Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [71]
I sat on Mom’s bed for hours that night, silently watching as she and Kassandra hurriedly designed and pieced together the wedding dress. Mom had given up on getting the fabric at the store downtown and had finally purchased some material at a small shop in Hildale. Perhaps she, too, had put off the inevitable in hopes of a miracle reprieve, but here we were just hours away from the actual ceremony and rushing to make an acceptable dress.
“How do you want the dress?” Kassandra asked, trying hard to elicit some input from me.
“I don’t care,” I told my sister. “Just make it simple.” I didn’t want anything fancy; there was nothing fanciful about what lay ahead for me.
“Elissa, I need you to hold still or I’m going to poke you with the pins,” Kassandra announced, as sobs racked my body. These were tears of desperation and I could do nothing to keep them dammed up.
When the night of hurried preparations was over, the wedding day arrived. Dressed in a wedding gown, with my hair done up, I sat on my mother’s bed totally exhausted.
“I know how hard this is for you, but I want you to feel beautiful,” Kassandra said, placing a small box in my hands. Through the clear plastic top, I could see a delicate tiara like the ones we’d admired during past shopping trips to St. George. Over the months that Kassandra and I had been together, we’d spent countless hours in prom-dress shops fawning over fancy gowns we knew we could never wear and dreaming up elaborate scenarios we knew would never happen as we tried on sparkly tiaras. Now my sister was giving me this beautiful representation of our shared fantasy. But while I loved the thought behind it, it only emphasized how far I was from my daydreams.
My sister and mother served as crutches, one on each side, as I descended the stairs of Fred Jessop’s home. When I got downstairs, though, they sent me back up to change into an everyday dress so as not to attract attention to what we were about to do. Mom could barely steady me as I clutched her hand tightly and we stepped out to meet our waiting vehicles. Three vehicles were lined up in front of Uncle Fred’s house that morning. Instinctively I followed Mom into the backseat of Uncle Fred’s big Chevy Suburban and numbly fastened my seat belt when someone yelled out to me, “No, Elissa, you’re riding with Allen.”
I was crushed. I couldn’t imagine driving with him and his family. All along, my mother had been by my side as my anchor, and I needed her desperately. This would be my fate for the rest of my life, wanting the comfort of home but being forced to be with a stranger.
In an attempt at chivalry, Allen tried to carry my bag, but I was rude to him, even in front of his parents. I knew my behavior was inappropriate and mean, but I didn’t know how to act. I wanted to keep sweet and be happy, but something in me just knew this was all wrong. Nothing had prepared me for the huge step I was being asked to take, and I was a child in pain, lashing out in the only way I knew how. It probably wasn’t easy for Allen either. I’d done little to hide my loathing for him. He, too, was being robbed of his perfect wedding, and neither of us had any power to halt the train.
After the three cars carrying the wedding party left Uncle Fred’s home, we briefly stopped at Uncle Rulon’s compound in Hildale, where several cars joined our caravan heading out of town. We followed closely behind the vehicle carrying Uncle Warren and his father. My sister Rachel and a few of Uncle Rulon’s other wives were with them; they had been asked to accompany their husband to tend to his ongoing needs. Sitting in the passenger seat next to Allen that morning, I felt like we were on the road for hours and hours, even though it was only a few.
Not wanting to even look at Allen, I stared at the car that contained Lily and Nancy. Mom and the mothers of the other girls getting married that day were in Uncle Fred’s Suburban. We were supposed to consider ourselves