Escape. Part 13

Now that I had children, they had become fair game for the other wives when they wanted to create conflict for me. Arthur was targeted as a toddler because he was very cute and looked a lot like Merril. The other wives were threatened by this because they were afraid Arthur would be more favored than their own children. There wasn't a move Arthur could make without being chastised for being a bad baby. They'd insist Arthur was full of rebellion and condemn me for being a bad mother.

The pressure was unrelenting. Any wife could discipline another woman's children. When a woman in the FLDS wanted to sabotage a rival wife, she'd attack her children by exaggerating or inventing bad behavior so they could be punished.

Wives were endlessly jockeying to become the favorite wife and gain as much power as they could within the family. In our family I had some protection because the other wives knew Merril liked to have s.e.x with me and they were slightly intimidated about attacking my children. I think they feared that Merril might side with me if I protested.

They never dared hit my children when I was home. If anything happened, it was when I was out of the house or teaching school. I always retaliated when I heard about it by confronting the woman who did it. She would say the children were Merril's, not mine, and that if I wasn't willing to raise them correctly, she was obliged to step in.

One of the few ways I could protect my children was to please Merril s.e.xually. As long as I remained in Merril's favor, the other women knew there was a good chance that he might side with me in any confrontation. So even though I never desired my husband, I trained myself to go through the motions that would satisfy him s.e.xually. I knew if I quit having s.e.x with him, the abuse toward my children would escalate. I learned to protect myself by studying and a.n.a.lyzing behaviors. I knew I was powerless in my environment. But I also knew I could gain some power by figuring out who was predatory and s.a.d.i.s.tic. I had concluded from my position as wife number four that Merril was a creature of habit. I paid close attention to what provoked his abuse. He attacked the same people repeatedly. In time, I learned to outsmart him by reading his facial movements and understanding his tone of voice. This was a survival skill I learned in childhood to survive my mother's abuse.

By May 1991, I was two months away from delivering my third child. The school year was ending and every moment I wasn't teaching I spent working in the garden with Arthur and Betty tagging along behind me. The garden was a peaceful place for me, a time of deep quietude and escape from the chaos of Merril's household. Often I would work in the garden until early evening and watch the sinking sun paint the sky in flaming colors. Arthur was three and a half and Betty nearly two. They played happily beside me, digging in the dirt and helping me pull up weeds and plants.

One night we came back in from gardening and Merril and Barbara had arrived home unexpectedly from Page. I always tried to avoid Merril when he first came home because he was usually in a very bad mood. I grabbed Betty and Arthur and scooted them off to my room to give them a bath, get them ready for bed, and avoid any confrontation with Merril.

Once they were tucked away, I came upstairs to the kitchen and found Tammy and Cathleen deep in discussion. I got a gla.s.s of water and sat down. Tammy seemed angry and Cathleen, very frustrated. I asked them what was going on.

"We're both tired of Merril and Barbara excluding us," Tammy said. I looked puzzled. "From what?"

Tammy explained that as soon as Merril and Barbara got home, they left again and that Barbara was carrying the small suitcase she took to the hospital with her whenever she gave birth. Barbara, Cathleen, and I were all pregnant, and our three due dates were all a month apart. Barbara was due in May; Cathleen, June; and I, July.

Tammy and Cathleen were upset because they didn't get to go with Barbara to watch her give birth to Samson, her twelfth child. It was a well-established tradition in the FLDS that sister wives were supposed to attend one another's deliveries. It was believed that since all the wives were going to partic.i.p.ate in raising the child, they should be at the birth to bond with the baby and support their sister wife. That was the belief; in practice it was something else entirely.

I, like Barbara, loathed the idea of turning the birth of my baby into a communal event. Wives were compet.i.tive with one another and conniving. Those intense feelings and complicated relations.h.i.+ps were not left outside the delivery room door.

When I gave birth to Arthur, Ruth was the only one of Merril's wives present. I hated it. It felt like an invasion of my privacy and she certainly didn't treat me any better after Arthur was born. I'd had a relatively easy delivery, and afterward Ruth began telling everyone in the family that it would be good for the unmarried daughters to watch me give birth in the future.

