Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [156]
From the moment I arrived, Kassandra offered me a great deal of relief. We talked about our experiences leaving the FLDS, and she assured me that everything was going to work out. We also talked about Mom and the few telephone conversations that we’d each had with her since I left. Mom had become more bold in speaking to her kids on the outside. She’d even taken calls from Craig, and my brother had opened a dialogue with her that included some talk about religion. We’d all grown hopeful when Mom raised questions and didn’t immediately dismiss Craig’s thought-provoking conversations. She’d even wondered aloud about some of the things that had been going on in Short Creek and why everything had become so secretive. “It just doesn’t feel right,” Mom had said during one call with me, but our conversation was too short to delve any deeper.
It had been particularly painful speaking with Ally and Sherrie. My heart broke when Ally asked that I come and get her. While Sherrie was the older of the two girls, she was also more compliant, much like our sister Michelle. Ally was more like me, stubborn and sassy, and at just eleven years of age, she was not afraid to express her desire to leave Short Creek right in front of Mom. “Please, come and get me,” she’d begged, and I wanted nothing more than to go and pick her up that minute.
Her longing to be rescued weighed heavily on me. Mom later asked that Kassandra and I “encourage Ally to stay.” After hearing those glimmers of doubt in Mom’s voice a few weeks earlier, we found it hard to accept that she remained stuck in the FLDS mindset. I would have honored Ally’s request to leave in a heartbeat, but I knew that it was too risky at this point. I was six months pregnant and barely scraping together enough money to get by each month. As much as it pained me to admit it, there was no way that Lamont and I could support an eleven-year-old girl. I thoroughly intended to go back in and get them as soon as possible, not realizing the chance would never come.
Kassandra and I commiserated about how frustrating it was not to be able to help more. She had already been out for nearly two years and was much further along in the process that I was just beginning. As a result, she had begun to entertain thoughts of involving law enforcement, an idea that intimidated me. I’d only been out for six weeks and still held my deep-rooted fear of police and all government officials.
While thoughts of Mom and the girls preoccupied me in Oregon, I was excited to be with family for my first Christmas. And now that I was on the outside, Kassandra was eager to help me through my transformation. Our first stop was to the mall to get my hair cut. I had agreed to take off five inches, but Kassandra must have secretly told the stylist to bring it up over my waistline. I watched nervously as she pulled it back in her hands and was shocked when she cut off seventeen inches of my flaxen locks.
“Do you want to donate it or save it?” she asked me.
I was too traumatized to speak. It needed to come off, but it was hard to part with. Back in Short Creek, my hair had been my one beauty accessory, and all my life I had been taught to value it. Still, I realized I needed the haircut to feel more “normal.”
As Christmas neared, Kassandra and I began talking about the tree we would have. When the time came, we scoured the nursery forever, looking for the “perfect” one. It had to be the right height, with no holes, and it had to smell good. The poor man tending to us grew exhausted from cutting away the mesh bundling and displaying our various choices as we scrutinized each tree carefully. “This is my very first Christmas,” I said, smiling apologetically, and any hint of sourness on his face dissolved.
After lugging our tree home, we stayed up until 3 A.M.,