Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [131]
“Well, you are my wife, and I am your priesthood head,” he snapped back.
As I felt his hands move to my shoulders, I issued another warning. “Don’t do this,” I said. We were like two armies coming to battle, and I didn’t want to give in. “If you do this, you will pay the consequences, and things will never be the same.”
I tried to rise to my feet, but his strong grip was pushing me back into the camper shell. “We just need to have children and you’ll feel different” were the last words I heard from his lips. Once again, Allen had me trapped. I had no vehicle to drive away from him.
“Do what you’re going to do and just bring me home,” I said. “I just want you to know it will never be the same.”
That night I promised myself that I would never allow myself to be in that situation again. It was a promise that I kept. If I couldn’t get a release from Allen, I would at least stand and protect myself.
While Mom had been able to get me into Uncle Fred’s on some nights, it had become increasingly difficult to visit there without being noticed. In addition to the security gate that required a pass code, cameras had been strategically placed to survey the perimeter. On some nights my sister Ally would sneak down to let me in after everyone had gone to bed, but that wouldn’t work every night.
When I couldn’t stay with my mom, I went back to sleeping in the desert in my truck, but with winter fast approaching, my little plug-in heater was no longer sufficient to keep me warm. I figured out that if I turned the heater on for eleven minutes, it would warm the truck for at least an hour. I had to be careful not to fall asleep while the heater was on because it might drain the battery.
One day in December I was at the Twain, as we affectionately nicknamed our restaurant, chatting with Lamont, who’d stopped in for a meal. He told me that he had a movie he wanted to lend to me, and I could feel my cheeks grow instantly pink. My little television adapter and my “wild” nights with Meg watching films were rebellious enough by FLDS standards. To borrow a film from a boy would be a huge taboo. At first I reflexively declined Lamont’s offer, but after I thought about it some more, I decided to take him up on it.
We agreed to meet out in the desert so he could lend me the movie without us being caught. When I approached, I noticed his truck immediately. It was a stunning gold Ford F-350 jacked up on huge tires. In Short Creek, a boy’s truck was his baby, and Lamont’s was gorgeous. So I was absolutely shocked when he insisted that I take it for a drive. “No way!” I declared, smiling.
Lamont’s soft blue eyes lit up and his white teeth shone in a large grin. “Come on, now,” he said, “How often do you get to drive a truck like this?”
He was right and we both knew it. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, contemplating what to do. “Well, okay,” I agreed, trying to stifle my excitement. I was nervous as heck when I climbed up into the driver’s seat and shifted into gear. What if I crashed his truck? What if we got caught? My mind raced too quickly for me to catch up.
Gently, Lamont teased, “Give it a little more gas than that, Elissa.” He laughed. And I did too. Slowly, I pushed my foot down a little farther and off we went, kicking up dust and careening around the desert landscape like two kids.
As the drive came to an end Lamont and I found ourselves talking, unable to stop. He asked me where I’d grown up, and I told him that I was from Salt Lake City. He had noticed my surname, Wall, because legally this was still my name and I needed to use it at work.
“I haven’t known many Walls,” he said, “but I am a friend of Travis.”
I smiled at the mention of Travis, missing all of my brothers fiercely at once. Lamont had spent some time in Salt Lake, where he had linked up with Travis, who I hadn’t seen since Mom moved us to Hildale in 1999. I eagerly soaked up the stories about him and how cool Lamont thought he was. For years