Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [72]
As we rode along the interstate, I took in the open expanses of the Utah horizon. It should have dawned on me that many aspects of the religion were based on revoking the rights of women. If a girl speaks her mind, get her married. Once she’s married, get her pregnant. Once she has children, she’s in for life—it’s almost impossible for any FLDS woman to take her children if she leaves, and no mother wants to leave her children behind. At the time, I was still too young and blind to see the pattern. All I could think was that this land and these people were my home, but for me—and for most FLDS women—there is an unspoken yet enormous sense of entrapment. On the one hand, the landscape seemed to never end; on the other, all I could see were the walls closing in around me.
I wondered what Nancy and Lily were thinking. Lily seemed to be keeping sweet. From what I could tell Nancy was playing the role of the ideal FLDS bride, relishing every moment since the announcement was made. She saw it not as a sentence but as the beginning of our true path to heaven, our path by our husbands’ side. As I looked at their car, I was furious with myself for not being able to enjoy this occasion. Carrying out the prophet’s will was supposed to fill my heart with the love of God. My stepsisters looked happy, and I, in turn, felt robbed of the joy I had always planned to have on my wedding day.
Although I didn’t know it when we set out, the plan was to drive to Caliente, Nevada, just across the state line. One of the FLDS men, Merrill Jessop, owned a motel there. In the past, weddings had been performed more in the open, at least by FLDS standards, either at the prophet’s compound in Salt Lake City or at his compound in Hildale, with friends and family allowed to attend. But by this time, all underaged marriages occurred in secret. The young girls were driven to remote locations outside of the jurisdictions of Utah and Arizona, in order to evade the law. We went to Nevada, where the laws were not so strict. There was to be no proof of the ceremony, no unnecessary witnesses, and absolutely no photographs or paperwork. In the past, the tradition was to obtain state-approved marriage licenses when they were legally possible, but with Rulon and Warren’s frequent predictions that the end of the world was coming any day, there was no need. Besides, some FLDS spiritual unions were unlawful in the states’ eyes, and there could be no marriage licenses. All that mattered was the prophet’s fulfillment of the law of God.
Sad thoughts permeated my mind and put me in a somber daze. We’d been traveling north along I-15 for about an hour when our convoy pulled into a gas station in Cedar City, Utah. My hand was already on the door handle before we even slowed to a stop, and I leapt from the white Ford van as soon as Allen put it into park. Mom must have seen me through the window of Uncle Fred’s Suburban and hurried after me into the restroom.
“Mom, I can’t do this!” I cried.
“Yes, you can. Yes, you can,” she assured me, brushing the tears from my cheeks.
“I can’t even look at the guy, let alone touch him.”
“It will all come in time,” she told me. “This is what we are told to do, so we have to live with it.” Of course, she was trying to console me, but it was exactly what I did not want to hear.
Mom walked me back to the van where Allen and his family were waiting. I was nauseated and retreated into my thoughts. I felt so empty, as if there was nothing left to feel. Over the course of the previous night, all the rage and resentment inside me had given way to pain and sorrow, and now even those emotions were gone. I had fought my fight and lost. Despite how nice Allen’s parents were being, and how excited his two mothers were as they sat side by side in the rear of the van chatting, it was hard for me to respond