Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [119]
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Warren asked me again about my relationship with my mother. And when I answered, he reminded me that I needed to change my loyalties to my husband. “You need to make sure you are at home in the trailer, under your husband’s roof, at night,” he instructed. Clearly he intended to go to Uncle Fred about my absences at night. “You need to be very careful about what you do because you will lose your faith,” he warned. It was Warren’s way of telling me that my disobedience was leading me to apostasy. “You, like some of your family members, are a little spirited,” he admonished, locking eyes with me.
Turning toward Allen, he told him to have a “strong, firm hand” with me and remember he was a priesthood man. “Allen, you need to live up to your priesthood commitments, and you need to be careful how you conduct yourself.”
Upon hearing this, my ears perked up for the first time in the meeting. The significance of Warren’s warning Allen was not lost on either of us. From now on, any complaining that Allen did to Warren or Fred about me would be seen not just as my failure to obey but also as Allen’s failure to control me. If Allen could not enforce his authority over me, he might not be worthy to hold the priesthood.
Rising to his feet, Warren imparted his final words of encouragement. “You both need to remember to keep sweet and keep the spirit of God about you. This is both of your missions and your callings, and you need to do this so that you can grow in love and have a life together.”
Early that summer, in my attempts to gain more space from Allen, I accepted a job as a waitress at Mark Twain’s, the family-style FLDS restaurant just off the highway at the entrance to town. Mark Twain’s would supplement my already busy schedule working for Saladmaster and doing some part-time child care, and I started immediately. My niece Meg soon joined me there as a cook.
With Kassandra gone, in the months before I’d left for Canada I’d grown exceptionally close to Meg, who was the daughter of one of Mother Audrey’s daughters. Even though I was technically her aunt, I was only eighteen days older than she and we’d known each other our whole lives. We’d strengthened our friendship the months before I’d left for Bountiful, and we’d stayed in touch by phone during my visit with Teressa and her family. Meg knew how unhappy I was in my marriage. It was hard for her to imagine what it was like to have a husband at our age, but of all the teenagers I knew, she was one of the few who didn’t treat me like an outcast because I was married. Though she couldn’t understand what I was going through, she was there for me as a friend and confidante. My friendship with Meg was deep because we were the same age and curious about many of the same things. I was secretly envious of her lack of restrictions. She was free to enjoy her teenage years without the responsibility of a husband, a home, and bills, while I was struggling to make my way in this very adult world.
From the start I enjoyed the Mark Twain, and the clientele quickly came to like me. This job also allowed me to interact with a lot more kids my own age and encouraged me to participate in normal teenage activities that both the church and Allen would have forbidden if they had known. Some nights after work, I secretly joined Meg and some of the other employees in “the Sticks” area of the desert. There we would build a fire, turn on music, drink beer, and basically act like typical teenagers. In our culture this was terribly taboo and we were running the risk of a severe reprimand. We’d usually gather near the huge pale limestone boulders that, through some miracle of nature, had risen up from the red clay in various parts of the landscape. We’d sit for hours on those piles of rock talking and watching the sun set over the desert. I had never done anything like this before, and just being around kids my own age was a huge