Carolyn Jessop; Laura Palmer (31 page)

I was finally ready to leave Caliente for the last time. I walked to James’ trailer to say goodbye. Again he told me that I had to leave Merril. I said I understood his concerns but still didn’t know how I could.

My seventh child was due in a few weeks. I told Merril I would not be going back to the motel. He sent Barbara to run things, which was a disaster, and then sent Tammy. The rest of the family thought I was worthless for staying at home. But I didn’t care. My life with Merril had ended. I was finished with his family and its sick games. I didn’t know how I would ever escape or where I would go. Leaving seemed impossible, but staying wasn’t an option.

My obstetrician did not want me to go into labor naturally because I was too high-risk. He felt it was safer to induce labor and deliver the baby on a day when he knew he could set aside the time to monitor things properly. The only date that fit his schedule turned out to be on my thirteenth wedding anniversary, May 17, 1999. I didn’t care. My marriage was never something I celebrated.

When Merril heard the date, he insisted on being there. I was upset. I would have much preferred having one of my friends accompany me. But this was not a time to say no to Merril. He was driving down from Salt Lake City. I agreed to meet him at a hotel the night before in St. George since I had to be at the hospital at 6
A.M
.

As soon as we were alone in our room, Merril started kissing me. I was revolted. Everything about him repelled me. His cell phone started ringing. It was Barbara. He quit kissing me to talk to her. But as soon as the call ended, he was all over me again. Thirty seconds later, Barbara called back and they talked for twenty minutes. I crawled into bed welcoming the last night of a difficult pregnancy.

Merril joined me. The kissing began again. But within minutes, Barbara called back and I finally fell asleep.

We were at the hospital by six the next morning. I was taken into the labor and delivery area and was put on a drip to induce labor. Merril stayed for an hour and then left. He said Barbara was bringing his truck back from St. George and he was going to meet her at the hotel and get some rest.

After six hours I went from active labor to transition. I knew the baby would be born soon. The nurse wanted to know how she could get hold of my husband. She was worried about him missing the birth of his son. (We knew it was a boy from all the ultrasounds I had during my pregnancy.)

I lied and said Merril would call in a few minutes. The truth was he’d called a short while before and I told him nothing was happening. I didn’t want to deliver my baby alone, but I certainly didn’t want him with me.

Contractions took over my body. The nurse told me not to push and called frantically for the doctor. He ran into the room and Harrison was born minutes later.

The doctor handed me my beautiful baby boy. He was five pounds thirteen ounces, and unbelievably healthy. I smiled as Dr. Carter congratulated me.

Merril called five minutes after Harrison was born. He could hear the child crying over the phone. He professed disappointment at missing his birth. Merril and Barbara came right over to the hospital. Barbara seemed thrilled that Merril had been with her when Harrison was born on our anniversary.

I was beyond caring about Merril Jessop. As I watched him walk away with Barbara I knew my marriage to him was completely over.

I had just given birth to his fifty-third child.

I Take Charge of My Life

A
fter Harrison was born, I was able to stay home for the first time in a long time and not work. It had been over a year since I’d lived with Merril’s family on a regular basis. Now I saw that Warren Jeffs’ stamp on the FLDS was becoming increasingly evident.

I’d had a collection of three hundred children’s books that I kept in my bedroom. I cherished books. Books were the only real window I had into any other world than my own. I loved to read stories to my children. It was a precious time together, a time of intimacy and tenderness that did not exist in any other area of our lives.

Warren had decreed in 1998 that all worldly reading materials had to be eliminated. While I was away, the family had seized and destroyed my library. My shelves were stripped of my cherished books. I was heartbroken to see that my best books were gone—books such as
Charlotte’s Web, Little House on the Prairie,
and
The Indian in the Cupboard.
I made a point to collect books that had won the Newbery Award. They were all gone. The only books left were big picture books of animals.

I felt so violated.

The year I spent in Caliente had spoiled me in one way: I could do my laundry whenever I wanted to. This may not seem like a luxury to most. But to me, it was heaven.

