Stolen Innocence (47 page)

Getting out wasn’t just about starting a fresh routine, it was about establishing a totally new way of thinking. When you leave the FLDS, your whole foundation crumbles. You have to start from scratch and think about large, far-reaching questions, like What do I believe in? What about heaven? What are morals? What will I fight for? We had gained freedom and each other, but we had lost the ground beneath our feet. It made it even harder when our thoughts turned to the families we’d both lost. While I was now without my mom and sisters, Lamont too had lost his family.

Despite everything that had happened to me, I continued to talk to God as if he were my friend, and I begged him to give me the strength to find myself. I wanted to believe that God loved me, even though I had made such drastic changes and abandoned the FLDS. Still, I wasn’t sure if he would listen to me. Years and years of intense religious conditioning led me to second-guess everything about my new life. It was truly a godsend when my friend Natalie’s older sister, Sarah, turned up at my front door in Hurricane one afternoon with a boxful of maternity clothes and the new mother’s “bible,”
What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
I’d run into Sarah at a party in the weeks before I’d left Short Creek and was surprised to learn she’d left the FLDS after meeting a local boy and falling in love. During our conversation, it became apparent that she was terribly lonely as she tried to navigate her strange new surroundings and the joys and worries of a first pregnancy with no family around to support her. Knowing that I was in her shoes, she’d come to impart friendship and her knowledge on me. I was extremely grateful, and Sarah quickly became my lifeline. I’d never imagined just how difficult my transition would be, and even now, I look back with wonderment at how I managed.

W
e’d been out just about three weeks when Dad phoned to say that he was going to be in Hurricane and wanted to meet for dinner. After finding my note on the bed that night, he’d called my cell phone a few times to check in and make sure I was okay. While I’d told him where Lamont and I were living, I hadn’t told him that I was pregnant. I’d been able to conceal my pregnancy straight through my last days in the FLDS, but in early December I suddenly popped, and now I was nervous about how he would react. Still, I was hungry for any family and was looking forward to seeing him.

He was seated at a far table at J.B.’s restaurant when Lamont and I walked through the door. Lamont panicked as we approached, seeing my Dad sternly looking us up and down. He’d never met Lamont, and Lamont was worried about how my father would react to the man who’d taken his daughter from the FLDS and was expecting a baby with her.

When we reached the table, Dad stood up, pointed his large, tanned finger at Lamont, and said, “I only have one thing to say to you.”

Lamont recoiled in fear, waiting to be told off.

Holding my breath, I watched as Dad’s scowl softened and he declared, “I’m getting the check for dinner.” For a moment we both stood there not sure if we had heard right, but then Dad broke into a grin and gathered me in a big bear hug. His words put us at ease, and the rest of the meal was lively and pleasant. When we were ready to say our good-byes, we stood up and Dad embraced each of us.

“I don’t care what your decision is, Elissa. I’m just glad that you are no longer with Allen.” To experience this kind of love and approval from a parent, with no questions asked and no judgments made, was invigorating. It was the first time in my life that I’d made a weighty decision on my own and receive approval for it. All that mattered to him was my happiness. I knew that his allegiance still lay in the priesthood, but I was comforted that he was not going to abandon me just because I had finally chosen for myself.

In those early weeks, Lamont also tried to reach out to his family. Eventually, he hunted his grandfather down and got him to agree to meet for dinner. The two of them went to an Applebee’s in St. George to eat and talk about everything that had transpired. Lamont was troubled by the way that George appeared a mere shell of his former self. Having lived as a well-respected patriarch for much of his adult life, he’d now been forced to take a room in a home shared by several other men. Isolated from everyone he knew and loved, he appeared to have been doing a lot of internal searching to try and determine where he’d gone wrong and why he’d been removed from the church.

“Lamont,” George said, his face strained by grief, “Leroy S. Johnson once told me there are only two things a man can do to lose his priesthood. One is adultery; the other betrayal of God. I did neither of these things, so I just don’t understand what it could be.” His voice broke as he held back tears.

