“I don’t know,” I said, hoping she wasn’t going to talk the whole flight. I was emotionally and physically exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes for the next two hours.
“I couldn’t decide whether it would be better for Rosie to have one really long direct flight or two medium-length flights with a layover. Here’s hoping I made the right decision!” She smiled brightly. “We’re on our way to San Francisco to visit my sister. Have you ever been?”
San Francisco. I was suddenly wide awake, my spine tingling as I said, “Yes.”
“What did you think? My sister is always trying to get us to move out there, but I keep telling her, it’s nice, but it’s no New York.”
“It’s no New York,” I agreed, flashes from my brief time in San Francisco swimming into my vision.
“Where—?” she started to ask.
“My mother is dead,” I said abruptly.
“Oh,” she said, pulling little Rosie to her chest, as though I were infectious. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said, my cheeks flushing in horrified embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and a little mixed up right now.”
She nodded tightly and turned to chat with the person across the aisle. With my anxiety now at an all-time high, I attempted to order three miniature bottles of vodka from the flight attendant. He informed me, rather unkindly, that I could only purchase two at a time, and so I chugged them as quickly as possible and ordered the third, much to the alarm of Rosie’s mother.
Then I closed my eyes and waited for the alcohol to take hold. San Francisco, my heart thundered. Caleb and I had spent three blissful weeks together in Zanzibar before his contract had ended and he had flown home to New Zealand. His departure ignited something of an existential crisis in me. Being with him had made me feel like a better person, and I was suddenly disenchanted with the aimless wandering that had become my life. When the ragtag group of European hippies I had traveled with to Africa began pooling resources to venture down to Lake Malawi, I let them go without me.
I didn’t want to travel, and I didn’t want to go home. Mired in indecision, I did nothing and spent my days wandering alone through the gloomy alleys. But when I saw on Facebook that Lilly, a friendly girl and fellow American I had met in a hostel in Chiang Mai two years prior and then spent a month traveling around Thailand with, was now living in San Francisco, I knew what I had to do. I sent Lilly a message and spent the last of my money on a ticket to California without waiting for her response.
I felt sick with anticipation when I arrived in San Francisco. The Life Force Collective’s compound was somewhere in Northern California; I was closer to my mother than I had been in years. Still, I had no idea how to go about finding her. Every dark-haired woman I passed on the sidewalk drew a second glance from me, even though I had no reason to suspect my mother was in the city. I spent night after sleepless night on Lilly’s couch, scouring the internet for evidence of my mother or the cult that had consumed her.
And then one afternoon, as I wiped tables in the coffee shop where I’d picked up some work to fund my stay, I saw a guy my age reading a thin paperback called The Dark Side of Sunshine: The True Story of the Life Force Collective.
“What is that?” I demanded, my voice hollow.
He shrugged. “Some book about a cult I’ve never heard of. It was on the quarter rack at the used bookstore down the block, so I thought why not?”
“I’ll give you five dollars for it,” I said, my pulse galloping.
For the remainder of my shift, the slim book burned a hole in my back pocket. I could hardly wait to get back to Lilly’s and dive in. My internet searches had only turned up pages of vendetta, propaganda, and insanity; a physical book promised something more solid. I read it cover to cover in a single sitting. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before about the Life Force Collective (it was founded by former child star Rhetta Quinn, its commune was located somewhere in Northern California, its members believed in free love and living off the land), but it was presented in such an authoritative manner that I felt my first flicker of hope.
When I finished the book sometime around four in the morning, I sent the author a message through his website: My mother is in the LFC. Can you help me find her?
Two hours later he responded: I can’t promise anything, but I can put you in contact with them.
The next week, I borrowed Lilly’s car and met Sister Amamus at a Dairy Queen north of the city. I had expected someone willowy and ethereal, someone like my mother, but Sister Amamus was of hardier stock, with wide shoulders and the large hands of a ballplayer. She waited for me outside, standing barefoot in a parking space, colorful scarves fluttering around her and long earrings tinkling like wind chimes.
“Uh, I think you should probably put some shoes on,” I said to her.
She waved me off and padded into the store, gauzy layers rippling around her. She ordered a large Snickers Blizzard, and looked at me expectantly. I handed the clerk my credit card.
I waited as she spooned ice cream, but impatience got the better of me and I leaned forward, my words tumbling over each other as I asked, “Do you know my mother?”
She took another bite before looking at me frankly. “Sister Anahata wishes you well. But she does not want to see you.”
I sat back, stunned. I could only hope she was confusing my mother with someone else. “Is that the name my mom is using? Erin Buhrman?” I wished I’d brought a picture of my mother with me, but I didn’t have any of her—or any of my family. Instead, I tried to describe my mother. “She kind of looks like me. A little shorter, I think. But black hair. Lots of it. Blue eyes. She, uh, she likes baking. And lemon tea and daffodils. She . . . she can be kind of a hermit.”
Amamus smiled indulgently, her mouth full of candied ice cream. “I know Sister Anahata.”
“So you’re saying that Sister Anahata is Erin Buhrman.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Frustration grew, and I curled my hands into fists. I hadn’t come all this way to dance my way through some half-rate “Who’s on First?” routine. “Cut the bullshit. If you know something about my mother, I need you to tell me.”
