I picture myself having regular visits with Dad. He buys me clothes and jewelry and any book I want to read. He thinks it’s fine, not evil, for me to have nice things. He takes me to Disneyland and on ski trips. He doesn’t go to China for a sabbatical. Instead he takes me to China for a whole month one summer.

I imagine I wear normal clothes and am popular at school. I might be involved in theater and gymnastics, and I don’t know what else.

In this alternate version of my life, Mother and I are close. We talk about everything. I even tell her when a boy kisses me. She takes me to see the ocean and when she sees Dad, she’s friendly.

I ask Dad to imagine it too. But mostly it makes him angry. Sometimes he slams his fist on the table and yells, “She had no right to do this to you, or to me! It will take you years to recover from all you’ve been through, and you’ll never get your childhood back.”

I try to reassure him that I’m fine. Mostly I’m just happy to have the chance to live in the world I was taught to fear. I see some of the evil Ezekiel claimed was rampant here, but I also see lots of good, loving people.

Sometimes Dad asks me questions for hours, wanting to know every detail about life in the compound. But he seems to do this to torture himself. The questioning always ends with him irate over the injustices done to both of us. The first time he did that, I started shaking.

He stopped immediately. “Are you cold?”

I shook my head. He looked concerned and calmed down right away.

But now I
am
cold. I look at my watch. I’m already ten minutes late for tutoring and have two blocks to go. It was worth it. I faced down my old house, and I hope that walking past it will be easier now.

I start to walk faster, not just because I’m late but because my feet are getting cold and I need to warm them up. In the next block a huge dog almost runs me down. An elderly man stands on his porch in pajamas and calls Buster home. Buster stops, looks at his owner, and continues running in the opposite direction. He seems to think it’s a fun game.

“God damn it!” the man yells.

I instantly stiffen and the word “heathen” fills my mind.

It’s happened like this before. Someone says or does something wrong according to Righteous Path, and it stops me cold. In that moment it’s like I’m trapped in the midst of evil. I want to run and purify myself with a hot bath.

But I’m getting better. Before when these things happened, I thought I was wrong to be here, maybe a mistake that I left Righteous Path. At first, an incident like this could send me into a swirl of doubt for days. But now I pull out of it more and more quickly. I let go of the extremes—saved or heathen, good or evil, right or wrong—and realize that there are many different truths. The guy may not think his words are wrong. He may not even believe in God. It doesn’t mean he’s evil or condemned.

I follow the dog with my eyes and crouch into a near-kneeling position.

“Buster. Here, Buster.” It’s a trick I learned with the dogs Righteous Path had in Arizona. Buster bounces over to me and covers my face with slobbery licks. I pet him, grab his collar, and walk him back to the house. The owner is all smiles. He thanks me over and over. But I have to rush now, so I’m not much later for my appointment.

While I’m figuring out my own beliefs, Dr. Jack suggested I create a space inside my head where I can shelve things I don’t understand yet. I can take the things out later, one by one, when I have more information.

Those shelves are getting pretty full.

As I hurry down the sidewalk, I think about my changing beliefs. Now I take a big breath and run to the corner. As soon as I turn right, I see the house that belongs to my tutor and bolt to the door as fast as I can. Mrs. Paul greets me with a smile and a cup of hot chocolate. I slip out of my outer clothes, pull the books and assignments from my backpack, and line them up on my desk in the order I’ll need them. I relax, sitting back in my chair with my hot cocoa and purple pen.

“I’m ready, Mrs. Paul.”

And I am.

Acknowledgments

It takes a village to get me through writing a book …

Thanks to Pam, Jamie, Georgia, Judy and Ann, the members of my wonderful critique group. They’ve read a lot of versions of this and kept me going.

Thank you to Minju Chang, my agent, who patiently took on the challenge of working with me on two versions of this book, and to Kendra Marcus, who brought me on board at Book Stop Literary Agency and who always showed enthusiasm about this book.

A big thanks goes to my editor, Wendy McClure from Albert Whitman and Company, whose astute observations and clear understanding of the novel helped me elevate it to a new level. And she’s a joy to work with.

I want to thank my mother. An author and columnist, she’s always been my touchstone. She’s nurtured my love of writing from the time I could first hold a pencil and is usually my first reader.

And I want to thank my sister, Kris. An author as well, she’s unflinchingly supportive and determined.

Note

While Righteous Path is a fictional cult, experts estimate that as many as 5,000 cults may exist in the United States alone. Many are religious fringe groups that take issue with at least one basic tenet of organized religion. A religious cult is typically led by a single individual who sees himself (or occasionally herself) as God or as a prophet graced with an inside channel to God. He believes, therefore, that he’s privy to the truth of who God is and what God wants from each of us. Salvation is often the reward for obedience to the leader.

The term “cult” is a pejorative one, based on media accounts of cults whose members have suffered major consequences—even death—by following the commands of their leaders. In
Down from the Mountain
, Ezekiel refers to one such tragedy as a cautionary tale. In 1993, during a stand-off with federal agents, eighty-three members of a group known as the Branch Dravidians burned to death in a compound near Waco, Texas. Among the dead were scores of children along with the group’s leader, David Koresh. The cause of the fire remains unclear, but surviving Branch Dravidians claim it was set by government officials. This incident is Ezekiel’s justification for why every member of Righteous Path must learn to shoot a gun.

People often wonder why followers don’t just leave a cult when they want to get out. But there are numerous psychological barriers—mind control, attacks on self-esteem, hunger and exhaustion, fear of retribution or hell—that make it very difficult for someone to simply walk away. Additionally, cults are often geographically isolated and members may have cut off all ties to family and friends. It’s not unusual for followers to feel deep loyalty to the leader and to give up their money, property and possessions as a sign of faith. There may also be rules and restrictions that followers must break in order to leave. Often, getting out of a cult requires escaping from it.

Recovery can be a long, difficult process. When I started a psychotherapy practice in Denver many years ago, I met a man who was involved in de-programming. This sometimes involved kidnapping a participant in a cult and locking them up until the de-programmer could “undo” the damage brainwashing had done to the member. That seemed counter-intuitive to me, but it jump-started my interest in religious cults and I proceeded to read whatever I could find on the subject.

My interest turned out to be helpful when a few years later I worked with a client who was actively involved in a cult and would find ways to come and see me. Soon after that I had occasion to work with other clients who had left dangerous cults and were working to recover their identities, self-esteem, and confidence in their capacity to make decisions. For some people the wounds were on all levels—emotional, social, sexual and spiritual. But they all rallied and became stronger from their experiences.

I write more about religious cults on my website: elizabethfixmer.com