Escape. Part 19

I had given Merril seven children in thirteen years. My last three pregnancies had been life-threatening. But he still stood up and humiliated me in front of guests in his home and laughed when Tammy told the story of how he wanted to get rid of me.

I had given him all of my paychecks. I cooked his meals and cleaned his house. I had s.e.x with him every week. My reward? Hatred and humiliation. I could not imagine a worse fate than having to live with him and my sister wives throughout eternity.

Nor was Warren Jeffs anyone I wanted to be around for eternity. h.e.l.l was a better option for me than anything that existed on earth. I was finished-finished sacrificing my self and soul for Merril Jessop. I was not going to live under his tyranny any longer, no matter what the consequences were.

Cottonwood Park was a peaceful place that afternoon. Harrison was sweetly sleeping. But I had changed. I looked up to El Capitan, the peak that towered over our FLDS community. As a little girl, I had always looked at the peak as a red sandstone curtain that protected us from the evils of an unknown and scary world.

I was still afraid of outsiders and the world I did not know. But El Capitan now felt like a prison wall that trapped me in a world of torture and misery.

I had never before considered leaving my religion, my family, my customs, and my beliefs behind. It was all that I had ever known. Would it be worth it to give it all up? I had no way of knowing. It was frightening even to contemplate a life beyond.

But I did know I no longer believed that Merril would want me with him in the afterlife. If I had nothing with him, I had nothing in eternity. I might as well have the best possible life I could on this earth.

When I got home I went straight to my bedroom. Merril came to my room that night and wanted to have s.e.x. We had not had intercourse for several months because of my high-risk pregnancy with Harrison. I didn't want to have s.e.x with him again. When I got into bed I put Harrison between us.

"If you want me to get close to you, then you are going to have to move that baby." Merril's voice was firm.

I turned my back and rolled over, acting like I hadn't heard him, and went to sleep.

Merril was furious when he left my bedroom the next morning. I was relieved that he was gone. I never wanted him to touch me again. Ever. If I was going to h.e.l.l, there was no reason to bother trying to please Merril anymore.

I got into the shower and started to shake. In thirteen years, I had never refused to have s.e.x with Merril. That morning as I was scrubbing every inch of my body I realized that it was mine. I had gotten my body back. No man would ever violate me again and treat me like filth. It would be easier to tolerate Merril's abuse if I didn't also have to have s.e.x with him, too.

I got out of the shower and dried myself off. I had never felt more liberated.

Merril ignored me for several months, and it was bliss because the other wives did, too. Tammy had always said, "I'd rather be abused than ignored." I thought that was crazy. Being ignored made me feel happy and safe. When I looked at the vermilion cliffs of El Capitan I smiled at the thought that my prison might not be so bad after all. No one was more surprised than I to realize that my newfound freedom had been purchased by giving up on eternity and settling for h.e.l.l.

But after a few months Merril returned to my room at night. I ignored his advances and he gave up for the rest of the summer.

It was very common for Merril when he was home to call the family to prayer even after all the children had gone to bed. This would happen between ten o'clock and eleven-thirty. Merril had no concern for his family's schedules or needs or the habits of small children. Sleeping children had to be pulled out of bed, and no one in the family had the right not to come when Merril called.

Prayer time was when Merril terrorized his family.

It began with Merril sitting comfortably on a chair with his wives beside him. The rest of the family would be required to be on their knees. Merril would give a sermon. Then he would invite the family to tell him things he needed to know. Barbara would jump in right away and detail something that a child or wife had done that she was sure Merril would see as disobedience.

Merril would then publicly humiliate and shame the person Barbara had targeted. On this particular day, the heat was on Merril's younger daughters. Merril scolded them without listening to their side of the story. Each daughter was blasted except for Betty. Betty was Merril's little princess. He always made excuses about why she was so perfect.

Ruthie, one of Merril's daughters, pointed out that Betty was as guilty as the rest of them. Merril told Ruthie she was guilty of trying to hide her sins by getting Betty in trouble. Betty was untouchable.

Merril's family stayed on its knees for two hours listening to Barbara's rants about how terrible his children were. He would scold a child until he or she burst into tears. After Barbara ripped through his children, she turned to her sister wives and started a harangue about how slow we were in cleaning up after dinner. We all took our reprimands without raising a voice in our own defense.

Finally, when it was over, I gathered my sleepy children and took them back to bed. When I walked around the corner of the living room I saw Ruthie angrily grab Betty. It looked like she wanted to kill her. I started screaming at her to stop. She dropped Betty's arm and changed her expression to one of polished innocence.

I told Ruthie never to hurt Betty again. This set Ruthie on the warpath against me. She knew that I wasn't going to allow her to hurt any of my children and started running to Barbara with story after story about me.

