Favorite Wife (54 page)

“I'm sure,” I whispered.

“Then let's tell Dad. Let's get it over with.”

I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and nodded.

When I looked up, Dad stood over me. “What's going on?” he asked softly, his bright blue gaze searching my swollen face. I glanced at Perry and he nodded reassuringly.

“I'm not going back with you, Dad,” I said, my voice surprisingly strong. “I'm leaving Verlan. Please don't be mad.”

His eyes narrowed. “Does Verlan know about this?” he growled.

I shook my head and blew my nose. “I didn't dare tell him until we were gone. He wouldn't have let us go.”

“I see.” He rocked on the balls of his feet, then snapped, “Well, go and call him. Tonight. I don't agree with some of that man's ways, but I won't have him think that I'm a party to this underhanded business.”

God, give me strength, just give me strength, my mind chanted. Please be with me. I walked to the kitchen phone, dialed information for Ossmen Jones's San Diego number. I asked Sister Jones to locate Verlan. It was an emergency, and he should call me immediately at my brother Perry's.

Darlene and I bedded the kids down while I waited. Twenty minutes later the phone rang. Darlene motioned to me, I picked it up, and Verlan's frenzied voice came on the line. “What's wrong? What are you doing in Utah?”

My own voice was devoid of emotion. “I'm here because I'm leaving you. I'm never going back, Verlan. Please don't try to stop me; it's over. Just know that my dad wasn't aware of my plans when he brought us here, so don't blame him. I'm sorry to do it this way.”

“Susan, you know I can't let this happen!” His voice was frantic. “I understand that you're upset, but I'll make it up to you! You know I will. Now, just have a good visit with your family, and I'll be there to pick you and the kids up on Saturday.”

“NO!” I shouted in alarm. “Don't come here! You'd be wasting your time. I will not go back. Just accept it and leave us alone.”

“I'll be there on Saturday.” The phone clicked in my ear.

Dad left on business to Salt Lake, and we spent the next two days settling into Perry's basement. Ross, Dale, and their families had come over and offered their moral support, bringing household goods, toys, and clothing for the children. Baskets of food found their way onto Darlene's counter, my sisters-in-law determined to help in every way. I felt numb with gratitude.

My children unquestioningly accepted the change of residence. They loved the attention lavished by their relatives, and Melanie and James started babbling excitedly about attending school on Monday with their cousins.

My stomach rolled with nervousness as Saturday dawned. Verlan arrived late in the afternoon, and with pounding heart, I hastened outside to converse with him. I refused to invite him in. I didn't want my brother's family subjected to the row I knew would occur.

Be strong! I told myself as I followed him to his pickup. Don't show any weakness or he'll never let you go. Just don't look at him.

Verlan started the engine and turned the heater on. Then he turned to me and reached for my hand, but I yanked it back. “Don't! You shouldn't have come,” I said coldly. “We won't be going back, and you've wasted a trip clear up here.”

“Susan, I've been thinking and praying ever since we talked on the phone about how I can keep you with me all the time. That's what we need, darling, to spend time together, and I think I've come up with a way to make it happen. Will you listen?” he pleaded. His eyes were red-rimmed and threatening to flow over.

“No!” I snapped. “I told you it's over. Go back and marry your beautiful Priscilla. You won't have me in the way now.”

He bowed his head and wiped his cheeks. “I won't marry her if you'll come home.”

“Oh, Verlan,” I sighed. “She's not the problem. I'm the problem. I don't love you anymore, and I don't believe polygamy's right, and I won't raise my kids that way. Just go home.”

He was silent. His shoulders seemed thinner; the skin on his neck more wrinkled than I remembered. His grip on the steering wheel whitened his knuckles. He cleared his throat and whispered, “I will divorce Charlotte and marry you legally. That way I can take you with me always. Just come back to me.”

I eyed him sharply. “Now, I'll just bet Charlotte would go for that!” I shook my head. “No, Verlan, forget it. Besides, I don't believe in the church anymore. I don't know what I do believe in, but it's not the church. I'll find my place someday, but it won't be with you. Go home.”

He stared at me, his sad, blue-green eyes slowly turning angry. “Fine then,” he snapped coldly. “Have it your way. I give up. You can have your freedom, but I'm taking the kids back with me. They are my kids, and I won't have them raised in the States. Go pack their things.”

