My Story (31 page)

It took me a moment before I was able to answer. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

Both of us started crying, a swell of emotion that erupted from the very bottoms of our souls.

Then it seemed I heard a voice inside my head:
You are home. You are home. It’s going to be okay.

I leaned into my dad’s shoulder and held on like I was going to drown.

Your dad is there. You are safe. He will never let another person hurt you. Your mom will always stand beside you. It is going to be okay.

We hugged and cried awhile, neither of us saying anything. Then an officer stepped carefully into the room. “We need to take you to Salt Lake City headquarters,” he said.

My dad turned around to look at him.

“Mr. Smart, could you and your daughter come with us? We have a car waiting.”

We were escorted through the corridors to a back door, where a maroon police car was waiting. We climbed into the backseat. One patrol car pulled in front of us, and another pulled in behind.

The moment we had pulled out of the parking lot, my dad looked at me and exclaimed, “We
have
to call your mom!” He pulled out his cell phone and started punching at the numbers. I could hear her phone ring and then her voice say, “Hello?”

My dad was shouting, “Lois, it’s her! It’s really her! She’s alive!”

My mom started screaming into the phone.

“Yes, yes, it’s true!” my dad shouted back. “No, I’m with her! She’s alive. She’s okay. I’m with her right now!

I could hear my mom’s voice screaming even louder through the phone, “Let me talk to her! Pass the phone, pass the phone! Is she hurt? Is she all right?
Pass me the phone!
”

My dad handed me the phone.

“Mom…” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

“Elizabeth, is that really you? Are you okay! Is it true? Is that you? Are you all right?”

Her voice sounded exactly as I remembered it, and for just a fraction of a second I flashed back to those first days on the mountain, reliving the fear that I might forget the sound of her voice.

It’s okay. You are home. It’s going to be okay.

“Mom…” I started to answer when the cell-phone battery went dead.
Ahhhh!
Seriously! Of all of the things that could have happened! My dad looked at me sheepishly and tried to smile.

It seemed to take forever to get to the police headquarters, but we finally made it and I was escorted to another private room. My mom was waiting for me. Seeing her, I almost felt like I couldn’t breathe. She looked just like an angel. Nobody could ever look as beautiful as she looked to me. She jumped up and ran to me and started hugging me so tightly I
really
couldn’t breathe. She was crying. I was crying. It was the same thing as with my dad. We held on to each other like we would never let go. We cried and hugged and smiled and laughed. “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” she repeated again and again.

She could hardly let me go when one of the officers came back into the room. “Elizabeth, we need to ask you a few questions.”

I looked desperately at my mom. I didn’t want to go. Why couldn’t I stay with her? My dad was already gone, somewhere in the police station, talking to some of the other officers.

“Elizabeth, we need to talk to you,” the officer pressed. Reluctantly, my mom let me go.

The officer escorted me into another room. A woman and a man were waiting there. They introduced themselves as investigators, then started asking me all sorts of questions. I answered as best as I could, but I felt overwhelmed. I was on the edge of breaking down. After everything that had happened to me, I just wanted to go home. “I just want to be with my parents,” I finally cried. “I just want to see my family. Can’t we do this later? Can’t I please go home?”

My dad suddenly stormed into the room. They had no right to take me from them, and he was very mad. “We will do this later!” he demanded, his face red with anger. There was no way he was going to let them question me right then and there.

He pulled me from the room and out into the hall. Down the corridor we went, back into the same room that my mom and I had been in before. My brothers and little sister were waiting for me. It was all of the crying and hugging and laughing all over again. It was one of the rare moments that is pure and incomprehensible joy. Some people may live their entire lives and never feel what we felt in that moment. It was beautiful. It was magic. It was everything that I could have asked for.

All of our family was together.

I was really home.

We were safe. Mitchell wasn’t going to hurt us.

I had my entire life before me.

Everything was going to be okay.

William, the baby, was four years old now. He didn’t join in the hugging. Instead, he looked at me with great suspicion. I tried to pick him up, but he turned away and reached out for my mom. That broke my heart a bit.

