Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [38]
A sad look came over her eyes, as she no doubt thought of Travis, who wasn’t faring well. His living situation with the other boys who had left the FLDS had eventually deteriorated and become unsustainable. Most of the boys forced out of the community were mere teenagers themselves and had been raised in such a closed community with little real education. While they banded together to help one another, there was little they could do beyond working menial jobs. Finally it got to a breaking point, and when Travis decided he could no longer live like he was, he returned to Salt Lake City for a fresh start. Years of hard work as a member of the FLDS community helped him land a construction job, and he again moved into a house with other former FLDS boys. The move did little to change his fortune, and the hard times that had begun in southern Utah continued back in Salt Lake, leaving him in need of help.
Because he’d left the church in the middle of his “reforming” in Short Creek, he was now labeled an apostate. To be an apostate was even worse than being a gentile. Gentile was the term given to all non-FLDS people, no matter their religion, but an apostate was someone who had lost faith or had left the church, turning their back on the priesthood. Apostates were viewed as one of the worst kinds of evil. FLDS teachings demanded that all members abandon people who choose to apostatize—even members of your own family. The severity of this requirement was such that we had to be extremely careful about our association with our brother. We’d been warned that the punishment would be harsh, but none of us knew exactly what that meant. Still, we were not prepared to abandon a brother and son completely.
After months of being away, Travis became a presence in our lives again, and periodically he would stop by to check in on his younger brothers and sisters. Usually, he would come just to say hello, but he would end up staring at our dinner with hungry eyes. Mom and Dad couldn’t stand to see their child in that condition, and on occasion they would allow him to have a plate of food, despite the risk. No matter how much he was suffering, Travis couldn’t bring himself to ask my dad for help. Mom and I would sneak him care packages during his forbidden visits home. Though it went against the church’s teachings, we couldn’t stand to see him starve.
It was devastating to watch the members of my family being slowly destroyed in the name of our religion. Even as our home life spiraled out of control, Dad continued to hold our annual camping trip and picnics in the mountains in an attempt to recapture the good times we all remembered. But the realities of our situation were glaring, and the absence of so many of my siblings made it hard to enjoy the trips as I had in the past.
The sad truth, as I learned later, was that our family’s struggles were making their way to Uncle Warren’s ear. Mom had again been talking with Rachel in secret, confiding about how my father was not in full control of his family. Rachel naturally took my mother’s side without seeking out my father’s perspective, eventually concluding that Dad was not leading the family correctly and that he had no power over what was going on under his roof. In turn, Rachel often relayed stories to Warren, a practice that grew more frequent after Rulon’s stroke had put our prophet in the backseat while he recovered.
When Rulon Jeffs became the prophet, he expanded the prophet’s role regarding marriage beyond simply revealing who was allowed to marry. Before Uncle Rulon, if a couple was having marital problems, they would be encouraged to handle them on their own, save for serious matters such as adultery and apostasy. Rulon began performing a sort of marriage counseling supposedly aimed at resolving marital conflict, but it was less about solving problems and more about control over husbands and wives.
With his new practice, the prophet became privy to members’ most intimate secrets, and Rulon