Seeing this old man who had once been a strong and influential figure reduced to a lonely creature was difficult for Lamont, but it reinforced to us how Warren’s rule had created victims of all ages and sexes. His grandfather was just one more example of the pain that had been inflicted in the name of God.

T
hat December, I celebrated my first-ever Christmas in Oregon with Kassandra. Craig, Justin, and Caleb had recently moved to Hawaii, and though she and Ryan were preparing for a move to Idaho, Kassandra was still on the West Coast. I arrived in Portland alone in the second week of December. Because we couldn’t afford to have Lamont miss even an hour of work, the plan was for him to meet me there on Christmas Eve.

From the moment I arrived, Kassandra offered me a great deal of relief. We talked about our experiences leaving the FLDS, and she assured me that everything was going to work out. We also talked about Mom and the few telephone conversations that we’d each had with her since I left. Mom had become more bold in speaking to her kids on the outside. She’d even taken calls from Craig, and my brother had opened a dialogue with her that included some talk about religion. We’d all grown hopeful when Mom raised questions and didn’t immediately dismiss Craig’s thought-provoking conversations. She’d even wondered aloud about some of the things that had been going on in Short Creek and why everything had become so secretive. “It just doesn’t feel right,” Mom had said during one call with me, but our conversation was too short to delve any deeper.

It had been particularly painful speaking with Ally and Sherrie. My heart broke when Ally asked that I come and get her. While Sherrie was the older of the two girls, she was also more compliant, much like our sister Michelle. Ally was more like me, stubborn and sassy, and at just eleven years of age, she was not afraid to express her desire to leave Short Creek right in front of Mom. “Please, come and get me,” she’d begged, and I wanted nothing more than to go and pick her up that minute.

Her longing to be rescued weighed heavily on me. Mom later asked that Kassandra and I “encourage Ally to stay.” After hearing those glimmers of doubt in Mom’s voice a few weeks earlier, we found it hard to accept that she remained stuck in the FLDS mindset. I would have honored Ally’s request to leave in a heartbeat, but I knew that it was too risky at this point. I was six months pregnant and barely scraping together enough money to get by each month. As much as it pained me to admit it, there was no way that Lamont and I could support an eleven-year-old girl. I thoroughly intended to go back in and get them as soon as possible, not realizing the chance would never come.

Kassandra and I commiserated about how frustrating it was not to be able to help more. She had already been out for nearly two years and was much further along in the process that I was just beginning. As a result, she had begun to entertain thoughts of involving law enforcement, an idea that intimidated me. I’d only been out for six weeks and still held my deep-rooted fear of police and all government officials.

While thoughts of Mom and the girls preoccupied me in Oregon, I was excited to be with family for my first Christmas. And now that I was on the outside, Kassandra was eager to help me through my transformation. Our first stop was to the mall to get my hair cut. I had agreed to take off five inches, but Kassandra must have secretly told the stylist to bring it up over my waistline. I watched nervously as she pulled it back in her hands and was shocked when she cut off seventeen inches of my flaxen locks.

“Do you want to donate it or save it?” she asked me.

I was too traumatized to speak. It needed to come off, but it was hard to part with. Back in Short Creek, my hair had been my one beauty accessory, and all my life I had been taught to value it. Still, I realized I needed the haircut to feel more “normal.”

As Christmas neared, Kassandra and I began talking about the tree we would have. When the time came, we scoured the nursery forever, looking for the “perfect” one. It had to be the right height, with no holes, and it had to smell good. The poor man tending to us grew exhausted from cutting away the mesh bundling and displaying our various choices as we scrutinized each tree carefully. “This is my very first Christmas,” I said, smiling apologetically, and any hint of sourness on his face dissolved.

After lugging our tree home, we stayed up until 3
A.M.
, laughing, talking, decorating, and sipping hot chocolate. I stood back, admiring our creation. Growing up in Salt Lake, we’d drive past outsiders’ houses and see their trees glistening through their living room windows. Now I was no longer seeing it from a distance. Christmas had come into my life, and I felt myself beginning to enjoy my new world for the first time.

