Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [159]
“No you don’t,” Kassandra shot back. “You didn’t have it when it happened to Lesie, and you won’t have it when it happens to those girls.”
“Well, that’s just something I’ll just have to put on a shelf,” Mom said, referring to her inability to halt my marriage to Allen. It seemed that no difficult conversation with Mom had ever been complete without this line.
“I’d rather see you die than fight the priesthood,” Mom said. Her words were a hard slap on the face. Everything Mom had ever done had been influenced by her loyalty to the church above all else, but to hear her phrase it in such indisputable terms was upsetting.
“I’m not trying to fight you,” Kassandra assured her. “I’m not trying to fight anybody. I’ll tell you what. If we can go to the funeral tomorrow and I hear something that puts our minds at ease, then we will leave this alone.” Mom agreed, and before departing she told us to pray for an answer from the Lord. Later that day, she orchestrated a phone call between William Timpson and me, in which he welcomed Kassandra and me to Fred’s funeral. “I give you my personal permission,” he told me.
The next morning, Kassandra and I set off for Hildale. We’d spent an hour or so styling our hair in the FLDS updo and selecting dresses to fit in with the crowd. More than three thousand mourners turned out for the funeral service that was held in the large meetinghouse at the center of town. Several men guarded the door, and we were greeted by a few. Before granting us entrance, we were asked if we were carrying cell phones. Kassandra offered to turn hers over but was told to just take it to the car. That’s when we were confronted by church elder Willy Jessop. He had a reputation for being gruff and unkind, and though he probably knew the answer, he asked who we were. The church elders who had been involved in our conversation all stepped back as Willy confronted Kassandra and me. When we identified ourselves, he told us that we were not welcome.
“We have a personal invitation from William Timpson,” I told him, growing upset. It was exceptionally cold outside and had started to lightly snow, a rare event in sunny Hildale. I had Tyler bundled in my arms, and he was just six weeks old, but Willy didn’t care about that.
Kassandra and I were not allowed inside for the entire three-hour service, and we sat through most of it in Kassandra’s car. We waited for the procession to come out and positioned ourselves so that we would be at the front of the line, that way, when we reached Fred’s grave we would be close to where Mom would be standing as one of Fred’s wives.
I was desperate to see her again, and I knew this might be our last chance. I rocked the baby in my arms and tried to keep every inch of his tiny body sheltered from the icy air. When the service was finally over, scores of congregants came pouring out the large double doors. Standing by Fred’s grave site clutching my infant to my chest, I was aware that I was the latest scandal in town, and I was joined by my apostate sister. Everywhere around us there was a wall of silence, as people we’d known for years dismissed us with a glance. To them, I was no longer important, worthy, or loved. I was just one more lost soul who had no right to be standing on their sacred land.
Mom joined us at the end of the burial.
“See? Wasn’t that beautiful?” she said, smiling contentedly.
“They wouldn’t let us in,” I told her. I knew what was going to happen now, and I silently wished that we’d just been granted entrance to stop the inevitable confrontation.
“Oh, Kassandra, it must have been a mistake,” Mom nervously replied.
“No, it wasn’t a mistake,” my sister told her. “This was God’s answer.”
Again, I found myself in the middle of my mom and my sister. Our conversation was cut short when Mom was hurried