Gypsy and Lise knew they weren’t really part of the discussion, so they whispered to each other, careful not to let their father catch them, while their older sisters nodded their understanding of Marcus’s instructions.
“It is time for the oldest girls to have children for the Lord,” he continued. “Since no man in the outside world is worthy of you, the Lord will use me as the vessel to create the children. It will be like Lot and his daughters.”
The girls knew the story of Lot well. According to the Bible, Lot’s two virgin daughters incorrectly believed they were the only females to have survived the devastation that God had wreaked on their city and assumed it was their responsibility to perpetuate the human race. The girls developed a plan, which they carried out on two separate nights: they got their father drunk enough to have intercourse with them but too drunk to know what was happening. Each of them got pregnant.
Marcus said he wanted the girls to think like Lot’s daughters and start having children as soon as they turned eighteen, but their plan had to remain secret from everyone else, including the rest of the family.
“The world is not going to understand,” he said.
He told them to say they were going to a sperm bank to get artificially inseminated, then return a few hours later with literature as evidence of the trip.
“At the next family gathering, you will need to pull your uncles aside and tell them that you want to get pregnant, so they will not get suspicious,” he said, referring to Elizabeth’s brothers.
At the time, Sofia was the only one old enough; Kiani was seventeen, and Ruby was only sixteen. Ten-year-old Gypsy thanked God she had eight years to go. By then, she hoped, the world would already have ended. She and Lise didn’t quite understand how their sisters and cousins were going to get pregnant; all they knew was they weren’t supposed to talk about it.
In January 1995, Kiani got pregnant with her father’s child, despite being under his stated age requirement. Four months into the pregnancy, Elizabeth’s brother Jesse heard the artificial insemination story and threatened to call the police. He wasn’t buying it.
Marcus got spooked. “It’s getting dangerous for us here,” he announced at the family’s nightly prayer session. “We’re going back to the mountains.”
The kids knew the twenty-minute rule had been put into effect, so they rushed to pack their clothing and toiletries in backpacks and waited for instructions. But it was a week before the order came—at five o’clock in the morning.
“It’s time,” Marcus said.
The family obediently carried their things into the blue school bus Marcus had bought from a Baptist church a few months earlier with the older kids’ paychecks. They drove away with him into the darkness, purposely neglecting to tell Elizabeth’s relatives where they were going.
Fourteen
Trying not to sit on my freshly steamed cape, I carefully gathered the red satin around my torso and buckled my seat belt. My coworker’s party in the trendy Tower District of Fresno was about fifteen minutes away, and I hoped my costume would hold up during the ride.
I have to remember to take pictures to show the girls.
It was almost eleven on an unusually fogless night, and I had promised the hostess that I would be there already. Because most of the guests would arrive around 11:30 or midnight—after the news—I was supposed to get there early to represent the morning show folks.
Maybe if I had an invisible jet ….
We would switch back to standard time in a few hours, which meant I would have an extra hour to spend at the party. I made a left turn onto the main road and accelerated to the full forty-mile-per-hour speed limit. All of a sudden, a bright light blinded me. I could see nothing but white as the high-pitched squealing of tires overpowered Frank Sinatra on the radio. Before I knew it, a white van had jumped the curb and crashed head-on into my small SUV.
I watched the front of my vehicle crunch toward me like an accordion and the dashboard plow into my kneecaps. My body shot up and forward, shattering the mirror on the visor. On the way back down, my cape settled on top of my rigid shoulders, and the long black waves from my wig came to rest on the steering wheel.
After a few seconds, I felt around with my tongue to make sure my teeth were intact. They were fine, but my mouth tasted like blood and I realized I had bitten the inside of my cheek. I struggled to regain my bearings.
I wonder how the other driver is. They must be drunk. I need help.
My vision was fuzzy as I looked through my cracked windshield and saw the driver of the van get out and start running toward my car, staring straight at me. In spite of the circumstances, I welcomed his help.
But the next thing I knew, he’d raced past the passenger door and kept on going.
Oh my God, he’s running away!
