Stolen Innocence (40 page)

It turned out that he’d seen me a couple of times over the few months before we met in the desert; he even remembered me from a Pioneer Day parade some years back. I had been one of the dancing girls, and he was marching just ahead of us as a platoon leader for the Sons of Helaman. He later confided that he’d been so taken with me that day that he’d turned in the wrong direction when the church elder called out his group’s marching orders.

As the days turned to weeks, my timidity around Lamont evaporated. The more I saw, the more I realized that he was not out to get me into trouble, and we began to forge a friendship. Lamont was living at his father’s house in Hildale at the time, but things at home were not going well for him. At first I didn’t know the full story, but from what I gathered he’d had some trouble with Warren and was trying to reconcile his complex emotions about our faith with the residual desire to reach heaven.

Later that month I met Meg and Jason at Brian Head Resort for a secret day of snowboarding. Jason had driven down from Salt Lake, and I was surprised when Lamont showed up to join us. They had a great group of friends, and their enthusiasm was infectious. Though he was a bit older, Lamont had a fun and vibrant personality that lit me up. In the days after our outing, I found myself wondering about him.

“What do you know about him?” I asked Meg as we drove through town in my truck.

“Well,” she said with a sigh, “he’s had a rough life. His mom died and growing into adulthood had been tough for him.”

I shook my head in quiet sadness. I thought of my love for my own mother—that desperate, clinging love that held us together. It was hard to imagine life without her, and I was sure that Lamont had suffered a great deal from the loss. Maybe wanting to protect Lamont’s privacy, and also probably because she didn’t know the whole story, Meg stopped there and we moved on to other topics.

Meg and I continued to spend hours driving around, talking about life, and avoiding our homes. One of my favorite things about my truck equipment was a tiny television with a built-in VCR I had bought in secret. In the summer months and into the early fall, Meg and I had rented movies or borrowed them from Meg’s older sister and driven out to the desert to watch them in the bed of the truck out under the stars. But winter’s biting winds prompted us to simply hook up the TV between us on the dashboard and watch the movies side by side in the truck cabin.

Despite the fun that I had with Meg, my fourth failed pregnancy brought a renewed sense of desperation. My sporadic appearances at the trailer became even less frequent. Allen didn’t like that I was away so much, but by that point there wasn’t much he could do about it. I had been treating him with disregard ever since he’d forced himself on me after a fireside get-together in the foothills of the Vermillion Cliffs.

Before that gathering, I hadn’t been spending much time with him, and I worried that I might get into trouble if I didn’t agree to join him. We’d roasted marshmallows and enjoyed a few hours of fun with members of Allen’s family and friends. When it began to grow dark, Allen asked me if I wanted to drive and talk for a while.

“Okay,” I said, a little reluctant, but knowing I still had a responsibility as his wife. We circled around until Allen stopped the truck at a field that had a scenic overview of the twin towns. In his awkward way, Allen was trying to alleviate some of the dissension between us. At one point, he asked me if I ever wanted to have children. I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t want to have children with him, but I knew he would view me as defiant if I told him the truth.

He opened the tailgate of the truck, and we sat with legs dangling, enjoying the twinkling lights of the sleeping towns and the sound of the crickets. Allen asked me why I was distant and hostile toward him. In the past, I had realized that my feelings didn’t matter, but in this moment, I summoned the courage to again tell him the truth he didn’t want to hear. Since my last miscarriage, the space I’d taken from Allen had allowed me to look at him and our relationship more closely. What I saw was that Allen and I were never supposed to be together, and it was never going to be anything other than what it was: a forced, ugly union. “You know, Allen, I just don’t trust you,” I said. “I just don’t love you and I don’t want to be here.”

I waited to hear Allen’s response, but there was none. A heavy silence fell between us as I blurted out what I had been holding in for so long. “Things you’ve done in the past have hurt me, and I just can’t trust you anymore,” I said. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Well, if you just have a baby with me, things will change. You’ll learn to love me,” Allen replied in a desperate tone.

“No, I won’t.” It worried me to see that my words were making Allen frustrated. He reminded me that my salvation depended on my obedience to not just him but the prophet.