Women in the FLDS gave birth in the local clinic. Aunt Lydia, the midwife, delivered the babies. A doctor was never present, nor was pain medication ever used. Women were expected to be perfectly silent during childbirth. If a woman screamed or made loud noises she was criticized for being out of control. Sometimes she'd be reprimanded by her husband during her delivery.

Tammy and Cathleen felt outright betrayal by being excluded from seeing Barbara give birth. They felt that all six wives should be present at the delivery and chastised me for holding a completely different view and rebelling against our traditions.

"Carolyn, you don't have a right to impose your selfishness onto your baby," Tammy said. "If you're excluding the family from the baby's birth, it's as if you're trying to exclude them from the baby's life."

Cathleen said that Barbara had insisted on being present when she gave birth to her first child and she didn't understand why she insisted on privacy for her own deliveries.

Tammy piped up that Barbara was still upset that I hadn't allowed her to be present when I had Betty and Arthur.

"I didn't stop her from coming," I said. "She just didn't make it to the delivery room on time, so I see no reason for her to be angry."

When Arthur was born, everyone was out of town except Ruth and Barbara. Ruth came, but Barbara was sulking because I'd called my mother instead of her when I went into labor. She refused to come to the clinic at first, and when she did, Arthur had already been born. Betty was born so quickly that only Merril had been there.

"I really don't care if Barbara's upset with me," I said to Tammy. "If she wants privacy when her babies are born, she can allow me the same."

Little did I know I'd launched a war. Tammy went to see Barbara at the clinic the next morning. She told her I didn't want any of my sister wives coming to the birth of my babies and that I felt none of them had the right to invade my privacy. Exactly.

Barbara was furious. She said the only reason she had private births was that Merril felt it was required in her situation but not for any of his other wives. What right did I have to say who could be present when my babies were born? Tammy came back intending to continue the argument from the night before. She said Barbara felt I was in outright rebellion and needed to be disciplined. Barbara said that if I was uncomfortable with just a few people in the delivery room, then she would ensure that many people were there as punishment. Once Merril sanctioned this, she said I'd have no right to object.

A month later I heard Tammy paging me on the intercom. She said Cathleen, who was due to give birth any day, had gone to the clinic in Hildale. Merril wanted all the wives to come and visit her, but Tammy said she wasn't going to give birth until the next day.

When I got to the clinic I was surprised not to find anyone in the waiting room. One of the women who worked there approached me. "Oh, there you are. Everyone was wondering when you'd get here." I didn't understand what she meant at first. "They are back there in the delivery room." Then it hit me. I'd been tricked.

She led me back to a small room in the clinic. It was crammed with people staring at Cathleen, who was in anguished labor. Merril smiled when he saw the shock on my face. He offered me his chair, which was right next to Cathleen. I sat down because my head was spinning.

I'd never witnessed another woman give birth and didn't want to. I was eight months pregnant and terrified by what I was seeing. Cathleen was writhing in pain and grunting and groaning with each intense contraction. People looked at her with disdain. The small room was crammed with Merril and his six wives, plus five or six of his unmarried daughters. It was difficult for Aunt Lydia to move around because the room was so packed.

I hated seeing Cathleen humiliated. This felt like a total freak show. We were part of a tradition that insisted on covering women's bodies from head to toe when they were in public. But now the most intimate and vulnerable moment of a woman's life was stripped of its dignity and privacy. Cathleen was wearing a nightgown with white leggings and her legs were spread apart in the stirrups. More than a dozen people were not only staring at her, but judging her. She was sweating profusely and seemed emotionally and physically exhausted. Merril was there but seemed nonchalant about the drama that was unfolding around him.

Cathleen's baby finally pushed his way into the world, wet, slimy and screaming. Aunt Lydia cut his umbilical cord and handed him to Cathleen, who immediately handed him to Merril. Merril didn't want him and handed him to me. Everyone wanted to see this child born, but no one wanted to hold him! Johnson was a beautiful baby. I was so anxious and upset I was afraid I might drop him. I took some big breaths and tried to calm down by staring at this sweet and innocent child. After a few moments, Aunt Lydia came and said he needed to be put in the incubator before he got too cold. I got out of there as fast as I could.