I gaped at him. “Are you out of your mind?” I exploded. “They are MY children! I gave birth to most of them alone, while you were away. I raised them and cared for them, without a bit of help from you. They hardly know you! You didn't even support them; your boys did. So don't threaten me. With one phone call I can have you arrested, and don't you forget it! Goodbye, Verlan, go back to your families. They need you, you know.”

I opened the door, slammed it closed, and dashed into the house, my whole body shaking with anger and fear. Perry waited in the kitchen, and I threw myself into his arms. “He says he's taking my kids,” I sobbed. “I told him I'd call the police! I can do that if I need to, can't I? He can't take them, can he?”

“Shh, shh. No, honey, he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on, and he knows it. Don't worry, he can't take them.”

I peeked out the window to where Verlan still sat slumped in his pickup. As I watched him, my anger toward him slowly receded. He looked so alone. So sad! Suddenly I knew that his threat to take the children had been nothing more than an act of desperation—just as his offer to divorce Charlotte had been. Anything to keep me.

“I'll tell him that he can come in and see the kids for a few minutes, then he has to leave,” Perry suggested.

I nodded and wiped my cheeks. “Let him know that Lance is asleep, and, will you stay with them until he's gone? I don't want to see him again. I'll stay up here in the bedroom.”

I threw a final glance out the window, then I hurried to the room where my baby was sleeping. Verlan wouldn't bother with seeing him. He'd never wasted much time with the smaller children. I sat on the bed and softly caressed Lance's blond hair. My heart ached, oh, so badly!

I could hear the men descend the stairs into the basement where the children were watching television. Verlan's voice occasionally carried to me as they visited. He must have agreed to leave when he was through, or Perry would have come and told me.

I sighed, propped myself up on two pillows beside my baby, and stared at the dark ceiling. “Well, Lord, I've finally done it,” I whispered. “My past is almost history, and I'm counting on you to guide my future. I'll need lots of help, Lord, to find a place of my own and a job somewhere so that we won't be a burden on my brothers. I don't know what you have in store for the kids and me, but I'm certain you'll lead me to a fine man someday, someone who will love us, and who will be a real daddy for my kids. We'll raise them to be open-minded, to value freedom, to search for truth and knowledge, and to love you.”

Outside, an engine purred to life. Jumping up, I pulled the curtain and looked out the window. Snow was beginning to swirl under the porch light, and Verlan's truck was backing out of the driveway. Its headlights glared yellow against the icy cement. He turned onto the street and within moments his red taillights were out of sight. He was gone, back to his busy world of chasing dreams, keeping a dying church together, hiding from Ervil, and visiting his scattered families.

The huge lump in my throat choked me, and I began to sob. Some part of me would always love him. He was a good man in his own way, sincere in his driven, yet blinded, search for the pathway to heaven. I would always believe that the quandary polygamy created, along with the concocted justifications for it, had sidetracked him and the others from the plain and simple truths that Jesus offered; truths that were lost in all the confusion.

My heavy thoughts turned to the women that I'd shared so much with. Verlan's wives would have mixed feelings about my leaving the family. Most of them would be sad, especially Lillie and Irene—and perhaps even Charlotte, who had sacrificed so much more than the rest of us for Verlan's sake. She had shared the husband of her youth over and over again. She'd left her children to help support Verlan's families. She'd done things that I'd never have been willing to do, because in her heart, she was serving God.

I would always care about Verlan's families. They held a piece of my heart, and would forever. Maybe one day, a few of them would find their way out of the whirlpool that sucked them under. That would always be my prayer, for them, and for my own Ray family still in Mexico. Sweet Heavenly Father—let it be so.

E
PILOGUE

I
left Verlan and Colonia LeBaron in November of 1976. The children and I lived in Perry's basement in Cedar City for the first few months; then we moved into an apartment of our own. Melanie and James had immediately started school, as had I. I also maintained a job; first as a waitress, then as a telephone operator. Once I achieved my high school diploma, I signed up at the local college.