“The prophet has put you here,” he reminded me. As I searched my mind for a response, I could feel Allen’s hand on the back of my neck and his wet lips coming for mine.

“Don’t do this,” I told him. I knew his pattern. A kiss was just step one for him. It always led to more, and I was unwilling to go there. “Don’t touch me. If you truly want to try and make this work, you are going to leave me alone.”

“Well, you are my wife, and I am your priesthood head,” he snapped back.

As I felt his hands move to my shoulders, I issued another warning. “Don’t do this,” I said. We were like two armies coming to battle, and I didn’t want to give in. “If you do this, you will pay the consequences, and things will never be the same.”

I tried to rise to my feet, but his strong grip was pushing me back into the camper shell. “We just need to have children and you’ll feel different” were the last words I heard from his lips. Once again, Allen had me trapped. I had no vehicle to drive away from him.

“Do what you’re going to do and just bring me home,” I said. “I just want you to know it will never be the same.”

That night I promised myself that I would never allow myself to be in that situation again. It was a promise that I kept. If I couldn’t get a release from Allen, I would at least stand and protect myself.

W
hile Mom had been able to get me into Uncle Fred’s on some nights, it had become increasingly difficult to visit there without being noticed. In addition to the security gate that required a pass code, cameras had been strategically placed to survey the perimeter. On some nights my sister Ally would sneak down to let me in after everyone had gone to bed, but that wouldn’t work every night.

When I couldn’t stay with my mom, I went back to sleeping in the desert in my truck, but with winter fast approaching, my little plug-in heater was no longer sufficient to keep me warm. I figured out that if I turned the heater on for eleven minutes, it would warm the truck for at least an hour. I had to be careful not to fall asleep while the heater was on because it might drain the battery.

One day in December I was at the Twain, as we affectionately nicknamed our restaurant, chatting with Lamont, who’d stopped in for a meal. He told me that he had a movie he wanted to lend to me, and I could feel my cheeks grow instantly pink. My little television adapter and my “wild” nights with Meg watching films were rebellious enough by FLDS standards. To borrow a film from a boy would be a huge taboo. At first I reflexively declined Lamont’s offer, but after I thought about it some more, I decided to take him up on it.

We agreed to meet out in the desert so he could lend me the movie without us being caught. When I approached, I noticed his truck immediately. It was a stunning gold Ford F-350 jacked up on huge tires. In Short Creek, a boy’s truck was his baby, and Lamont’s was gorgeous. So I was absolutely shocked when he insisted that I take it for a drive. “No way!” I declared, smiling.

Lamont’s soft blue eyes lit up and his white teeth shone in a large grin. “Come on, now,” he said, “How often do you get to drive a truck like this?”

He was right and we both knew it. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, contemplating what to do. “Well, okay,” I agreed, trying to stifle my excitement. I was nervous as heck when I climbed up into the driver’s seat and shifted into gear. What if I crashed his truck? What if we got caught? My mind raced too quickly for me to catch up.

Gently, Lamont teased, “Give it a little more gas than that, Elissa.” He laughed. And I did too. Slowly, I pushed my foot down a little farther and off we went, kicking up dust and careening around the desert landscape like two kids.

As the drive came to an end Lamont and I found ourselves talking, unable to stop. He asked me where I’d grown up, and I told him that I was from Salt Lake City. He had noticed my surname, Wall, because legally this was still my name and I needed to use it at work.

“I haven’t known many Walls,” he said, “but I am a friend of Travis.”

I smiled at the mention of Travis, missing all of my brothers fiercely at once. Lamont had spent some time in Salt Lake, where he had linked up with Travis, who I hadn’t seen since Mom moved us to Hildale in 1999. I eagerly soaked up the stories about him and how cool Lamont thought he was. For years my family had worn a black mark. It was refreshing to hear someone speak with respect and admiration for one of my siblings, especially one of my brothers whom I loved and missed so deeply.

When Lamont told me that his mother had died after falling into a coma, I was shaken to the core. Tears clouded his blue eyes as he briefly detailed the story for me.

“I am so sorry,” I said almost in a whisper. Yet it felt comforting to have someone trust me with such a personal story. I had never had a man outside of my family confide in me like this, and for the first time ever, I had the sense that I was connecting with a member of the opposite sex.