I didn’t have the energy to yell at him or ask why he wasn’t stopping to check on me; I just opened my car door. Luckily, another driver who had seen the collision rushed to my aid. She and her passenger, a younger woman, stuck their heads into my car.
“`We called 911, honey. The ambulance is on its way,” the older woman said. “Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling around for injuries in my stomach, which was hurting, and my thighs. A sharp pain was shooting through my right ankle, which had gotten scrunched during the impact, and my knees were aching where the dashboard had smacked into them.
“We need to call someone. Is your husband or family nearby?”
Much to my surprise, the first people who came to my mind were the Wessons.
“I’m not married, and my family lives in Michigan,” I said weakly.
I thought of the Wessons again. In this time of crisis, it was so clear. They were my family now.
“Can you call my neighbors?” I asked, trying to keep our relationship a secret as long as I could.
I dictated Elizabeth’s phone number to the woman as I tried to step out of my mangled car and onto the curb, a foot away. But I felt light-headed and immediately realized I wasn’t going to make it.
“I think I need to sit down,” I said, getting back into the car with their help.
I heard the woman calling Elizabeth. “Your neighbor Alysia has just been in an accident,” she said, pausing. “No, she’s going to be okay, but she’d like you to come out here. We’re on Brawley Avenue ….”
As the woman gave Elizabeth directions, I heard the unmistakable wail of police and ambulance sirens. Although I was disguised as a superhero, the several police officers who responded recognized my name and picture on my driver’s license. They tried to help me relax with small talk while we waited for the paramedics to wheel over the gurney.
“So you’re not on the air tonight, huh?” one of them joked.
“Not tonight,” I said, trying to smile through the throbbing pain in my head.
The paramedics were loading me onto the gurney when I saw Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie running up to my car. I knew that the police would recognize them and that the scene could turn into quite a story at the precinct: “That news girl got hit head-on by a drunk driver. And she was dressed up like Wonder Woman, with the cape and everything. Then Marcus Wesson’s family came to see her.”
But I was too dizzy to care. The girls bent over me with tears in their eyes, their faces pale with worry. The image was strikingly similar to video I’d seen of them the night of the murders.
“Oh no, Alysia,” Elizabeth said, gently stroking my arm. “Oh no.”
“We’ll see you at the hospital,” Rosie said quietly.
“One of you can ride with us,” a paramedic said to the girls.
Kiani stepped forward and jumped into the front seat of the ambulance. The other paramedic rode in the back with me, checking my vital signs along the way.
Herndon Avenue seemed bumpier than usual during the ten-minute ride, but it all became a blur until I was being wheeled down the hallway of Saint Agnes Medical Center— my faux dark hair
flowing over the sides of the stretcher and my stiletto boots hanging over the end. One of the gurney’s wheels was askew, so each time the paramedic loosened his grip on the metal handle, the lower end shifted to the left, nearly hitting the nurses running by.
“We’ve got a Wonder Woman here,” a hospital worker yelled behind me.
“All right! Chalk another one up for me,” another male voice responded.
Apparently, the emergency room staff had made bets on the costumes that would come through that night. I appreciated the humor more after a few painkillers. The nurse had to cut the back of my costume to get it off, then helped me into a faded blue cotton hospital gown that tied in the back. I still had on my wig, headband, and glittery red, white, and blue false eyelashes. I could tell the costume startled the doctor when he walked through the floor-length curtain.
Both knees and my right ankle had swelled to twice their normal size, and my head and neck were pulsing with pain. After hours of IVs and X-rays, the doctor told me the good news: I hadn’t broken any bones. I did, however, have a concussion and a knot the size of a golf ball at the bottom left of my neck from whiplash.
The doctor sent me home with painkillers, muscle relaxants, and orders to follow up with an orthopedic specialist. Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie, who had gone home to get me something to replace my ripped leotard, were back. They still looked pale and worried.
“Where’s my car?” I asked through my drugged haze.
“I think they towed it,” Elizabeth replied. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll pull the car around and wait for you guys.”
