Escape. Part 21

She decided she'd had enough after seven years of being away from her children except on weekends. My success in leaving Caliente made a huge impact on her.

Not only did she move home, she was spending time with me. We were becoming closer after years in which we'd barely spoken. That meant a lot to me but put her in more jeopardy. She was now in direct compet.i.tion with me for the t.i.tle of "Merril's most wicked wife."

The warfare among Merril's wives. .h.i.t new heights that fall when Cathleen did something that was unthinkable: she bought her own was.h.i.+ng machine.

This was seen as an act of pure aggression. Cathleen paid for it herself. Unlike Tammy, who gave every dime of her teacher's salary to Merril, Cathleen kept most of her income for herself.

She made no bones about the fact that this machine belonged to her. She put up a schedule over the machine that showed when either Cathleen or I would be doing our wash. No one else.

Ruth was livid. Barbara was outraged. How dare Cathleen think that she and I could have our own was.h.i.+ng machine?

Cathleen was called into Merril's office. How dare she bring a washer into his home without first asking his approval? What right did she think she had to restrict its use? Cathleen stood her ground. "There are three other washers and dryers for the other wives in the family to use. Carolyn hasn't been able to wash her laundry in this home for over a year. We both have the majority of small children in your family. I don't see why this is such a crisis for you."

But it was. It was a crisis because we did not live in a world that was either logical or rational.

Between us, Cathleen and I had twelve children-my seven and her five. The oldest was my son Arthur, who was twelve. Harrison needed care around the clock and Cathleen was the only one in the family who gave me any support at all.

Barbara and Tammy were having long talks every morning over coffee. It was clear to them that we were operating out of their orbit. We did not engage with them and refused to fight. Rather than play into Barbara's power game, we focused on improving our children's lives.

One night after we were both asleep, Merril called prayers. Our children were pulled out of bed and ordered upstairs to pray. Wendell, Cathleen's son, who was not quite two, was asleep in his crib. He was cranky and fussy after he woke up. Merril told Barbara to take Wendell into the next room and discipline him.

Barbara took Wendell into the room where she had beaten Patrick and let him have it. When Barbara beat a baby she would typically spank him until he was blue in the face from screaming. Then she would stop, order the baby to stop screaming, and start beating him again when the hysterical child continued to scream. Eventually the baby would collapse from exhaustion when he was too weak to cry.

Wendell's pitiful screams went on into the night. Everyone at prayers was required to wait until Barbara returned. But when she didn't return, Cathleen's other children were ordered to bed. None of them dared wake up Cathleen to tell her what was happening to Wendell.

Barbara took Wendell into Cathleen's bedroom and laid him beside her.

Cathleen awoke when she heard Barbara's voice. "Wendell will grow up and do what his father needs him to do. Wendell will be a good man some day."

Cathleen bolted up in bed and asked Barbara what she was doing.

Barbara continued stroking Wendell and saying, "Good night, Wendell, you will learn from these lessons how to be a good man."

Then Barbara left the room.

Cathleen looked at her small son and saw how battered and bruised he was. His clothes were still soaked from his tears and sweat. Cathleen awakened her other children and asked them to tell her what had happened. At first they were too terrified to tell. But she persisted and heard about the call to prayer and the attack on Wendell. Her children told her they saw Barbara take Wendell into another room and heard him screaming after she shut the door.

Cathleen walked into Barbara's bedroom where she was relaxing.

"Don't you ever touch one of my children again," she said.

Barbara sat up in bed and shot back. "Cathleen, you are out of order and you know it. I was only doing the will of my priesthood head. For you to question is pure rebellion."

"Barbara, we have nothing to communicate about. I'm warning you that you had better never touch one of my children ever again."

Cathleen left and locked herself into her bedroom. Her room connected to her children's nursery. She locked the door that led into their room, too.

Barbara went immediately upstairs to Merril's office and told him what Cathleen had said. She returned to her bedroom. Merril stood outside Cathleen's room and began pounding on her door.

Cathleen did not respond.

Merril was shouting outside her door. "You're in serious trouble and if you know what is good for you then you will open this door before I break it down."

"Do whatever you want. I'm not going to talk to you," Cathleen replied.