Amamus sighed and seemingly took pity on me. “Your mother came to us to start a new life. Please respect that.”
“Then why even meet with me?” I asked desperately.
“To assure you that your mother is happy and healthy. You don’t need to worry about her.”
“But how am I supposed to trust you? Can you prove to me that you even know her?”
“Don’t contact us again,” Amamus said, standing up. “Be well.”
She picked up her Blizzard and walked out the door without looking back.
From Slate, published September 22, 2015
Chuck Buhrman’s Widow Takes Own Life—Podcast to Blame?
by Jasmine O’Neill
Almost everyone in America knows who Erin Blake Buhrman is.
Such notoriety is something Mrs. Buhrman went to great lengths to avoid. But in 2002, Mrs. Buhrman, described as a gentle woman and devoted mother, was thrust into an unwelcome spotlight by the murder of her husband, Chuck Buhrman. (Refresh your memory of the case here.)
In the wake of her husband’s death, Mrs. Buhrman endured a very public examination of her husband’s private life. His affair with Melanie Cave, the married next-door neighbor and mother of Warren, became front-page news. While local media claimed the details of Buhrman’s affair with Melanie Cave went to establishing motive and were therefore relevant, some argued that the salacious details were printed for sensational effect.
The sudden death of her husband, the public destruction of her marriage, and the trial, during which she spent nearly three hours on the stand, all chipped steadily away at Mrs. Buhrman’s already delicate emotional state until she left her Illinois hometown for a Northern California commune run by the Life Force Collective, or the LFC. (Want to learn more about the LFC? Read
our primer on celebrity-led cults here.)
LFC members generally renounce contact with non-cult members, and Mrs. Buhrman—or Sister Anahata, as she came to be known—was no different. She abandoned her sixteen-year-old twin daughters to the care of her sister, Amelia Kelly, a middle school teacher in Elm Park.
A source inside the LFC, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me Mrs. Buhrman was happy with her life on the commune. “Sister Anahata exuded nothing but love and contentment. She was an example to us all.”
But all that was shattered earlier this month when a podcast entitled Reconsidered: The Chuck Buhrman Murder burst onto the web. The podcast claims to be reviewing the case from an impartial, third-party perspective, but some argue it is the same sensationalist faux news that caused Mrs. Buhrman such anguish after her husband’s death.
Poppy Parnell, the host of the podcast, is a self-proclaimed “investigative journalist” and former webmistress of a true crime blog. The now-shuttered blog was frequently criticized for inciting witch hunts and smearing the reputations of innocent parties. Records show that Ms. Parnell and her blog were sued twice for defamation; both times these suits were settled out of court.
One might wonder how a blogger like Ms. Parnell was able to land such a high-profile platform, but that inquiry ends with who has been providing the funding for and producing Reconsidered: Werner Entertainment Company, emphasis on the word entertainment. These are the same folks that brought you The True Life Diaries of a Meth Addict and Pedophilia: The Inside Story. Werner Entertainment has been roundly criticized for taking serious topics and reducing them to spectacles.
But its origins and motives aside, everyone can agree that Reconsidered has been a huge success. The program has over ten million downloads to date. Thousands of threads, posts, articles, and webpages have sprung up to discuss the case. All of this has been great news for Ms. Parnell and Werner Entertainment.
It was less great news for Mrs. Buhrman. According to my LFC source, shortly after Reconsidered began airing, reporters and curiosity-seekers began appearing on LFC property. This alone was surprising: the LFC guards the location of its commune quite closely. Potential LFC members must meet a representative in San Francisco and undergo a screening process before being permitted to make the journey to the Northern California commune. That these individuals found the location speaks to an extremely high level of devotion to the project, nearing on obsession. This influx of outsiders disrupted the flow of life on the commune, and, my source tells me, destroyed the sanctity of certain important events.
My source recalled one specific event—an “aging” ceremony, which celebrates the arrival of a teenaged girl to womanhood—that was disrupted by a group of eight or ten teenagers. These self-described Reconsidered fans snuck into the ceremony disguised in ritual robes they had stolen from the laundry, and attempted to record the ceremony on their smartphones. When they were exposed, they reacted violently, striking LFC members and making specific threats against Mrs. Buhrman.
According to my source, the incident at the aging ceremony was a low point for Mrs. Buhrman. “Ever since the resurgence in interest in the death of her husband, Sister Anahata had been acting depressed. She began spending all her time alone in one of the solitary huts—places where our sisters and brothers can go if they need to meditate to seek clarity, or if they are suffering from a contagious disease—and refused to take part in mealtimes. She was wasting away.”
Then yesterday morning, Mrs. Buhrman was found hanging from a tree. As far as my source is aware, she left no suicide note and had not mentioned her plans to anyone.