I’ve been gone a long, long time, I thought.

“Don’t worry, Elizabeth,” my mom assured me. “He’ll remember you. Just give him a little time.”

Then my oldest brother, Charles, came forward and held me by the arms. “I have felt so terrible, not only because I wasn’t there to protect you, but because the last thing I ever said to you was to tease you about some stupid little thing. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry. But I promise, never again will I say good-bye without telling you I love you. That will always be the last thing that I say whenever we say good-bye again.”

And he was right. He always says that now. It is one of the reasons that I love him and why I am so glad he is my brother.

Another officer stepped into the room. “We need to take you to hospital to do a checkup,” he said.

Once again, I was separated from my family. But this time, my mom came with me. She wasn’t leaving my side again.

We were rushed out a back door of the police headquarters and into a white van with darkened windows. I couldn’t believe how many people were waiting, hoping to get a glimpse of me. There were hundreds of reporters and photographers and well-wishers along the road. I was shocked. It seemed incredible! All of them were there for me!

At the hospital, I was poked and prodded and tested in pretty much every way you can imagine. But I didn’t mind so much because I was with my mom.

After the examination, I had to give up the clothes that I was wearing. The police wanted to keep them for evidence. I was more than happy to get rid of them. They were a piece of another life, another world. I wanted to put it all behind me. Besides, they were so filthy and disgusting—castoffs from a homeless camp—I hated to even touch them anymore.

But what was I going to wear out of the hospital? I couldn’t leave in just a gown. My mom and a couple of the hospital staff rustled up a white sweatsuit and some white booties for my feet. The outfit was far too small, and I felt ridiculous, but there was nothing else to do.

Holding hands, my mother and I made our way to another private door on the back side of the hospital and climbed into the waiting police van.

On the way home, the officers were wondering how to get me into my house without subjecting me to the massive crowd that had gathered outside. They talked about driving into the backyard, but there was no way that was going to work. They eventually settled on just driving into my garage and not letting me get out of the van until the garage door had come down.

Turning onto the street that led to my house, I saw for the first time all of the media and other people who had come to celebrate my return. It was nearly overwhelming. Once again I had to wonder that all of those people were there for me.

We pulled into the garage and I waited in the van. But I could hear a hundred voices, shouting, crying, calling out my name. I shook my head in disbelief.

Walking into the house—my house!—I stood in the middle of the living room and took a long look around. It seemed like I had died and gone to heaven. The lights were so bright! The carpet was so soft! The furniture was so beautiful. My family stood inside the room and looked at me. To me, they were a vision. I was so glad to be home!

“Well … what do you want to do?” my mother asked.

The answer was really easy. I wanted to take a bath!

Mom took me upstairs and led me toward my bedroom. Walking in, I was shocked to see that all my clothes were exactly as I had left them on the night I had been taken. I turned to my mother. “Mom, you couldn’t even fold my clothes for me?” I teased.

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smile. She looked away, embarrassed, then turned back and wiped her eyes. “Elizabeth, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” She had to pause to clear her throat. She shook her head sadly. “Every time I came in here to organize your things, I started crying. It was too hard. It was too painful. I simply couldn’t do it. I don’t know if you’ll ever understand.”

I reached out and held her. And as I did, a thought came into my mind:
Your mom did her best. She has tried so hard to be so strong.

We picked up a few things in the room, then I took a beautiful bubble bath. It felt better than anything I had ever felt before.

By then, it was time to go to bed. My parents gathered us around to have our family prayers. There were plenty of thanks to be given. It was a beautiful thing. After prayers, I got up, said good night to my parents, and started walking up to my bedroom. Both of my parents just stared at me.

“We were thinking,” my dad said with a bit of hesitation, “you know, maybe we’d pull your mattress into our bedroom and you could sleep by us on the floor.”

I almost laughed. “No, Dad. No more floors for me. I want to sleep in my own bed.”