Merril went and banged on the door to the children's nursery. Cathleen's children were too terrified to refuse their father's commands. They opened the door.

He barged into Cathleen's bedroom and ordered her into his office. "Cathleen, if you are going to challenge Barbara when she acts on my orders, then you will have to face consequences."

Cathleen refused to get out of bed.

"Merril, I'm not going anywhere with you. You better leave now."

Merril grabbed Cathleen and threw her on the floor. Her son, Johnson, was sleeping in her recliner and woke up screaming.

"Leave now, Merril. Get out of here."

Merril threw her back on the floor, but this time even harder.

Her children were screaming from the nursery, "Go with Father, please, please."

Merril grabbed Johnson from the recliner and threw him into the nursery and locked the door. Johnson was a shy child who had always been terrified of Merril. Merril berated Cathleen for upsetting her children. Cathleen's daughters were screaming in the nursery. Wendell, who had fallen asleep, started whimpering again.

Cathleen knew she was out of options. "Merril, if you will allow me to take Wendell to Sara, I will go to your office." Sara was Cathleen's eldest daughter.

Merril screamed at her for hours in his office. He told her that she was never, under any conditions, to sa.s.s Barbara. The next morning when Cathleen awakened me for coffee, her eyes were swollen and red. She told me everything her children had told her about what happened to Wendell the night before.

"Carolyn, Merril can batter me and berate me. But I am not going to allow Barbara to hurt my children. I'm going to see Warren."

I warned her against that. I told her about the seventeen-page letter I had given to Warren Jeffs doc.u.menting Merril's abuse. I explained how Warren had discounted my charges because I failed to confess my own sins of immorality.

Cathleen latched on to that in the wrong way. She suddenly thought that if she confessed her sins to the prophet, then he would help her.

I felt sick. "Cathleen, that was only an excuse. Warren needed a reason not to help me. The reality is he never intended to. He will do everything he can to cover up Merril's abuse."

She was unshakable in her conviction that if she told Warren the truth about her sins, he would respond to her honesty with help and protection.

"I'm going to ask Warren for help. I do have sins." And she proceeded to tell me about a wrong that she had committed.

I begged her not to confess that wrong to Warren Jeffs. "Cathleen, don't do it. He will eat you for lunch. If you really want to confess, confess to things like not picking up paper from the floor. Don't give him anything to use against you."

But Cathleen was still a true believer. "If I want his help, I need to be honest."

I knew she was doomed. There was no way she would get any help from Warren Jeffs. Confessing to a sin like that would give him power to condemn her to h.e.l.l.

Cathleen made an appointment to see Warren. He heard another of Merril Jessop's wives talk about his abusive behavior toward her.

Cathleen didn't say much when she came back. She looked spent. She became more obedient to Barbara. Merril told her there would be no forgiveness for her rebellion and instructed her to turn over her small yellow truck to him. She would not be allowed to have her own transportation again. (Some of us had our own cars and vans, but most of us were not allowed to register them and they had no license plates. So if we left the community, we could not travel far without being stopped by the police. Cathleen needed her truck to go back and forth to Page, so hers was one of the few vehicles that was registered.) Merril also ordered Cathleen to turn over all her paychecks to him. But she told me later she had no intention of doing that. "There is no way I'll put myself at his mercy financially," she said. But I knew Barbara would insist that she did.

Cathleen told me that she was going to make amends to Barbara by working on a project with her: cleaning Merril's office. This was the way they were to learn to love each other again as sister wives.

I told her I thought this was ridiculous. "You have to act like Barbara'a slave to make up to her because she beat your baby?" Cathleen turned and walked away without responding.

The next day I saw Cathleen cleaning Merril's office. Barbara was sitting in a chair barking orders at her. "Cathleen, I want you to clean the window next, and Father likes his windows cleaned a certain way. Don't do them the way you usually do."

Cathleen worked to be perfectly obedient to Barbara. But she still tried to hold on to her money. She was also forbidden to drive me to Harrison's doctor's appointments in St. George. Merril said he would take us, which meant I'd have to endure his abuse during the trip. His cruelty knew no bounds. One time I had a cold sore on my mouth and he said it was because I had been speaking lies. G.o.d put sores on my face so everyone could see my dishonesty.