By fall, the family was pressuring me to go back to Caliente and run the motel. Tammy wanted to quit the motel and return to teaching. I ignored the suggestions. But Merril had no one to manage the motel unless I went back. There was no way I would agree to go back there.

Merril knew I had slipped his noose. He began coming into my room at least once a week. Now he would lie in my bed but not try to touch me. I think his fantasy was that I'd initiate something. Of course I never did. By morning he was always furious.

I would watch him leave my bedroom and think of James' admonition to me: Sweetheart, you are nothing to that man but a piece of meat. Sweetheart, you are nothing to that man but a piece of meat.

But I was no longer a piece of meat Merril could use for s.e.x.

The pressure on me to return to Caliente extended to Merril's children. His teenage daughters began reprimanding me for being disobedient to their father. One said I had no right to be a mother in their home if I remained in rebellion to Merril.

"Well, isn't that interesting," I said to her. "I didn't know that I had ever been a mother in this home. There's certainly never been any respect."

A few days later I walked into the kitchen and overheard Ruth say to several of Merril's daughters, "Father is going to give Mother Carolyn some time to get in line, but if she doesn't get control of herself he is going to put a stop to her rebellion."

I looked at Ruth and said, "This is interesting news. It's nice to be informed about my own rebellion. I should listen more to what you tell the girls."

Ruth turned red and left the kitchen in a huff.

Merril never came right out and asked me to go back to Caliente. He ended up sending Truman, Barbara's second son, instead. Tammy returned to Colorado City and tried to ingratiate herself back into my life with her gossipy ways.

She was close with several of the daughters Merril had married off to Uncle Rulon, and they fed her information, which she was only too eager to pa.s.s on. "Did you hear that one of Uncle Rulon's older wives committed adultery?" she asked me one afternoon.

"That's not news," I said. "Everyone knows about her."

"No, that's not the adultery he was talking about," Tammy said. "She committed adultery three times. Twice with her music teacher and then once when she refused to have s.e.x with Uncle Rulon." In the FLDS, refusing to have s.e.x with one's husband was considered to be adultery-as was pleasuring oneself.

The conversation seemed to be headed in another direction. I looked at her blankly, not sure what she meant.

"Uncle Rulon said that if a woman refuses to have s.e.x with her husband she has committed the sin of alienation of affections. This is committing adultery in her heart, which is a sin unto death-as much as having an affair with a man other than her husband."

Now I got it. Tammy knew I wasn't having s.e.x with Merril. If she knew, all of Merril's daughters married to Uncle Rulon knew, too.

Guilty as charged. I had now committed a sin unto death, according to the FLDS, by refusing to have s.e.x with Merril. Forgiveness was impossible. What wasn't clear was why Tammy was telling me this.

A few weeks later I went by the kitchen when Barbara and Tammy were talking. I heard Barbara say my name and then saw her shaking her head. "A woman who thinks she needs a relations.h.i.+p with her husband is a worldly tradition and it's something she needs to give up." I think they a.s.sumed the reason I stopped having s.e.x with Merril was because we had no other connectedness. He never acted like a husband to me. They thought actually feeling something for the husband you slept with was one of those "worldly traditions" that needed to be banished.

Merril called me from his office a few days later. "Carolee, how are you doing?" I said I was fine. He went on to tell me the school was desperate for teachers and it would be fine with him if I went back. He'd told them I'd go over and meet with them that day. "What do you think of that?"

I said no. No, I did not want to teach.

No was not a word I had ever said to Merril Jessop before. I had refused to have s.e.x and done things my own way, but I had never uttered that one-syllable word to him. How much rebellion there was in simply one consonant and one vowel? was not a word I had ever said to Merril Jessop before. I had refused to have s.e.x and done things my own way, but I had never uttered that one-syllable word to him. How much rebellion there was in simply one consonant and one vowel?

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

I thought that if Merril wanted me to teach maybe he should have protected my charter school.

"Do you want me to embarra.s.s you by telling Alvin that you are refusing to do what your husband has asked?"

I didn't respond. Alvin was the princ.i.p.al who had worked so hard with me to make the charter school a reality. I didn't care what Alvin or anyone else thought. I was finished with Merril and his stupid games of intimidation.

We did not speak of my teaching again. Merril kept coming into my bedroom. I refused to have s.e.x. He took me on a trip with him and made a big point of acting like a lovebird when we were in front of other couples. Merril knew I wouldn't refuse his advances in public.

But once we got back home, his tactics escalated. He became abusive toward my children. He would send them away from the dinner table and say they were not allowed to eat. There would be a pretext about some minor infraction that had occurred during the day. The rest of his wives began targeting my children. They told my kids that since I was in rebellion to their father they were not to obey anything I asked them to do or they'd be punished.

