Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [105]
Several days after Issac’s testimony, Kassandra called me to ask if I could give her a hand moving some of her things from the prophet’s home. She said she was getting married and she wanted to make sure that she was ready when her day arrived. The news came as a surprise, but she assured me that her marriage would not be to Warren.
“Who are you marrying?” I asked, confused yet intrigued.
“I can’t really talk about that now,” Kassandra replied with an air of mystery. She just told me that she needed to be prepared. “I’ve seen some of the other girls married, and if they don’t have their stuff together, then they don’t get to take it with them.”
Eager to help, I drove over to Uncle Rulon’s and met Kassandra outside. Her room was on the lower level, with a door just down the hall that led out to the back of the compound. I couldn’t understand why she was in such a rush, or why she kept looking both ways before stepping out into the hallway. “Let’s hurry. Get it out,” she implored, referring to the furnishings we were carrying. She had me nearly sprinting from the house with each trip we made to my Ford Ranger truck. Finally we headed to my trailer. Kassandra wanted to store her belongings in our shed. I didn’t really think much of it, and more than anything else, I was glad that her life was taking this enlivening turn.
A few days later, on November 2, I arrived home from work to find an unfamiliar truck parked on the gravel drive in front of my trailer. Suddenly, I saw Kassandra emerging from the storage shed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised to see her so late in the day.
“I’m just coming to get some of my stuff.”
“Are you getting married?” I inquired.
“Not yet, but I will soon.”
“Well, whose truck is that?”
A slight breeze swept through the trailer park and Kassandra hesitated, appearing nervous. “I don’t know. I got dropped off,” she said. “It was here when I arrived.”
It didn’t make sense that she would move her things without a vehicle. I could tell that something wasn’t right, and I attempted to follow Kassandra back into the storage shed, but she prevented me from entering. “What’s going on?” I asked her with a flare of frustration.
She was growing visibly anxious. As I pressed her for details, Ryan Musser emerged from the shed, and in a flash everything came together.
“We’re leaving,” Kassandra announced.
Her statement shook me to the core. My heart sank and I started to cry. “You lied to me.”
“I had to get you to help me,” Kassandra said.
“You used me!” I shouted. “How can you do this? How can you leave Mom and the girls? How can you leave us here?”
For weeks, Kassandra had been borrowing my cell phone and my truck. I never asked her any questions. But now, faced with news that she was leaving the community, I was angry over the deception and terrified that I would never see her again. Aside from Mother and my two young sisters, she was all I had left. As members of the prophet’s family, Rachel and Michelle were all but removed from my daily existence. My contact with both of them rarely went beyond the superficial “Hello, how are you? I love you.” Without Kassandra, I’d be completely lost. She had become my lifeline and one of my greatest reliefs from my problems with Allen.
“You are horrible for taking her away,” I declared to Ryan.
At sixteen, I was too young and faithful to understand why she was doing this, and I believed that she was making a big mistake. Sensing that I was going to try to stop her, Kassandra reached out and grabbed my cell phone and car keys.
“What are you doing?” I said in desperation. I wasn’t going to let her go without a fight, and she knew it. I wanted to call Mom to see if she could talk her out of it, and she refused to return my phone and keys until she and Ryan were safely on their way. I stood in tears as they finished packing up and, over my continuous protests and sobs, started up the engine.
“Please stay,” I begged. “You can’t leave us. Don’t just abandon everything.”
I knew that