Once on the way home we had a huge argument over something Arthur had done. It was a minor incident and Merril was insisting on giving him a ridiculous consequence. (Consequence was an FLDS synonym for was an FLDS synonym for punishment punishment.) I told Merril that what he planned to do was abusive and that I would not allow it.

"You don't have any control over what I choose to do with my son. If you don't support me, you're only going to get yourself in more trouble," Merril said.

"If you don't quit being abusive to Arthur, I'm taking my children and leaving. I know you think I'm kidding, but I'm not." Merril told me Cathleen and I had already disgraced ourselves with this kind of nonsense. If I needed to go back to Warren and get reprimanded again, it could be arranged.

"I'm not going back to Warren," I said. "Warren had his chance to do what he should have done to stop your abuse. One chance is enough, as far as I'm concerned. The next time I'm taking every one of my children and going to the authorities."

Merril exploded. "If you think of trying something like that, you'll never see any of your children again. The authorities can't help a person like you. All of your children will want to be with their father."

"It doesn't matter what the children want," I said. "The state will give them to me. In a court of justice I'll get the children, not you."

Merril's silence didn't last long.

"Carolyn, you better not start entertaining those kinds of ideas. The consequences you will face if you try something like that will be more than you can endure."

I knew not to provoke Merril any further. If I was going to escape, I couldn't flag my intention again. I had given him fair warning. If the abuse didn't stop, I would leave him when he least suspected it.

Merril reported his fight with me to Warren. Merril was ordered to bring all seven of his wives to a meeting with Warren Jeffs, who was determined to halt the rebellion in our family. Merril's seventh wife was stealing his car at night and taking long trips to Hurricane. She would not come home until the next morning. When she needed money, she got Merril's checkbook and wrote checks for whatever amount she needed. She signed his name, took the check to the store, and cashed it. In ordinary times she would have been severely punished, but Merril and Barbara felt Cathleen and I were a much greater threat.

The meeting took place the following week in Hildale in Uncle Rulon's sprawling house. We a.s.sembled in his huge living room with twelve-foot vaulted ceilings and waited there until Jeffs called us into his office. The house was not lavishly decorated; Uncle Rulon was a man of simple tastes. There was some pretty wallpaper and finely crafted woodwork, but for the most part it was functional and plain.

Warren began by telling us we were all married to a good man. If we were interested in salvation, we must remain in perfect obedience to Merril. Barbara asked to speak. "If we see one of our sister wives struggling with her obedience to our husband, what can we rightfully do to help her?" With her sweet voice, Barbara was asking if she could have the right to discipline Merril's other wives.

Warren looked down, frowning. "It is within your right to pray for her."

This was a major defeat for Barbara, who acted extremely surprised that Warren didn't give her more power over us. Then Merril and Warren spoke to each other alone behind closed doors. When Merril opened the door he called me in. I was told to sit in the chair beside him.

Warren looked at me with a sober expression on his face. He seemed sincere and acted as though he didn't want to offend me. But I sensed that he really didn't take me seriously. He said Merril had told him that I was threatening to go to the authorities. He asked me if this was true.

"No, I'm not threatening my husband," I said. "I gave Merril a promise. I will take every one of my children and do whatever is necessary to protect them unless he stops his abuse. What he wants to do is entirely up to him."

Warren Jeffs looked shocked. I don't think a woman had ever spoken to him so directly before. He told me I had no right to mistreat a good man like Merril.

"I don't care if he is a good man and I am a terrible woman," I said. "He has one option. If he wants me to stay in his home as his wife, he'll stop his abuse. If he can't or won't do that, I'll take every one of my children and leave. That's not a threat, it's a promise. This is something that has nothing to do with the kind of person either one of us is."

The color drained from Warren's face. He was not used to someone who refused to be intimidated by him. Merril said now it must be clear to Jeffs how out of control I was and what he had to put up with on a daily basis.

Warren was quietly seething when he spoke to me. "You have the opportunity to become a G.o.ddess in this good man's home if he chooses to take you with him in the celestial kingdom. If you persist in wasting this life by offending your husband, you will be cast out as good for nothing and no man will ever want you in his kingdom. You need to repent, keep yourself in perfect obedience, and pray that Merril will find it in his heart to forgive you. If you continue to waste the precious time you have here on earth fighting him, you will have no place in the afterlife."