Doing laundry at Merril’s was an ordeal. The three automatic washers we had were always breaking down. We had a large, industrialsize washer that was very time-consuming to use. Ruth, for whatever reasons, often would come down and take my laundry out of the washer and dump it on the floor.

I decided I was not going to fight over laundry. My father had a much better machine at his house and had no objections to my doing laundry there. In three hours, I could do laundry for all eight of us.

Merril’s wives complained. Merril called me into his office and demanded an explanation. I told him that it was easier than trying to do it in his house and that my father had no objections. Merril said if I was really interested in doing what he wanted, I would find a way to do it in his home. I agreed. But I knew I wasn’t changing the way I did the laundry. It was a small step away from his tyranny and oppression, but it was a step.

Linda’s clandestine coffee parties were still taking place after nine years. I went whenever I could. It was one of the few places where any of us spoke honestly about what was happening within our community. At one of the early meetings I went to, Linda asked if we had heard what had happened to one of Warren’s newest wives when she gave birth to her first baby.

I said that if it was another sewing-scissors-and-dental-floss story, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it. “It’s worse,” Linda said. “This time the baby died.” Warren’s wife was in Salt Lake City when she went into labor. Warren was in Colorado City. She had been in labor for hours but the baby didn’t come. The midwife kept calling Warren and asking if she could send her to the hospital. He refused. Linda said the labor lasted more than a day and the baby finally died. When the midwife called Warren she said his wife would be dead within the hour unless she got to the hospital. He relented, but told his wife the death of her baby was the will of God.

All of us at Linda’s fell silent. Someone finally spoke. “If the leader of this community is a man so selfish that he would murder his unborn child, then every one of us is in big trouble.” We all picked up our things and started to leave. What more could we say? If anyone heard us talking this way about Warren, we would be in real danger.

I took a detour on the way home and stopped in the park. I sat in the grass, cradling Harrison in my arms. I remembered going to my mother shortly after I married Merril thirteen years before and telling her how unhappy I was. My marriage was so terrible, I couldn’t stand it. She told me to be a loyal wife and that I could learn to love my husband. I believed her. For thirteen years I suppressed every emotion I had ever felt. I tried to be at peace even when I knew everything around me was spinning apart.

We had been taught in the FLDS that sometimes marriage between a man and a woman didn’t work out on earth. But it did in heaven because in the next life, the couple could see each other for the truly great people they were. Sometimes in this world a man would fail to appreciate the sacrifices his wife was making. But in the next, he’d recognize all she had done and love her. The woman would also appreciate her husband as a god. Once she saw his greatness, all the hard feelings she’d had about him would be forgiven. She’d fall down before him in worship and marvel in his glory.

When I thought that I had actually believed in this, I felt sick to my stomach. For thirteen years I’d tried everything I could think of to make my marriage work, even though my husband was a monster. I’d believed that if I worked harder and did my part, the marriage would improve and Merril and I might be able to love each other.

I’d believed that I was doomed if Merril didn’t want me to be his wife in the afterlife. If I failed to please him in this life, he could condemn me to be a servant to him and his other spirit wives for eternity. This would lead me to what we really feared in the FLDS: the second death. The second death happens in the afterlife when a spirit is killed off for the rest of eternity. Such a spirit is cast out with all the other vile spirits to await the second death. A spirit might be forced to endure a thousand years of tortured suffering before the second death actually occurs.

Sitting in the park with my sleeping son, I thought of James—crazy, spooky, rattlesnake-loving James, who patrolled the grounds of the motel all night to make sure Jason would not harm me. I knew I would rather live ten eternities with a man like him that one eternity with Merril.

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 sex 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. Hell 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 sex. We had not had intercourse for several months because of my high-risk pregnancy with Harrison. I didn’t want to have sex 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 hell, 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 sex 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 sex 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 hell.

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.

But I was no longer a piece of meat Merril could use for sex.

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 pass 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 sex with Uncle Rulon.” In the FLDS, refusing to have sex 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 sex 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.”