Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [158]
Tyler was less than a month old when I got news that Uncle Fred had died on March 15 and a funeral was being held in Hildale later that week. There was still little news about Fred’s disappearance, and no one seemed to know the truth about where he had been. I was told that he was in Colorado when he died, and I started to wonder if perhaps Mom was there as well.
That same day, my phone rang. It was Kassandra telling me to hurry down to the police station in Colorado City. “They’re going to clear up Mom’s missing-persons report,” my sister blurted into the phone. “Mom’s going down to the police station, and you’ve got to get there to meet her.”
Bundling up the baby, I jumped into my car and headed for Highway 59 into Short Creek. I hadn’t been back there since my departure the previous November, and I was a petrified about how I would be received. But I was desperate to see Mom and confirm that she was okay. I arrived to find that she’d already been there and gone. Filled with disappointment, I was walking back outside to my car when my cell phone rang. It was Mom.
“I’m in town right now,” she told me. “William Timpson said that if you want to, we can set up a meeting and I can see you for a few minutes.” Tears filled my eyes at the sound of her warm voice. Back in December I’d told her I was pregnant, and now I informed her that her new grandson had been born. She was thrilled to meet him, and we scheduled a rendezvous for the following morning. I called Kassandra as soon as I hung up. She was already planning to come down for Uncle Fred’s funeral, and when I told her about the meeting with Mom she put a rush on her trip.
It was pouring rain the next day when Kassandra and I drove in her blue Ford Focus to the meeting spot. Mom was already there waiting for us, and with no shelter, we all jumped into the backseat of Kassandra’s car. The first few minutes were pleasant as Mom expressed her love for us and gushed over the baby, but our joy was instantly cut short when the conversation turned to the missing-persons report that Kassandra had filed. Mom was hurt that her children had gone against the priesthood like that and asked that we not do it again. I was alarmed to see how agitated Mom appeared, and even more disturbed by the big white truck that was parked along the street when we arrived. We all knew that inside were members of the FLDS who’d been sent to keep watch over Mom.
The conversation turned awkward as Kassandra pressed Mom, and I silently wished she would stop. It was all still fresh enough for me to remember what it felt like to be a true believer. All Mom was asking was to be able to live her beliefs without us fighting them, and I didn’t yet have the perspective to understand what my sister was trying to do. We wanted to know why Mom hadn’t brought Ally and Sherrie along that day.
“We didn’t want a problem,” Mom explained, and it was clear from her tone that “we” referred to the priesthood elders, who feared that Kassandra and I might try to take the girls with us. She declined to tell us where she and the girls were now living and implored us not to stir up any more trouble. I was certain that leaving the girls behind was a calculated tool on the elders’ part to ensure that Mom returned for them. Otherwise, the risk would have been too great that Kassandra and I would persuade her to leave and take our sisters with her.
“What are you going to do when Sherrie faces the same thing that Elissa did?” Kassandra asked Mom. Sherrie was now thirteen and quickly approaching the age at which I was placed with Allen.
Mom was indignant. “I’ll do something,” she replied.
My sister stared over me at Mom. “I don’t feel like you have the power to stop something from happening to those girls. I don’t feel like you have the power to protect them.”
“Yes, I do,” Mom insisted. It was sad to hear her trying to convince