Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [147]
The longer I stayed, the more I risked conflicts and confrontation with Allen. While I’d been avoiding him for the better part of a year, he was growing increasingly upset that I never called and never came back to the trailer in the evenings. It had been many months since I’d last stayed the night, and it seemed the only remaining thing that connected us was the priesthood’s title of marriage, which I didn’t feel obligated to honor. I felt in my heart there had never been a marriage; it had been a sham.
As the weeks passed that summer, Allen’s hostility escalated. He’d begun leaving me dozens of messages, saying things like “You either choose me or else.” All of them went unreturned. He couldn’t bully me into submission as he’d done in the past, and my unwillingness to engage only frustrated him further.
Once, when he’d seen me at Uncle Fred’s house with Mom, Sherrie, and Ally, he’d actually confronted me about his suspicions that I was spending time with people outside of the FLDS. “Why are you fraternizing with apostates?” he asked me.
“Well, they’re only apostates in some people’s minds,” I told him.
“Well, I want it stopped!” Allen commanded.
I just stared at him blankly. He no longer had a hold on me, and my indifference only made him angrier.
On another occasion in late summer, Allen returned to the trailer to find me there gathering up some of my clothes. “Why don’t you come home and be a wife?” he asked.
“Because you lost your chance,” I retorted. “You have used and abused me, and I will not keep myself in these shoes.”
Our conversation grew heated, and when I blurted out a smart-aleck remark, I felt the sting of Allen’s hand across my cheek. A ripple of fury swept through me. “You will never, ever, lay another hand on me, ever!” I yelled.
“What are you trying to tell me?” Allen snapped. “You’re done?”
“That’s right,” I replied, shooting him a venomous look. “Go to Warren, go to William, I just don’t care anymore!”
I wasn’t surprised when Mom called a few days later to inform me that William Timpson, the bishop, had told her I was not welcome at Fred’s anymore. While he was in charge of Fred’s family, to me it was still Uncle Fred’s home and William Timpson was simply the family’s caretaker.
“Whatever, Mom,” I responded, tired of it all.
She just told me to “calm down,” saying things like “You’d be much happier if you would just allow yourself to follow the prophet.” But I was well past that stage, and in her heart, I think she knew it.
Even though I’d been banned from Fred’s, no one ever tried to stop me when I visited Mom and the girls. Deep down, I think they all knew that what had happened to me was wrong, and with all the changes going on in Short Creek, my presence in the home was the last thing on their minds.
“You look different,” Mom told me during a subsequent visit. “You look happy.”
I wanted so badly to tell her about Lamont and the pregnancy, and there are still days even now when I wish I had, but as I stood before her that afternoon, I said nothing. Instead I just smiled, pleased that she’d noticed the change in me.
Things went on like this for much of September, and my inability to cut my ties eventually began to frustrate Lamont. Since I’d accepted his proposal and told him about the baby, he’d been eager for us to begin a life together. He was tired of sneaking around and hiding our relationship. He believed that keeping our love a secret made it appear as though we were admitting that what we were doing was wrong. But my inability to let go of my mother and sisters began to wear on our relationship and there came a time when Lamont and I almost called it quits.
Having lost his mother, he understood what I was grappling with and how difficult it was to make the break. But he also believed that I had a right to be happy and to live a life without the restrictions that the church demanded. I knew that