Stolen Innocence - Lisa Pulitzer [92]
I didn’t know it at the time, but my father and Mother Audrey were among the throngs of people from Salt Lake who’d packed up their lives and headed south to be in place for the ascent to heaven. About a month after we’d been taken away from him, Dad had been rebaptized into the priesthood, but by that point, we had already been reassigned and he was not allowed to contact us. He had continued to live with Audrey at the Claybourne Avenue house for the next couple of years, and over time, Justin, Jacob, Brad, and Caleb had joined him there.
Brad was seventeen when Warren directed Dad and Audrey to Short Creek, and trying desperately to finish high school. While he’d been in foster care for some of the time after his escape from Uncle Fred’s, he’d recently left his foster home and been forced to find another living arrangement. Dad had offered to let him stay temporarily, and Brad had only been at the house for a short time when Dad announced the move to southern Utah.
Warren made it clear that while Dad and Audrey were welcome, my brothers were not. He did not want what he perceived as their rebellious influence anywhere near Short Creek. As far as the priesthood was concerned, parents were required to abandon “unworthy” children, and soon the practice became commonplace. At the prophet’s request, FLDS fathers drove problem children to neighboring towns, dropped them off, and told them never to contact their family again. Though I’m sure Dad didn’t want to abandon his sons, his devotion to the priesthood, like that of hundreds of other parents, was blind and absolute. He followed Warren’s command and told all of his sons that they could not join him and Audrey in Short Creek.
Because they were nineteen, Justin and Jacob were able to find a place of their own, but they struggled to make ends meet, since neither of them had a high school education. Brad again had to find a place to live, and finally a friend offered him a room to rent. Brad worked hard to keep a full-time job and stay in school so that he could complete the twelfth grade. In the months to come, we’d learn that he had become deathly ill and was hospitalized. Though he recovered, his illness put him out of a job and kept him from graduating high school. Soon he was homeless, living out of his car and barely able to buy food. Eventually he began to call Mom. Although she was upset, there was nothing she would do to help him since she was entwined in the FLDS culture and frame of mind.
As for Caleb, the prospect of leaving him behind was not as simple. He was in seventh grade at the public school, nowhere near an age where he could take care of himself, and it was obvious that Dad felt obligated to figure out a more responsible plan for him. The answer came from a former FLDS couple named Ron and Jamie Barlow, who lived in Hurricane, about twenty minutes outside St. George. Dad agreed to pay them to take care of Caleb. The Barlows were eager to return to the religion and had been repenting at the prophet’s directive to regain their standing in the church. They had not yet been given permission to move back to the community, but they hoped that taking care of Caleb would show their loyalty and faith.
It was a couple of months before I learned that my father was in Colorado City. When I finally saw him, our brief reunion was filled with mixed emotions. He and Audrey were living in a little camper on someone’s front lawn. The move had taken them from a spacious, beautiful home to almost no home at all. Dad wanted to build something, but as the owner of all the land in Short Creek, the church said he couldn’t because time was too short.
Seeing Dad was a joyful moment but it was also painful.