They only looked at me. They were not satisfied.

“Mom, Dad, I promise I’ll be here in the morning.”

It turned out that I hadn’t convinced them. I woke up several times that night to see them standing in the darkness, checking to make sure that I was safe.

The next morning, I woke up before my brothers or sister did. After struggling to find some clothes that fit me—I had grown a lot over the past nine months—I got dressed and went downstairs.

Coming down the stairs, I met my dad walking through the front door with a green teddy bear and a bouquet of chrysanthemums. “Wow, thanks, Dad!” I said. I thought he was being nice.

“They’re not from me,” he said. “Someone bought them to the front door and asked me to give them to you.” But that was just the beginning. A few hours later, our house looked like a floral shop. Once again, I had to wonder,
All of this for me?

Sometime in the early morning, my grandparents burst into the house. They were frantic with happiness and exhaustion. They had driven all night from Palm Springs to come to see me. I don’t know for certain, but it seems they may have broken a speed limit or two to get there so fast.

Hearing all of the commotion from my grandparents’ entry, the other kids woke up and came downstairs. We all stood in the middle of the room and hugged each other. To my great relief, my baby brother, William, joined in the hug!

I felt so loved. So safe. I had not felt that way in a very long time.

I am home. I am home. Everything is going to be okay.

The only thing I wanted to do was to have another bath. Then, while the other members of my family were waiting in the living room, my mom pulled me aside at the top of the stairs.

“Before it gets too crazy, I need to tell you something,” she said.

I turned to look at her. She was so beautiful to me.

“This is important,” she started. I could see from the look on her face that it was. I listened as intently as I could. And I’m very glad I did, for what she was about to say turned out to be the best advice that anyone has ever given me. In fact, I would say it changed my life.

“Elizabeth, what this man has done is terrible. There aren’t any words that are strong enough to describe how wicked and evil he is! He has taken nine months of your life that you will never get back again. But the best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy. To move forward with your life. To do exactly what you want. Because, yes, this will probably go to trial and some kind of sentencing will be given to him and that wicked woman. But even if that’s true, you may never feel like justice has been served or that true restitution has been made.

“But you don’t need to worry about that. At the end of the day, God is our ultimate judge. He will make up to you every pain and loss that you have suffered. And if it turns out that these wicked people are not punished here on Earth, it doesn’t matter. His punishments are just. You don’t ever have to worry. You don’t ever have to even think about them again.”

She paused, as if the next words were the most important. “You be happy, Elizabeth. Just be happy. If you go and feel sorry for yourself, or if you dwell on what has happened, if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away. So don’t you do that! Don’t you let him! There is no way that he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second for yourself. You keep them and be happy. God will take care of the rest.”

It’s been ten years since my mother said those words.

The years have proven she was right.

That first night I lay in my bed. I found it hard to sleep. My legs were agitated and I felt restless.

The night was dark, and the yellow light from the streetlights filtered into my room. If I held still, I could hear the occasional sound of cars driving on the road behind my house. Tomahawk Drive. The road where Mitchell had forced me to hide behind the bushes while the police car had driven by. I lay underneath my soft comforter, my head atop my fluffy pillow. It almost felt uncomfortable, sleeping in a real bed.

For the first time in months, I was going to sleep without suffering from hunger. I was clean. I hadn’t just been raped. I hadn’t just been forced to do things that I couldn’t even speak about. I was surrounded by my family. I wasn’t thirsty or exhausted. I hadn’t been forced to drink a cup of dirty rainwater to keep my thirst down. I hadn’t been forced to drink so much alcohol that I was sick. I hadn’t just had a pornographic magazine shoved in my face. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t hot. I wasn’t lonely. I didn’t have to lie in bed and wonder, What are my mom and dad doing? Are they okay? Were they happy? Did they think about me anymore? I didn’t have to wonder, What will my future look like? How long was Mitchell going to live? Would I ever be free again? Would I ever go to school? Would there ever be anyone else in my life except for Barzee and Mitchell?