Now I had to sneak food to my own children. I tried to keep them as close to me as I could, but there were times when I couldn't protect them. Sometimes they'd play with Barbara's children and she'd look for any excuse to do something hurtful to them. The cruelty was escalating and I had to find a way to make it stop.

s.e.x. What else could I try? I decided that the next time Merril came into my bedroom I'd have s.e.x with him and see if that would make the abuse stop. If not, I'd leave.

The next time Merril came to my room I left Harrison in his crib. When he put his clammy hands on me I didn't resist. I hated feeling his breath on my skin. I offered up my body in sacrifice to my children and it worked.

Merril was almost giddy the next morning. A few minutes after he left my bedroom he called me from his office and invited me to come for coffee with his other wives.

Tammy and Barbara were sitting in chairs next to Merril's desk. They were cheerfully sipping coffee. Barbara handed me a cup. I felt like I was being locked into my prison cell again. Merril started making jokes and we all laughed. Ruthie, Ruth's daughter, came into the office and said my son Patrick was not obeying her. She acted as though she'd be doing us a favor if she was abusive to him.

Merril laughed nervously and made an excuse for little Patrick. I sat up in my chair and smiled at him. Without saying a word, Merril and I had an agreement. I'd give him s.e.x in exchange for the protection of my children.

At that point, even though I had given up on salvation, I still felt my children were better off growing up with their half siblings than leaving the community with me for a totally alien world. I felt we were better off in a world with known dangers than one in which everything would be strange, frightening, and new.

But s.e.x with Merril was as far as I was willing to go. I wasn't going to let him work me like a slave. He had pushed me as far as I could go and I think he knew that.

My actions since returning from Caliente had an impact on Cathleen. Merril had sent her to Page to work in his business there by day and run another motel he owned by night. She came home only on weekends for seven years and hated being away from her five children.

At first I think she thought I was stupid for resisting Merril. But then she realized I had something she wanted. I was home with my children and not working. Cathleen had pleaded with Merril for years to let her come home. She was shocked that I managed to get back from Caliente after only a year. Maybe, she thought, I was onto a good thing.

Unbelievably, Cathleen tried to rebel.

One day she came home midweek. When I saw her I asked her why. "I am tired of being abused by Merril and his accountant. I've been trapped between them ever since I went to Page. I quit and came home."

She said she planned to talk to Merril that night.

When I saw her the next morning her eyes were red and swollen. "Did you talk to Merril?" I asked.

"I did. But it was like it always is. I can't talk without crying and that makes him angry. He scolds me until I can't talk."

"So what did he say?"

"He accused me of using my children as an excuse and said I've never done the job in Page the way he wants me to. That's why I'm always in trouble with him."

I had a smirk on my face. "No matter what you do it will never be the way he wants."

"I said I was still coming home." Cathleen looked whipped. "He said I'd be sorry if I did. I told him I wanted to talk to Uncle Rulon. He said I could but it would be something I'd regret more than anything I'd ever done."

"Cathleen, listen to me. What can be worse than the way he's already treating you?"

Merril took Cathleen with him that day to Caliente. Tammy was there managing the motel. The two of them had a long talk with Merril. They asked him why some of the wives in the family had to be out on the front lines, working extremely hard without ever getting any rewards. Other wives, they said, had far fewer responsibilities and got to go on trips.

Merril said it was odd. He told them he never understood why some wives had personalities that were totally in sync with their husband's while others did not. He'd talked to Uncle Rulon about this. The aging prophet had said that some wives worked hard to be a blessing to their husbands but were little more than workhorses. According to Merril, Uncle Rulon said that this is heartache for them on earth but after they die, the hurt they have suffered is instantly healed because the Lord gives their husbands an appreciation for them in death that he never had for them in life.

Cathleen heard this as glorious news. When she told it to me the next day I said I thought it was preposterous. How could any woman endure a life of misery with such a cheap promise of appreciation after her death?

But Cathleen dutifully returned to Page to work she hated and that also kept her away from the children she loved. One night I heard her oldest daughter crying. I went upstairs to the dining room and saw a child sobbing on the floor in a heap. My eight-year-old daughter, LuAnne, came running over to me with big angry eyes. "Do you know what happened? Mother Barbara came up to one of Mother Cathleen's girls and started hitting her on the head with Barbie's extra-big crochet hook."

I grabbed LuAnne and got her away from there. If anyone heard her reporting on Barbara she'd be in danger. Merril walked into the dining room and over to the crying child. He clapped his hands. "Stop this nonsense!"

Having seen her shuddering and crying on the floor a few hours before made me realize that even though I could protect my children somewhat from Merril's abuse by having s.e.x with him, I was helpless to keep them from witnessing the abuse of their other siblings. I was also sickened by my inability to protect the other children. I made sure my children slept in my bedroom again. No one would be able to come into my bedroom and touch them without waking me up.