Life was difficult. My emotions were raw, my courage teetering, and my self-esteem bottomed out. I quickly found that being a single woman with five children in the United States was completely different from being a so-called married woman, whose husband was just away, in Mexico. Loneliness plagued me, as did the effort to try to fit into a world so different from the one I was used to. Each potential friend I met had her own husband, and only one or two children; and here I was saddled down to a houseful of rambunctious kids—not exactly the family you wanted to invite over for dinner and Scrabble. Although my brothers included us in the important holidays, and an occasional Sunday meal, they were busy with their own livelihoods and families.

Out of necessity, I'd signed up for welfare. Although I was trying, the money I earned wasn't, as yet, enough to meet our needs. Of course, Verlan couldn't afford to send me anything. He stopped in to see us on a fairly frequent basis, more often—it seemed to me—than he had when we were married. Each time he came, he did his best to woo me into going home. I stubbornly declined. He reminded me on more than one occasion that I had to give our separation six months before I could consider myself divorced. I icily reminded him that we were never legally married in the first place, so we didn't need a legal divorce. I wanted a real husband, and someday I would have one.

After a few months I met a promising young man, a returned Mormon missionary. Bill seemed so perfect: fun-loving, musical, handsome, and best of all, he adored my children! Within weeks, we were inseparable. God was finally smiling on me, and I was filled with happiness and optimism for our future. On one of Verlan's visits to the children, I introduced him to Bill. He was reluctantly impressed. He told me that since I wouldn't allow him to be in our lives, then he would give Bill and me his blessing.

Within a few months, to my horror I realized that I was pregnant. Bill was literally blown away. He immediately decided that he wasn't ready for a wife and six children, and without a backward glance, he walked out of my life.

Oh, how could I have allowed this to happen? My mind and soul spun in desperate self-loathing. What kind of shameless person was I, to wander into such immoral sin? How could I face my loved ones with the consequences of it? A baby out of wedlock, with no father! Oh, what should I do? But, my brothers were wonderful. They hugged me and assured me that I was okay. They would help me through this new twist in my life. In spite of their reassurances, I wandered around in a stupor for days. No snake crawling on the earth felt lower than I did.

Suddenly Verlan was pounding on my front door. Once again, he'd stopped in to reason with me and to persuade me to come home. I used my new situation as ammunition. Coldly, I blasted him with the fact that he should just give up. He wouldn't even want me now; I was expecting another man's child! But his reaction surprised me. He pleaded that if I would just return to him, the baby I carried would become his in every way. No one else would ever have to know my shameful secret.

In abject desperation, I toyed with his offer. Not only had Bill left my heart shattered, but he'd made me face the glum realization that in all probability, I was destined to remain single for many long, lonely years. It would doubtless take an act of God for any man to accept me as his bride, knowing he would also become an instant father to six young children. I had spun quite the unrealistic dream for myself.

Verlan needed to leave immediately for Colonia LeBaron, and he convinced me to bring the kids and go along. The trip would do me good, he argued. It would give me time to think about what would be best for everyone concerned. Still in a daze and feeling totally hopeless, I agreed to go along, and also to consider returning to him. But before we were even halfway to Mexico, I realized this was not a solution I could live with. Being around Verlan again, with his fanaticisms and unrealistic dreams for a dying church, reminded me of why I'd left him in the first place. At the end of my first day back in the colony, I told him I wouldn't stay.

Immediately, the church priesthood called me into a court hearing, where my membership was revoked on grounds of adultery. Although the process was humiliating, I was more than ready to be officially released. I wanted no part of a people whose polygamous, self-righteous men sat in stern judgment on the wayward wife of their leader, for loving one man and giving herself to that one person. It was true; I hadn't been legally married to Bill. No judge had signed a marriage certificate for us. But I'd felt more married to him than I'd ever felt with Verlan.

That night, the kids and I returned to Utah. I determined to hold my head high, pick up the ragged pieces of my life, and stop feeling sorry for myself. My children needed me. Seven months later, with my sister-in-law Bobett holding my hand, my beautiful new son was born.

My desire for a husband of my own became a reality in 1979. Dennis was from southern California, of Christian faith, and he took a timid, scared, twenty-five-year-old woman with a house-full of young children and made us his own. He patiently patched my frayed heart, restored my faith in men, and became the loving friend and mate my soul longed for. Between us we added one more, fine son to the family. Dennis became “Dad” to all seven of my children.

