Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [122]
With the baby safely delivered, Kassandra began to open up more about her situation. She was living in Oregon near my brother Craig, who by then had taken both Justin and later Caleb under his wing. In a follow-up call in September, Kassandra expressed an interest in becoming a sales representative for Saladmaster because she needed money and knew how lucrative the business had been for me. When I spoke to my boss in Colorado City about bringing Kassandra on board, she saw a company benefit, and even though she was FLDS, she was eager for me to fly out and sign Kassandra on. She would receive a commission from Kassandra’s sales, and she provided me with the pots and pans that Kassandra would need to get started.
The only problem was Allen. Since our meeting with Warren, little in our routine had changed. I continued to split my nights between Uncle Fred’s and our trailer, but the nights out with Meg had led me to find a new bedroom: my truck. It had begun during the warm nights of the summer, when it made sense to sleep in my truck rather than going home to Allen. But as the season moved into fall, I was not eager to give up my new refuge and I was still spending a couple of nights there.
I’d wait until it was late and then park in a quiet spot up by the reservoir above the twin towns where my mother and I liked to go walking. Sometimes I’d be startled awake by a knock on my window, or the beam of a flashlight being shone in my face by a Colorado City police officer. While the police appeared to be in the business of strictly enforcing our religious laws, crimes against children seemed to go uninvestigated and unpunished. To my amazement, these policemen never seemed alarmed to see a teenage girl sleeping alone in her truck. Finding me there night after night never prompted any questions. There was never an investigation into the possibility of trouble or abuse. I was simply ordered to go home, precisely the place I was trying to escape.
When I approached Allen about going to Oregon, I didn’t ask for his permission; instead I just told him that this trip was essential for my job. While he was reluctant to have me leave, he was scared of what Uncle Warren would do to him if he explained the truth. Ever since our meeting with Warren in June, he had been hesitant to complain about me. Besides, Warren was scarcely around in those days, as his trend of being strangely absent from Short Creek had continued.
If Allen had made this a big issue, I would have had no choice but to stay. Even though I was testing my limits, defying him on this would have been too disobedient. It had been less than a year earlier when his refusal to allow me to go to Canada had led us to a large-scale confrontation involving the prophet. Although staying with my apostate sister was far more unacceptable behavior on my part, Allen didn’t seem to have the stomach for another protracted fight. In the end, he said that I could go.
With $2,500 in the bank from months at my various jobs, I was able to buy my own plane ticket, but shortly before I left in early October, I discovered something that was becoming all too regular: I was pregnant again. Though my stays in Allen’s bed were getting more infrequent, when I was there he would often push me into having sex. Once more, I was unwilling to tell Allen. Not only would he make me stay, he would blame me if something happened to the child. So I kept it to myself.
On the day of my flight, my boss drove me to the airport in Las Vegas, where I boarded a plane for Portland. As a youngster I’d flown a handful of times, but this was the first time I was completely on my own. When I landed in Oregon, I leapt from the plane and began running through the airport to find Kassandra. I nearly tripped over the young