I was so upset I called Cathleen at Page that night and told her everything I had seen and heard. "Cathleen, you may get a reward from Merril in your next life, but what about the abuse your children are getting in this life?"

The conversation stopped. Cathleen was silent for a long time and then said goodbye. I knew she was terribly upset. But she didn't know what to do to protect her children.

Harrison's Cancer

I remember walking to the store on a chilly day in early spring when I saw a slow line of cars pulling away from the cemetery. A four-month-old baby had just been buried. I knew his mother. This was her second son, and one who had been born apparently healthy. remember walking to the store on a chilly day in early spring when I saw a slow line of cars pulling away from the cemetery. A four-month-old baby had just been buried. I knew his mother. This was her second son, and one who had been born apparently healthy.

But a week earlier he'd started screaming and wouldn't stop. Twenty-four hours later in a Las Vegas hospital, he was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. The tumor had grown into an area that controlled his breathing. He was put on life support, but there was absolutely no hope. His parents signed papers allowing him to die.

I could not, would not, even begin to imagine how his mother could cope with the pain from such a catastrophic and unexpected loss. When I got back from the store I found Harrison and held him close.

With long, curly eyelashes that touched the tip of his brows, Harrison was so pretty he could have been mistaken for a baby girl. He was a tease who loved to play peek-a-boo and cuddle and to be held. LuAnne, who was eight when Harrison was born, gravitated to him right away and considered him her baby, mothering him in every way she could think of. He was chubby and an excellent eater. Harrison thrived. He met every developmental milestone on time or ahead of schedule.

His first birthday was coming up on May 17, 2000, my fourteenth wedding anniversary. I marveled at how healthy he was. He bounced back from illnesses faster than any of my other six babies had. Without a doubt, he was my dream baby.

A week later I was mopping the floor. Harrison was sitting nearby and smiling at me. I smiled back at him, then his smile vanished. The right half of his body went into a spasm that lasted for about thirty seconds. I ran across the wet floor and grabbed him. But the spasm had stopped and another smile lit up his face.

I was worried. I called the night clinic and made an emergency appointment for him. He was checked out and everything seemed perfectly normal. But I felt uneasy. I had never seen anything so sudden and so frightening sweep over a child before.

Two days later he had another spasm. I had started working at the grocery story to save money for my escape. Barbara told me about it when I got home. She said it had happened while she was feeding him lunch. But once again, he'd bounced back quickly and seemed fine.

I made an appointment for Harrison in St. George. But the weekend before our scheduled visit he had another spasm, and this time it didn't stop and it controlled his entire body. I was at my father's doing laundry and we called an ambulance.

Several tests were done in the ER, but the cause of the spasm could not be found. He was admitted and the pediatrician did more tests the next day. At one point, a doctor told me Harrison had the hiccups. He was making a sound similar to hiccups, but I knew that wasn't it.

We stayed at the hospital for several days of tests. It was h.e.l.l for me. This was more terror than I had ever known and it was a terror I was powerless to understand. Test after test came back negative. Merril came to the hospital once to visit us when he was in St. George on business. He seemed concerned but was also convinced that Harrison would get better. After a few days, Harrison was diagnosed with a postviral infection. The pediatrician told me this could last for three weeks.

I didn't know what I would do. Harrison's condition had gotten worse. He was screaming all the time and he slept only with strong medication. At home, it was even more awful. Harrison began vomiting from the spasms. I fed him constantly but had to stop nursing him because when he went into a spasm he bit my breast. He seemed famished-the spasms took a lot of energy. But the more he ate, the more he vomited. And screamed. He screamed nonstop seemingly from terrible, terrible pain.

The pediatrician prescribed some antinausea medication, but nothing gave him relief. She told me this could last as long as three months. I didn't know how we would make it. I wasn't sleeping. His suffering was relentless. I felt so utterly powerless and defeated by my inability to do anything to help him when he looked at me with his big, beautiful, but tortured green eyes.

Someone gave me the name of a holistic doctor in Las Vegas. Linda said she'd take us there. Maybe he'd have an answer that eluded traditional medicine.

I went to find Merril. He'd been ignoring Harrison and showed zero concern. It was obvious to me that he felt Harrison was my problem. I certainly didn't think he'd object to my taking him to Las Vegas.

But Merril turned on me with a vengeance when I told him what I wanted to do. He berated me for having such an idea. I was exhausted after three sleepless weeks. I didn't care what Merril thought and looked at him exactly the way I thought of him-as an unbelievable idiot.

He grabbed my arm and threw me several feet in the alfalfa field. I stumbled over some clumps of dirt but would not let myself fall on my face. I would not give him that pleasure. It took every ounce of strength that I had. I regained my balance and stood my ground. He grabbed me again and threw me as hard as he could. I landed on my feet again but some distance away from him. I looked at him with disgust and defiance.