Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [155]
We’d been out just about three weeks when Dad phoned to say that he was going to be in Hurricane and wanted to meet for dinner. After finding my note on the bed that night, he’d called my cell phone a few times to check in and make sure I was okay. While I’d told him where Lamont and I were living, I hadn’t told him that I was pregnant. I’d been able to conceal my pregnancy straight through my last days in the FLDS, but in early December I suddenly popped, and now I was nervous about how he would react. Still, I was hungry for any family and was looking forward to seeing him.
He was seated at a far table at J.B.’s restaurant when Lamont and I walked through the door. Lamont panicked as we approached, seeing my Dad sternly looking us up and down. He’d never met Lamont, and Lamont was worried about how my father would react to the man who’d taken his daughter from the FLDS and was expecting a baby with her.
When we reached the table, Dad stood up, pointed his large, tanned finger at Lamont, and said, “I only have one thing to say to you.”
Lamont recoiled in fear, waiting to be told off.
Holding my breath, I watched as Dad’s scowl softened and he declared, “I’m getting the check for dinner.” For a moment we both stood there not sure if we had heard right, but then Dad broke into a grin and gathered me in a big bear hug. His words put us at ease, and the rest of the meal was lively and pleasant. When we were ready to say our good-byes, we stood up and Dad embraced each of us.
“I don’t care what your decision is, Elissa. I’m just glad that you are no longer with Allen.” To experience this kind of love and approval from a parent, with no questions asked and no judgments made, was invigorating. It was the first time in my life that I’d made a weighty decision on my own and receive approval for it. All that mattered to him was my happiness. I knew that his allegiance still lay in the priesthood, but I was comforted that he was not going to abandon me just because I had finally chosen for myself.
In those early weeks, Lamont also tried to reach out to his family. Eventually, he hunted his grandfather down and got him to agree to meet for dinner. The two of them went to an Applebee’s in St. George to eat and talk about everything that had transpired. Lamont was troubled by the way that George appeared a mere shell of his former self. Having lived as a well-respected patriarch for much of his adult life, he’d now been forced to take a room in a home shared by several other men. Isolated from everyone he knew and loved, he appeared to have been doing a lot of internal searching to try and determine where he’d gone wrong and why he’d been removed from the church.
“Lamont,” George said, his face strained by grief, “Leroy S. Johnson once told me there are only two things a man can do to lose his priesthood. One is adultery; the other betrayal of God. I did neither of these things, so I just don’t understand what it could be.” His voice broke as he held back tears.
Seeing this old man who had once been a strong and influential figure reduced to a lonely creature was difficult for Lamont, but it reinforced to us how Warren’s rule had created victims of all ages and sexes. His grandfather was just one more example of the pain that had been inflicted in the name of God.
That December, I celebrated my first-ever Christmas in Oregon with Kassandra. Craig, Justin, and Caleb had recently moved to Hawaii, and though she