I was still too upset at home to concentrate on any of the things I needed to do. I decided to find and confront Merril. I intended to make sure he knew that what had been done to Cathleen would never be done to me. I found him working in one of his alfalfa fields. Raising alfalfa was one of his hobbies.

"h.e.l.lo, Carolee, what can I do for you?" He knew by looking at my face that I was upset.

"I want an explanation about what happened today."

Merril pretended he didn't know what I was talking about. "What do you want your loving husband to explain?"

"I thought what happened to Cathleen today was inexcusable. You need to understand that I will not be treated that way. You will show me respect when I have this baby."

"Cathleen and I were in perfect harmony about the birth today."

My silence demanded more and he knew it.

"But of course I will show you respect. You will want the people at the delivery who I decide should be there."

"Merril, wake up. You're dreaming if you think I'm going to make a freak show out of the birth of my baby. I won't let you deny me my dignity."

Merril laughed the way he did when he wanted to sound superior. "What are you going to do to prevent it? Have your baby in a closet? If you have the baby in a facility that is in harmony with the prophet, then the family members I decide on will be there for the birth."

I looked at him with what felt like fire blazing from my eyes. "Don't flatter yourself with all the abundance of your power. I don't have to have this baby at Hildale. I may choose a more private place, like on a public highway, off to one side!"

I turned and walked away. I would not be humiliated by him.

My due date was a few weeks later. I decided I would tell no one when I went into labor. I knew that Rosie, my father's second wife, knew how to deliver babies because she was a nurse. I asked her if she would be there when I gave birth, but explained nothing else. She agreed. My plan was to call her when I went into second stage later. She'd come and pick me up. I knew that even if I had the baby in her car, it would still be better than starring in one of Merril's freak shows.

Merril and I had not spoken about my delivery since that angry confrontation after Cathleen gave birth. As my due date drew near, he did not return to Page after the weekend as he usually did. I felt my labor was imminent but tried to will it away for a few more days so he'd have to return to Page. It worked.

The night he left I knew I had my chance. I walked for several miles after dinner, willing my labor to begin. In the middle of the night, it did. I could feel the first of the contractions begin, but they were faint and far apart. It was July 24th, or Pioneer Day, our biggest Mormon holiday.

It was the day the entire community turned out for a parade through town. As soon as our house emptied out, I called Rosie. I sent Betty and Arthur to the parade with the family and told them I didn't feel up to going.

Then I called Merril in Page and got the answering machine. What a miracle! Now I knew that I had time to have the baby in private.

Rosie came right away and had already alerted Aunt Lydia to meet us at the clinic. She and one of her a.s.sistants were waiting for me in the delivery room. The other woman said, "We're supposed to be on the float in the parade. If we deliver this baby, we'll miss the parade."

Aunt Lydia told me to push and turned to her whining a.s.sistant. "We can deliver this baby and still be in the parade."

"Not unless she has the baby in the next ten minutes," she said.

"This baby is going to be here in ten minutes," Aunt Lydia said. She was right.

LuAnne was a screaming, beautiful baby with a thick ma.s.s of dark hair. I smiled when I looked at her exquisite features. She was a triumph, and her birth, for me, a small victory for me over Merril's oppression.

Marrying into the Jeffs' Family

Loretta was the first of Merril's daughters to be married off to the prophet, but she was not the last. Paula was next. She was as beautiful as her sister, Loretta. They looked almost like twins. Her wedding gown was princess style, but for the former nuss, this was hardly a fairy-tale wedding. Uncle Rulon was at least sixty years older than she. Her still smile barely hid her despair. She was very disciplined and determined to keep her feelings in check.

I kept thinking of that day in school when we joked about having to marry an old man who was a rest-home patient. Rulon Jeffs was sitting in a chair because he wasn't strong enough to stand. He had a palsy, so when he took her hand in his patriarchal grip the shaking was visible from quite a distance. The marriage was grotesque to me. Merril, of course, had no reason to hide his feelings. He was proud and overjoyed. Merril's status within the community was enhanced when he married off Loretta to the prophet. But his obsession with power would soon make him want more.

