Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [58]
My eyes instantly widened and my jaw dropped. It took me a second to fully process what he had said. I wondered if I had heard him correctly.
“You probably have me mixed up with someone else,” I stammered. “You know, I’m only fourteen, right?”
He assured me that yes, indeed, it was me, and I needed to prepare myself. A sick, heavy feeling crawled into my stomach as he again pulled my mother and me in for a celebratory hug. A look of glee stretched across Fred’s wrinkled face; he was clearly pleased to deliver the news. It was supposed to be joyous. It was supposed to be celebratory. But I felt like my heart had stopped, and my feelings of revulsion started to grow. I knew that many girls still in their teens were married. I’d even heard of girls who had been married as young as fifteen. There were stories from Uncle Roy’s time as prophet when really young girls like myself and even younger had been married.
But I hadn’t heard of anyone getting married at fourteen for some time. I knew that marriages of girls under the age of eighteen had been performed a lot more carefully as of late. Not that long ago, Uncle Rulon had actually said we would stop the practice after laws were passed forbidding the marriage of girls under eighteen. In church one day he said that we would “follow the law of the land” as it pertained to child brides. However, Uncle Warren later said that the Lord couldn’t stop his work on earth just because the laws of the land had changed. Those laws had been put in place to hinder the priesthood’s work, therefore they were not to be followed. It was one of the increasingly frequent moments when Warren assumed power and authority publicly. Warren was taking over, and his will seemed to prevail over his father’s. The FLDS people simply accepted the result. And so the marriages of underaged girls continued but were performed cautiously and in secret, since the prophet who presided and those officiating ran the risk of prosecution by the government.
Shocked and in a total daze, I walked away with my mother and tried to convince myself it couldn’t be true, but something inside me knew better.
CHAPTER TEN
THE CELESTIAL LAW
Take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given, and deny it in your feelings and I promise that you will be damned.
—BRIGHAM YOUNG
I had been in the FLDS Church from the moment I was born. It was all I knew and the only way I could imagine living. From my teachings, I knew that the prophet’s job was to dictate what was best for us and that the words he spoke came straight from God. I believed that my impending marriage was the will of God and therefore nothing could be done to stop it. But still, I had to try.
I also knew that I was different from other girls in my community. I wanted an education, and maybe even to become a nurse or teacher someday. During my year in public school, I’d come to realize things were possible that I’d never dreamed before. Sure, I knew that I wanted to be a mother of good priesthood children, but not at fourteen. I wanted children and a future, and I dared to think that both were possible.
It took a little while for me to absorb what Uncle Fred had said. As I turned it over in my head, I couldn’t digest the idea that the prophet wanted me to marry, and it didn’t feel right. Still thinking that perhaps Uncle Fred had confused me with one of the older girls in the house, I decided to speak with him. I climbed the stairs to Uncle Fred’s office on the second floor and waited in the hallway for him to notice me. When he saw me standing in the doorway, a kind smile widened across his face and he invited me in to talk. I swallowed my fear and took a seat, eager to tell him how I really felt about the pronouncement. The office appeared much like Uncle Warren’s office at Alta Academy, with a big desk, a couch, and a few chairs for those who came to seek counsel. As a respected member of our community, Fred held a