The days wore on, and my friendship with Lamont deepened. One day he called Meg and asked for her help, explaining that he was suffering a bout of lymphedema. I asked Meg about his condition, and she explained that Lamont’s lymph nodes were prone to infection; if one shut off, the others would back up. The infections caused him high fevers and discomfort that could only be treated with antibiotics. I was upset to hear that Lamont was sick and I wanted to comfort him without being overbearing, so I sent him a text message saying, “I hope you get feeling better.”

Meg had offered to drive to Hurricane to pick up his prescription, so we hopped into my truck and were on our way. Of course, there was a pharmacy closer to home, but if we got caught there, we would be chastised. We couldn’t let people know that we were associating with a man who wasn’t our priesthood head. Meg dialed Lamont’s cell phone, and he was able to drag his fevered body out of bed long enough to meet us in the Sticks, where we could secretly hand over his meds. I worried quietly about him for the next two days, but I didn’t want to disturb him. Finally, he texted me and thanked me for what I’d done, saying he hoped we could keep our friendship in the future. I was ecstatic but a little scared. I enjoyed Lamont’s company more than that of any other man I’d met. Already our friendship had broken the rules of the church, and I didn’t know where things might go.

Just a few days after our trip to Hurricane, Meg and I were both working the dinner shift, and I could tell that something was up. Her typical carefree look was not there when she climbed into the passenger seat that night for the drive home.

“Lesie,” she said, tears filling her eyes, “I have to go.” The words came out almost in a whisper as Meg told me that Jason was coming to get her the very next day. They were heading to Salt Lake City together. “I need your help,” Meg pleaded. “Please.”

That familiar feeling of being left behind came crashing back, but I didn’t let it get the better of me. Though the loss would be monumental, I had to help my friend. She was opening up to me the way that I had wanted Kassandra to, and I could not bring myself to try and convince her to stay. When Kassandra left, I thought she was damning herself to hell, but now I knew this wasn’t true. I didn’t want Meg to end up by the side of some old man or, worse, with a man she didn’t love. Jason cared for her and she for him. That was enough for me.

Solemnly, I nodded. “Of course I’ll help you.” We shared a long hug, and I tried to control my sobs. When we finally let go of each other, I shifted the truck into drive, wanting to make the most of our last night. Together, we rode through the encroaching darkness of night, blasting our Bon Jovi and Bad Boys Blue CDs and belting out verses in a final hurrah.

We saw each other the following day, had lunch, and even snuck off to one last movie. That night, I arrived beneath Meg’s window to help her escape. I softly called out to her, and almost immediately one of her bags was thrust in my direction. With only starlight to guide us, we ran down the road to where I had discreetly parked my truck. A passing car nearly spoiled everything—you never knew who could be out making the rounds to get people into trouble—but we hid and continued on our way unnoticed. We reached my vehicle and hopped in, then drove to a gas station several miles outside of town, where Jason had arranged to meet us.

I handed Meg her half of a crystal friendship pendant on a chain that I had ordered for us only a week before. The necklaces did not interlock in the traditional way to form a heart, but when they were laid one on top of the other, the light created a heart within them. “I want you to wear this,” I said, “and know that you are always in my heart.”

Tears streamed down both our cheeks as Meg promised, “I will always be with you.” We shared one final embrace. Meg took her belongings and headed for Jason’s car, waving once before getting inside. Frozen behind the steering wheel, I watched them drive away until the taillights disappeared.

The days after Meg left were agonizing, and Lamont sent me a text message saying that if I ever needed anything, I could call him. I didn’t want to plague Mom and the girls with my problems, so I took him up on his offer, finding refuge in long phone conversations with him. His soft and affirming friendship kept me afloat. The sweet taste of Oregon had not gone away, and I tried to remember all that I had learned from that trip. It was difficult without Meg, and with all the tumult in the past two years I had became like a body with no soul. But through the storm, although I couldn’t see it then, the clouds were beginning to part, and I found friendship in Lamont. I could feel the chemistry growing between us, but fear prevented me from saying a word to anyone about it. Besides, there was no one left to talk to.