Merril was now considered one of the most exalted men in the community since he had married two daughters to Uncle Rulon. I noticed how differently we, as Merril's wives, were treated in the community. We rarely had to wait in line at the grocery store or at the fabric shop. It was considered a privilege by other families to a.s.sociate with us. No one wanted to offend Merril or anyone in his family since he now had a firm and direct connection to the prophet.

Most people in the community usually only ever saw Uncle Rulon at church. Those who were able to make an appointment to see him usually found the meetings were kept short. There was time to make a t.i.the, but not to exert any influence.

Merril's inroads into the Jeffs family did not stop with Uncle Rulon. Several of Rulon's sons started marrying Merril's daughters. The one who married the most was the favorite son among the prophet's seventy children, Warren Jeffs. Warren was gaining influence in the community, and often spoke for his father in church when he was too weak to attend. He was on the verge of becoming a rising star with the potential to take over the FLDS when his father died. I think Merril saw it as a shrewd move to marry as many daughters as he could to Warren.

Warren was now in his late thirties. His three wives were churning out children; there were now about fifteen. My opinion of Warren had never changed since I had first met him shortly after marrying Merril. I thought he looked like a big n.o.body but also felt there was something creepy about him.

Warren was at least six feet tall, and seemed even taller because he was so thin. He had zero charisma, but was polite and well-mannered and chose his words carefully. Warren was the princ.i.p.al at the private school on his father's property. What disturbed me most about him were the stories I heard about his brutality.

Warren thrived on brutality and seemed to love hurting people. He'd pull some kids out of their cla.s.sroom and beat them on an almost daily basis. Warren targeted the kids from bad homes whose parents wouldn't make waves even if their kids told.

Warren also taught brutality. One day he brought one of his wives into the auditorium, which was packed with boys. Annette had a long braid that fell past her knees. Warren grabbed the braid and twisted and twisted it until she was on her knees and he was ripping hair from her head. He told the boys that this was how obedient their wives had to be to them.

This incident was widely reported in the community because so many of the boys went home and reported what they had seen. Uncle Rulon was also reported to have said that the only thing Warren had ever done to displease him was study books on Hitler. Stories like this were in wide circulation about Warren before he took control of the FLDS. Once he did, though, the stories stopped because people feared his wrath.

After Merril's daughter Paula was married off to Uncle Rulon, he sent her to teach in his school. Paula had a college degree and was a certified high school teacher. She told me that Warren saw her as "contaminated" by worldly education and insisted she bring all her college books to school and throw them in the dumpster. "If you're going to teach in this school you cannot bring worldly contamination into the cla.s.sroom." Paula complied because she had no other choice.

The daughters Merril married to the prophet and Warren tended to be the ones he had used to spy on his wives and keep us in line. They eavesdropped outside our doorways and told their father everything they heard. Even after they married, they felt like we were still a threat to them. They'd call home and pump their younger siblings for information. But now they would tell the prophet, instead of Merril, what was going on in our home. This became a huge embarra.s.sment for Merril because on several occasions, the prophet called him in to reprimand him for not having more control over his family.

We routinely made the trip to Salt Lake City with Merril for the priesthood meeting on the third weekend of the month. Merril never missed a meeting because he got to drink in the personal time this gave him with Uncle Rulon.

After the meeting was over, there would be a pizza party at the home of Rulon's son, Leroy. Leroy was the one we thought had the greatest likelihood of becoming the next prophet after Uncle Rulon's death. The first one I went to sent my head spinning.

There was pizza, to be sure, but there was also fried chicken and lots of junk food. But people didn't go for the food, they went for the alcohol. Men sat in the dining room around a large table and the women stayed in the living room.

Vans of women would arrive about forty-five minutes before the men. These were the wives of the most respected men in the FLDS, those in the priesthood. Many came carrying babies in their arms. But that didn't stop them from hitting the beer-not even the nursing mothers. I was disgusted watching women drinking beer and nursing their babies at the same time. They rarely ate because there was a rigid rule in the Jeffs family against becoming obese.

When the men arrived, they sat down in the dining room and expected to be served food. I was taking orders for pizza or chicken and bringing them drinks. I went into the living room to see if any of the other wives would be willing to help me, but they were too drunk. After several bottles of beer, they were laughing and preaching the gospel about keeping sweet and loving your sister wives. When they arrived at the party they'd seemed nervous and irritable, but not now. I thought maybe that was why their husbands let them drink.

