Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [160]
I was relieved to receive a call from her that night. She’d gone to William Timpson about how we’d been restricted from the service. Willy Jessop had told the bishop that we’d been confrontational. The misunderstanding led to William’s decision to grant us permission to visit with Mom again the following day at Cottonwood Park. When we arrived Mom was already there waiting for us, and so was the same big white truck with the FLDS men inside, observing our entire visit from behind the tinted windows.
We spent three hours together, and snapped plenty of photographs, many of which are in frames displayed around my house today. I brought Lamont along so that he could meet my mother. She was kind and accepting to him and our son. Mom pushed Kassandra’s son on the swing and cradled Tyler in her arms. As I watched Mom playing with her grandchildren, I was overcome by a sense of grief that they would have to grow up without her. With tears in the corners of my eyes, I asked, “Mom, are we ever going to see you again?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, shaking her head softly. There was a long pause. “I wish I could be a grandmother to my grandchildren,” she said in a wistful tone.
“Mom, you still could,” I urged. “We would love to have you in our lives.” A quick flash of images came into my mind—possibilities that would never come to pass—of Ally, Sherrie, and Mom getting out and starting over with us. Mom continued to press me not to involve the authorities again, bringing it up several times. Her words were unexpected and there was something about them that seemed forced, as though perhaps this meeting had been about more than just seeing her grandchildren.
Eventually we had to say good-bye. With a distant look in her eyes, Mom walked toward the two men who’d been watching over us and disappeared into their truck.
Kassandra and I looked at each other, devastated. As much as we didn’t want to believe it, inside we both knew this would be the last time we’d ever see our mother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
COMING FORWARD
Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.
—SHARON WALL, QUOTING EDMUND BURKE
After that last meeting with Mom, we lost contact with her for a second time, and I began receiving pressure from Kassandra and Craig to help them do something about it. In her efforts to locate Mom and the girls, Kassandra began speaking with law enforcement, and during those conversations, she briefly told authorities what had happened to me. Though I’d specifically asked her not to say too much, she came away from those exploratory calls with the impression that, if I didn’t come forward to authorities by what would have been my fourth anniversary to Allen that April, the criminal statute of limitations would run out on possible charges being pressed.
Kassandra and Craig were pushing hard for me to present my story to authorities, hoping that it could help gain Sherrie and Ally’s freedom. While I wanted nothing more than to help my younger sisters, I was not interested in speaking to police. I had not lost my fear of law enforcement, and I worried about what the priesthood would do to me if I talked to the police about my life. I also didn’t want to hurt Mom.
Nevertheless, as April approached, the pressure on me intensified. In addition to Kassandra and Craig, Lamont’s uncle Jethro Barlow, the man who’d been publicly expelled from the FLDS, contacted Lamont with some information about a law-enforcement investigation that had been launched into my relationship to Allen. He raised the possibility of a subpoena, and I was terrified. During his short reign as prophet, Warren had expelled a lot of people, and some of them had come together on the outside. They were working hard to remove Warren from power, and I was viewed as someone who could help them.
There were already a number of lawsuits in the works that were designed to challenge Warren’s abuse. Shem Fisher, an expelled FLDS member, had been one of the first to find the courage to file lawsuits against Warren Jeffs and the FLDS. His actions