Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [180]
Day two of the trial was more intense. As we approached the story of how I came to be married, my memories of all of those bitter, difficult conversations overwhelmed me, stirring up old emotions. I was asked to read from my journal, and I did trying not to let my voice crack. After reading the two entries from the evening of April 15, 2001—the original attempt followed by the one that I would make presentable for future generations to read—I was asked if there was anything more there.
I flipped absently for a moment through the butterfly-edged pages of the journal from my fourteenth year. I thought about what should have been written there. A young teenage girl should be scribbling furiously in the private pages of her journal about crushes, problems with friends, anticipation about high school. My journal was completely blank after those two entries. It was as if having heard my mother say that I needed to keep sweet in those writings, I had nothing more to write. From that week forward, my inner life had been suppressed. How could I keep a private record of my complicated emotions if I had to appear and behave like a good priesthood girl? Even if no one else here on earth was actually reading the words, God was. My prayers had done nothing to alleviate my situation. What good would putting it into a journal do?
A major hearsay issue arose when I brought up the afternoon I’d visited Rulon Jeffs at his home. The debate over whether or not I could repeat what Rulon had said to me wore on so long that the judge was kind enough to ask if I would like to step down from the stand. As a witness, I found the whole hearsay issue very difficult both to understand and to adhere to, but in the end the judge ruled that my recounting of Rulon’s fateful words was not considered hearsay, since it was being used to establish my past mental state and not for the “truth of the matter.”
With the issue resolved, I repeated for the jury: “He patted me on the hand and he said, ‘Follow your heart, sweetie.’” In my mind I traveled back to that afternoon and recalled my all-consuming sense of relief. Of course, it had been cut extremely short. I could feel the silence blanket the courtroom as my voice broke, repeating the words that had shattered everything—when Warren Jeffs had told me that my heart was in the wrong place.
I was asked about my reaction when I went home and heard from Uncle Fred, my new father, that I was in fact to be married. Craig asked, “Did you consider other options?”
“I didn’t have other options.”
“Was there a bus stop in Hildale?”
“No, there wasn’t.”
“Did you have a friend with a car who could have—?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you have any money of your own?”
“No.”
“Any credit cards?”
“No, I did not.”
These were simple questions—even obvious. But they were necessary to establish that all these everyday options that people on the outside take for granted simply are not a part of life in Short Creek.
“What were your feelings when the dress was being made?”
I pictured myself in the floor-length lace-embellished dress. I was like a little girl playing dress-up—only it was terribly real. I remembered my sister at my ankles with her tiny piercing needle, weaving it in and out of the pristine white heavy fabric. I could see my mother’s careworn face, the gray circles under her eyes. “That’s a big question,” I mustered the words, shaking