After a few beers, the men's mood changed, too. Now they started complaining about their wives. Even Uncle Rulon joined in. He started b.i.t.c.hing about one of his wives who was obese after having sixteen kids, which he felt was a sign of pure rebellion toward him. The other men jumped in, ranting and raving about their fat wives, too.

I was disgusted by what I was seeing. These were the elite in the FLDS. It shocked me to see those who were held in such high esteem within the community exalting in things they all knew were punishable by excommunication.

This was something new to add to the list of ugly realities I had seen within the faith I once prized.

Tammy's Failed Rebellion

Carolyn, I'm pregnant."

Tammy and I were in the kitchen. I was getting a quick cup of coffee before heading back to school.

I was shocked by the news. Was this for real? Tammy had been trying to get pregnant for six years. Fertility drugs hadn't worked. Her desperation had increased to the point that rarely a day went by that she didn't say something to me about it. I knew she'd finally abandoned the Clomid and for the last few months had been taking an herbal tincture a friend recommended.

"It's true," she said. "I am really going to have a baby and I hope it will be a girl."

I thought Tammy would be overjoyed, but she seemed subdued.

"Maybe if it's not a girl then you'll get one next time."

"Barbara was the first person I told, then Merril. I've waited a few weeks before telling my sister wives."

"Tammy, I'm so happy for you," I said.

Tammy and I were not close at this point because I no longer felt I could trust her. She was always tattling on her sister wives to Barbara. We'd barely been on speaking terms, but this broke the ice between us.

Conceiving was never a problem for me, which made Tammy envy me. But now we were on even ground again. A few months later I became pregnant for the fourth time and was vomiting daily from morning sickness.

Tammy gave birth in January. She wanted her delivery to be a big production. Not only did she invite Merril's six wives, but she also wanted all of her sister wives from her marriage to the late prophet, Uncle Roy, to come, too. There were at least a dozen people in the delivery room. Thankfully, I was too sick to attend-one of the only gifts morning sickness ever gave to me.

But Tammy's baby became stuck in the delivery ca.n.a.l during labor. She had to be moved into several different and awkward positions to try and free the baby. I was told later that the mood at the clinic was tense because Tammy's baby was in real trouble.

Merril left the delivery room at that point. He was uncomfortable with the situation and found a place at the clinic to take a nap. Barbara went with him and rubbed his head, neck, and shoulders trying to help him relax and sleep.

Tammy seemed to have been abandoned and betrayed in her hour of need. She had been blindly loyal to Barbara and Merril and was very upset that they had not stayed by her side during the traumatic birth. Her newborn son started having seizures after birth. Merril wouldn't let her take him to the hospital, but she was allowed to see a doctor.

Merril named Tammy's son, Parley, without consulting her. Tammy had another name picked out for her son, and she wanted to include her family at the naming ceremony. But for whatever reason, Merril prevented this from happening. We had a family Sunday school in the living room. Tammy was there with Parley. After Sunday school ended, Merril took Parley away from her and asked his sons to help him name him.

I had never been able to choose any of my children's names or even partic.i.p.ate in a discussion with Merril about them. This was just the way we did things in the FLDS, and I was used to the idea.

Parley seemed to outgrow his seizures by the time he was a few months old. I gave birth to Patrick, my second son and fourth child, on July 6, 1993. I was spared an audience because he came so quickly. Patrick was my healthiest baby, at 7 lbs., 15 ozs. Compared to my first three, he was jumbo-size. I was twenty-five.

For the first time since I'd known her, Tammy was not resentful about my having a baby because she had one, too. Tammy was excited because she hoped our boys could grow up and be close brothers.

But after giving birth Tammy seemed to become increasingly upset by the mean, hurtful things that Merril and Barbara had inflicted on her. For years, she'd been trying to repress her feelings by pasting on a perfect smile. But her facade cracked. I don't know if she had postpartum depression or if she just was too exhausted to play games, but something snapped and she lashed out at Merril, which was completely out of character for her.