For twenty-nine years, until Dennis's sudden death of a heart attack in July 2008, we were inseparable. We shared so much laughter and had so much in common. I miss him more than words could ever express. My family and I eventually settled down in Idaho, and it has been good for us and a wonderful place to call home! Several of our children graduated from school with honors. They have all grown into successful, caring people, and most have little ones of their own. Each one loves God and serves Him in his or her individual way. We have led an active, laughter-packed life, most of us in a small town in Idaho. We frequently get together for an ongoing family reunion. Although my boys are successful businessmen, they love to play. They spend much of their free time on the golf course, and all are avid sportsmen. My girls are both busily climbing corporate ladders. In fact, Melanie became Verlan's only child to earn a bachelor's degree. She went on to become a certified public accountant.

As for myself, I've come to an understanding with God. I love Him more than ever, and I know He loves me just as much as any man He ever created. I thank Him daily for saving me, and for blessing me with my wonderful family. I also thank Him for the experience I had being in Mexico. It's made me into the happy, grateful person I am today, who recognizes her blessings and who doesn't take them for granted. I've even enjoyed the strange assortment of jobs I've worked at through the years. Mostly I've enjoyed sharing my life with Dennis, raising my children with him at my side, and spending time with our fourteen grandchildren.

For many years after leaving Mexico, I was plagued with recurring nightmares. I would wake up every week or so with the gut-wrenching knowledge that I'd just had another one. In these dreams, Verlan and his many wives grasped at me, argued with me, pulled at me. Ervil haunted me. My Chynoweth cousins beckoned me. But since completing this book, the nightmares have finally, thankfully, become a thing of the past.

You will want to know what happened to the people I wrote about. First of all, of my own Ray family: My mother and father are both gone now. Dad stayed in Mexico with Maria and her children until his death in 1995. He is buried close to Colonia LeBaron. My dear mother left the colony a few years after I did. She stayed with Grandma Susie until Grandma's death. Mom passed away in 1998, and is buried as she wished, near her childhood home, in Panguitch, Utah.

Rose Ann, Jay, Fara, and Mona are still in Mexico. They cling to their faith in fundamentalist Mormonism and polygamy, though the church itself has splintered several times. Each group still waits for a new “prophet” to step forward and claim “The Keys.”

Verlan officiated as the president of the Church of the Firstborn until his own death from a “suspicious” auto accident in August 1981. Of his ten wives, only six remained with him until his death; Beverly, Ester, Helen, and I had left him. He fathered fifty-eight children.

Irene and most of her family, along with many of Charlotte's, Lucy's, and Beverly's children, have since left Mexico and the church. Most of these are now of the Christian faith, Irene included. They are spread across the United States and live normal, fulfilling lives. Irene married Hector Spencer a few years after Verlan died. At the time of this publication, she and Hector are still in good health and fully enjoying being grandparents to Irene's remarkably large posterity.

My Chynoweth relatives remained with Ervil's Church of the Lamb of God for several years. Mark, Duane, and Rena, along with Victor Chynoweth, their older brother, all became “hit men” for Ervil. They assisted in several blood atonement murders and in various other crimes.

In Ervil's immediate family, and killed by his own order, were two women. First was his pregnant, teenage daughter, Rebecca LeBaron Chynoweth. Becky, a plural wife to my cousin Victor, was rebellious and causing Ervil headaches. Her slain body was loaded into the trunk of her father's car and carted to the desert for burial. This happened in 1977. Ervil's wife, Lorna Chynoweth LeBaron, disappeared in 1982. Her body was never found, but according to the confession of one of Ervil's men, she too, was ordered killed by Ervil. Her own sons allegedly “blood atoned” her.

The most notorious murder masterminded by Ervil was that of Dr. Rulon C. Allred, a naturopathic physician and leader of a fundamentalist church in Murray, Utah. My teenage cousin, Rena, along with a daughter of Ervil's wife, Anna Mae, walked into Dr. Allred's office and shot him in cold blood. Though tried for Allred's murder, Rena was found not guilty by lack of evidence. Later in her own published book,
The Blood Covenant
, she confessed that indeed, at the bequest of Ervil, she had committed this crime.