Her death has hit the LFC community hard. “Sister Anahata felt that sadness and tragedy had followed her throughout the conventional world,” my source said. “That’s why she came to us at the Life Force Collective: to break the cycle of despair and begin living life in the light as she was intended. She’d worked hard to leave her past behind and was living a life of joy. When an influx of darkness from the outside world began dragging her down, we should have noticed. We should’ve been more attuned to our sister’s well-being. But we were too absorbed in the struggle to maintain our way of life in the face of recent scrutiny. We were distracted, and we let her down. Her blood is on our hands.”
The LFC is taking responsibility for Erin Buhrman’s death. But how much of that responsibility should be shouldered by Poppy Parnell and her bosses at Werner Entertainment? Or those of us who have greedily gobbled up each new podcast? Or clicked excitedly over to Reddit to swap theories? Or spent time Googling the players in this real-life drama? Maybe this fevered consumption of a nearly thirteen-year-old tragedy was too much for her. Maybe we all have a little bit of blood on our hands.
chapter 5
I arrived at O’Hare travel-weary and with a headache. It had been ten years since I had last stood in its buzzing halls, heartbroken and desperate. On that occasion, I had left early in the morning, before Aunt A or Ellen was awake, crying intermittently the entire drive. By the time I reached the airport, I had no tears left. I had a pulsing headache from sobbing, my throat was sore, and my eyes were swollen and aching. Clutching a boarding pass for a one-way ticket to London purchased with the credit card Aunt A had given me for emergencies, and the passport I had obtained for a spring break trip to Mexico that had never come to fruition, I dialed Aunt A’s number.
She answered the phone sleepily, and I felt a pang of guilt.
“Aunt A,” I said, the words coming out cracked.
“Josie?” she asked, her voice quickly sharpening. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I choked, a fresh sob working its way up through my chest. “I’m not.”
“Are you hurt? Where are you? Tell me what’s wrong.”
“You can ask my sister what’s wrong,” I spit, more venomously than I had intended. “I’m not going to talk about it. I just want you to know I’m not coming home.”
“Calm down. What did Lanie do?”
Hearing her name threatened to send me into a new set of hysterics, but I swallowed it as best as I could. “I’m not— I can’t. I’m sorry. But I want you to know how much I love you and how much I’m going to miss you. I’ll write when I can—”
“Josephine Michelle,” Aunt A interrupted, her voice vibrating with emotion, “you do not abandon me like the rest of this family.”
“I have to go, Aunt A,” I whispered. “The car is in the long-term lot at O’Hare, okay? I’m sorry.”
The worst part was that I wasn’t sorry, not really. Not enough, at least. Aunt A was the kindest woman I’d ever known, with a patience and capacity for forgiveness that astounded me, and I should have at least felt guilty about hurting her. But I was so consumed by pain I was unable to consider anyone else’s feelings.
And so I powered down my cell, cutting off Aunt A’s protests, and then withdrew the largest allowable cash advance on the credit card, purchased an overpriced thriller at the airport bookstore, and waited to begin my new life.
• • •
I had not told Ellen about the flight delay, and part of me hoped she wouldn’t be at the airport. I could turn around and be back in Brooklyn before the day was over. Or I could hole up in a hotel room for a few days, avoiding my needy family and well-intentioned Caleb and every person who thought my father’s death was entertainment. Or I could just stretch out on the airport floor and sleep.
But Ellen was waiting at baggage claim, her golden hair held back by a pair of enormous black sunglasses, her spray-tanned hands on the hips of her black shift dress. She looked as though she’d stopped eating again, her skinny arms and narrow hips an almost comical juxtaposition to the breasts Peter had bought her for her last birthday. Despite everything, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw Ellen. She remained exactly as expected: collagen-filled lips pursed, wearing a familiar expression of disdain as she surveyed the unwashed masses. I snuck up behind her and threw my arms around her.
With a satisfying shri
ek, Ellen squirmed away and whirled around. Her righteous anger morphed into alarm when she saw me.
“Good God, Josie, what have you done to yourself?”
“It’s just hair,” I said, touching it self-consciously.
“And thank heavens for that. I’ll make an appointment for you with Mom’s stylist. Don’t worry.”
I wasn’t actually worried—I had come to appreciate how the slightly frazzled pixie cut mirrored my slightly frazzled mental state—but I nodded my acquiescence anyway. I knew from years of experience there was no point in arguing with Ellen—about anything, really, but especially about hair.
I retrieved my luggage from the carousel and followed Ellen to her car. She issued a lighthearted barb about the condition of my suitcase as I heaved it into the trunk, and then slammed the trunk shut and pulled me into a tight hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, clasping me against her bony frame and nearly suffocating me with Chanel No. 5. Just as suddenly as she’d embraced me, she pushed me away. “I’ve missed you, you bitch. God. I can’t believe how long it’s been.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Ellen,” I said, smiling. “It’s really good to see you. Even under the circumstances.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry about your mom, hon.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said, climbing into the car. “I just want to think about something else for a bit. Tell me about you. Tell me about work.”
Ellen obliged, happy as always to have an audience. She regaled me with news about her interior design business, her stepdaughters, and a trip to Venice she and Peter were planning. I welcomed the near-constant stream of chatter until a sign for Elm Park forced me back to reality.
“Ellen,” I said suddenly, interrupting her monologue about the travails of learning Italian. “Is Lanie going to be there?”
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