As planned, Lamont arrived on Christmas Eve, and I was overjoyed to see him. That night it was difficult to fall asleep, and in the morning my anticipation got the better of me. I was probably the first “kid” in America awake that day, out of bed by 5:00
A.M.
and hoping someone else would soon join me. When no one did, I began preparing a huge breakfast, desperate to get the festivities started. If they smell it, they’ll wake up, I reasoned, but by 7:00
A.M.
, I was still waiting. Finally I ran in to wake up Lamont. “It’s Christmas morning!” I announced. “It’s time to open the presents.”

Lamont loved the maroon-and-white blanket I had made for him. And he burst into laughter as I squealed aloud tearing at the wrapping paper of the digital camera he’d put under the tree for me.

We had a wonderful celebration and stayed in Oregon to ring in the New Year with Kassandra and Ryan. For the first time since I could remember, I celebrated the coming New Year without fear that the world was going to end. Instead I watched the ball drop in Times Square on Kassandra’s twenty-five-inch TV and looked forward to 2005 with the hope that it would bring bigger and better things into our lives.

O
ur return to Hurricane in early January was dampened by the discovery that a letter I’d written to Ally had been returned to me. I tried to call Mom, but there was no answer on her private line. Days passed and my repeated calls found no one home. Reluctantly, I phoned the main house at Fred’s. They told me that Mom and the girls were not there, but that was as much information as I could glean. Finally, I was told that Mother Sharon was gone and she was not coming back. The news sent me into a tailspin, and I immediately reached out to the family for help.

Kassandra and Craig decided it was time to involve law enforcement. We all had worried that Mom’s phone at Uncle Fred’s house might have been monitored and her conversations with her children overheard. Now we feared they had moved Mom to keep her from us and hold onto future brides in Sherrie and Ally. Knowing that the Colorado City Police Department would offer no help, Kassandra phoned the neighboring Washington County Police, who convinced her to file a missing-persons report on Mom and both of my sisters. Craig, meanwhile, called prominent church elders trying to find Mom. His interest caused a stir in Short Creek, with followers complaining that the Walls were causing trouble once again.

While we all worried about Mom, life marched forward, and on February 18, 2005, I was in labor. That day, Kassandra came down to St. George with her young son to lend a hand and fill the role my mother no longer could. Like every young girl, I had always imagined the birth of my first child with my mother by my side, but Kassandra did a terrific job, and she was there to welcome my son, Tyler, into the world.

Everything changed for me the moment I held my son in my arms. Looking at Tyler’s little face, I was in awe of him. He didn’t belong to the prophet or the priesthood. He was mine, and no one could take him from me or make me abandon him. Up until the minute I saw him, I hadn’t even imagined how much I could love this baby, and I could tell that Lamont shared my sentiments. I knew how much he wanted to be a father, and seeing him holding our child in his arms was among the happiest moments of my life. He was entranced, staring joyfully into our little boy’s blue eyes. In that moment I realized that I was finally free. Free to make my own choices, free to send my child to school, and to college, and to let him experience all the world had to offer us. It didn’t matter anymore that a single man had condemned me to hell or that the people I had known and loved upheld his words. I made a deal with God and myself that I would leave that judgment up to him. I knew that he would never send this precious baby to me if he felt I was a sinner.

Tyler was less than a month old when I got news that Uncle Fred had died on March 15 and a funeral was being held in Hildale later that week. There was still little news about Fred’s disappearance, and no one seemed to know the truth about where he had been. I was told that he was in Colorado when he died, and I started to wonder if perhaps Mom was there as well.

That same day, my phone rang. It was Kassandra telling me to hurry down to the police station in Colorado City. “They’re going to clear up Mom’s missing-persons report,” my sister blurted into the phone. “Mom’s going down to the police station, and you’ve got to get there to meet her.”

Bundling up the baby, I jumped into my car and headed for Highway 59 into Short Creek. I hadn’t been back there since my departure the previous November, and I was a petrified about how I would be received. But I was desperate to see Mom and confirm that she was okay. I arrived to find that she’d already been there and gone. Filled with disappointment, I was walking back outside to my car when my cell phone rang. It was Mom.