I was silent for a moment before I spoke. Then I looked Jeffs squarely in the eye and said, "If my reward in the afterlife is being with Merril Jessop, then I'm not so sure going to h.e.l.l is such a bad thing," I said. "Maybe in h.e.l.l I won't have to deal with as much abuse as I would in heaven living with Merril."

Warren seemed genuinely at a loss for words. He told Merril to pray for me and then called Cathleen into the room. He used the same sneering tone to speak to her that he had with me. "Are you aware that you will never see Uncle Roy again and will have no chance of being in his kingdom if you keep offending Merril? Merril is the one with the power to recommend to Uncle Roy that you be a wife in his heavenly home." Jeffs could see that his threats were having an impact on Cathleen. He piled on as much intimidation as he could. By comparison, Jeffs had treated me with kid gloves. He tore into Cathleen.

Warren turned to me and asked if I had partic.i.p.ated with Cathleen in being rebellious to Merril. I looked at him squarely and said, "Yes, we are both in rebellion to Merril's abuse."

Jeffs told Cathleen she was no longer to a.s.sociate with me. We could remain in the same house but we were never to speak to each other again.

Cathleen and I left and sat with Merril's other wives until he finished with Warren. The other wives looked at us like we were so stupid and were gloating because we were in trouble and they were not.

In the car on the way home, Barbara asked Merril to lecture to us. "Father, I think all of your wives would be interested in hearing you teach us what obedience means to you. How do you feel about the importance of being obedient? Why would you not be able to have confidence in any woman who can't remain obedient to you?"

I cringed and stared out the window.

As soon as I got home, I went downstairs to do my laundry. The clothesline was next to Cathleen's bedroom. I could hear her crying when I was hanging up my clothes. I snuck into her room through my children's nursery, which was connected by a bathroom to her nursery. This way, no one would be aware of what I had done. I didn't want to get Cathleen into more trouble than we were already in.

Cathleen had a look of desperation in her eyes. It was the violent desperation of an animal who would chew off a limb to escape from a trap.

My voice was barely louder than a whisper.

"Cathleen, I'm sorry for getting you into trouble. I will always be your friend, even if we can't speak to each other anymore."

Cathleen nodded through her tears. I said goodbye and slipped through her room the same way I'd entered.

It was now winter. I hung my wet laundry on the clothesline. The cold wind snapped it around and stung my hands.

I knew that fighting for a life in this community was pointless.

But Harrison was still too vulnerable and screaming most of the time for me to flee. I talked to his doctor at least every other day. He was hospitalized at St. George nearly every week to get his IV therapy. His weight was still an issue, as was finding the right medication for his pain. There was no way for me to run until he was at least holding his own.

Now I had to devise a plan. I would continue having s.e.x with Merril to decrease his suspicions. I would act repentant. Harrison was my inadvertent ally. Merril would never think that I'd dare escape with such a sick child. I knew I could outsmart him. I would wait. And watch.

But I could not get pregnant again. I had to find a way to get birth control. A high-risk pregnancy could cost Harrison his life if I became too sick to care for him around the clock. I couldn't take birth control pills because Merril's other wives and daughters still rifled through my things.

I had to get a shot of Depo-Provera. But how?

Last Baby

I knew I needed to get a birth control shot, but it became impossible because Harrison continued to go downhill. I was too overwhelmed with his care to do anything else. knew I needed to get a birth control shot, but it became impossible because Harrison continued to go downhill. I was too overwhelmed with his care to do anything else.

The IV therapy he was getting gave him some minor relief for his spasms but did nothing to prevent his nausea. He sometimes vomited several times a day, and as a result he came down with chronic aspiration pneumonia. During the winter of 2001, I called the ambulance far more than I called his doctors.

I also had to start monitoring his oxygen with a pulse oximeter. When he had terrible screaming bouts, I medicated him with Versed. At night he needed Ambien and chloral hydrate to sleep, but sometimes they worked for only a few hours. Now, at twenty months, he could no longer lift his head.