Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [130]
“What do you know about him?” I asked Meg as we drove through town in my truck.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, “he’s had a rough life. His mom died and growing into adulthood had been tough for him.”
I shook my head in quiet sadness. I thought of my love for my own mother—that desperate, clinging love that held us together. It was hard to imagine life without her, and I was sure that Lamont had suffered a great deal from the loss. Maybe wanting to protect Lamont’s privacy, and also probably because she didn’t know the whole story, Meg stopped there and we moved on to other topics.
Meg and I continued to spend hours driving around, talking about life, and avoiding our homes. One of my favorite things about my truck equipment was a tiny television with a built-in VCR I had bought in secret. In the summer months and into the early fall, Meg and I had rented movies or borrowed them from Meg’s older sister and driven out to the desert to watch them in the bed of the truck out under the stars. But winter’s biting winds prompted us to simply hook up the TV between us on the dashboard and watch the movies side by side in the truck cabin.
Despite the fun that I had with Meg, my fourth failed pregnancy brought a renewed sense of desperation. My sporadic appearances at the trailer became even less frequent. Allen didn’t like that I was away so much, but by that point there wasn’t much he could do about it. I had been treating him with disregard ever since he’d forced himself on me after a fireside get-together in the foothills of the Vermillion Cliffs.
Before that gathering, I hadn’t been spending much time with him, and I worried that I might get into trouble if I didn’t agree to join him. We’d roasted marshmallows and enjoyed a few hours of fun with members of Allen’s family and friends. When it began to grow dark, Allen asked me if I wanted to drive and talk for a while.
“Okay,” I said, a little reluctant, but knowing I still had a responsibility as his wife. We circled around until Allen stopped the truck at a field that had a scenic overview of the twin towns. In his awkward way, Allen was trying to alleviate some of the dissension between us. At one point, he asked me if I ever wanted to have children. I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t want to have children with him, but I knew he would view me as defiant if I told him the truth.
He opened the tailgate of the truck, and we sat with legs dangling, enjoying the twinkling lights of the sleeping towns and the sound of the crickets. Allen asked me why I was distant and hostile toward him. In the past, I had realized that my feelings didn’t matter, but in this moment, I summoned the courage to again tell him the truth he didn’t want to hear. Since my last miscarriage, the space I’d taken from Allen had allowed me to look at him and our relationship more closely. What I saw was that Allen and I were never supposed to be together, and it was never going to be anything other than what it was: a forced, ugly union. “You know, Allen, I just don’t trust you,” I said. “I just don’t love you and I don’t want to be here.”
I waited to hear Allen’s response, but there was none. A heavy silence fell between us as I blurted out what I had been holding in for so long. “Things you’ve done in the past have hurt me, and I just can’t trust you anymore,” I said. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
“Well, if you just have a baby with me, things will change. You’ll learn to love me,” Allen replied in a desperate tone.
“No, I won’t.” It worried me to see that my words were making Allen frustrated. He reminded me that my salvation depended on my obedience to not just him but the prophet.
“The prophet has put you here,” he reminded me. As I searched my mind for a response, I could feel Allen’s hand on the back of my neck and his wet lips coming for mine.
“Don’t do this,” I told him. I knew his pattern. A kiss was just step one for him. It always led to more, and I was unwilling