I slept on the way home, lying down in the backseat with my legs propped on Kiani’s lap. Elizabeth pulled into the parking space; then Rosie and Kiani each took one of my arms and helped me upstairs and into bed.
“Do you need anything else?” Elizabeth asked. “Are you in pain?”
“Yes, but I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Can you take me to the doctor in the morning?”
“Of course, Alysia. The doctor said we need to wake you up every couple hours because of your head, so we’ll be in soon to check on you.”
As they closed my door, I leaned my head against the pillow that Rosie had propped up for me and thought about the strange twist of events. I had never asked for help before, and it humbled me to know that, this time, I couldn’t get by on my own. What would I have done without the Wessons? My immediate family was thousands of miles away. Taking the Wessons in had actually saved me.
I COULDN’T EVEN remember the last time I’d had a day off, so sitting at home resting was all new to me. I’d always been an overachiever. In high school, I was a diver, gymnast, runner, and jumper, and by my senior year was poised to earn twelve varsity letters. When I found out another girl in Michigan had already earned twelve letters, I joined my school’s competition coed cheerleading squad so I could get thirteen and break the state record. I had always been under pressure and on deadline, so it was quite an adjustment to try to relax for three whole months.
But now I had no choice. For the first week I relied on the Wessons to get me around and to take care of the apartment. I couldn’t move much, so they went grocery shopping, cooked meals, and served me food in bed. I was able to take care of paying the bills and managing our household finances while Elizabeth brought me my prescription pills and a glass of water every few hours. Elizabeth drove me to and from my doctors’ appointments and also to physical therapy three times per week. After raising nine kids, four nieces, and their seven children, she was quite comfortable with this caregiving role. Only now she was free to follow her instincts, dispense medication, and express affection without Marcus getting in her way. She seemed to blossom in her new role, and I began to see the strength that had helped Elizabeth survive so much tragedy.
For their part, Rosie and Kiani rented videos and arranged a cushy spot for me on the couch so we could watch them together. Sometimes, Rosie would come into my physical therapy sessions, keeping me company while I was hooked up to the thermal ultrasound machine to try to ease my pain. The girls, who had never been able to reveal they were in pain any more than they could openly take care of each other, seemed to enjoy stretching their new caregiving muscles as well.
I tried to go back to work a couple of weeks later, but after a few CAT scans and trips to the orthopedist, I learned that my injuries weren’t going to heal overnight. When I continued to have migraine headaches and my neck pain kept shooting down my back to new and unexplored places, the orthopedist decided I shouldn’t be running around on deadline, so he ordered me to take three months off work for a stress-free recovery. I had no choice but to accept that I had to bring my life down several dozen notches. It helped that all the Wessons were growing more independent—rather than being my houseguests, they were truly my family now.
Once I was more mobile, I broke out my old Nintendo system and taught the girls how to play Super Mario Bros. and Tetris. We stayed up late playing video games and laughing. We also had a lot more time to talk and exchange stories. Theirs usually involved something positive about Marcus. It had been more than seven months since the murders, and I wanted to speak out against him more than ever, but I could tell they still needed someone to just listen.
The more I talked about my childhood experiences, the more I could see slight improvements in Rosie’s and Kiani’s grips on reality. They were beginning to question some of the things Marcus had taught them about the world—and recognize that school, boys, and friends weren’t as bad as he’d told them.
With so much in limbo, I was reevaluating my own life, too. I spent a lot of time writing in my journal.
I have no idea what the next year of my life has in store. Absolutely nothing is planned. It’s the scariest, yet best feeling I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t change anything right now. Even though I was just hit head-on by a drunk driver in a van, I live with the family of a mass murderer, and my entire career is in jeopardy. When I see it on paper, it doesn’t look so good.
I was still in a lot of pain, but I knew it was important to stay positive in front of the girls, and they responded well to my motivating speeches. When I told them they could do anything if they set their minds to it, I didn’t realize how naïve I was being.
Kiani and Rosie seemed to be getting more serious about going to school. Rosie fixated on the idea of working with animals someday; Kiani just wanted to get a college education. But realizing they would need tuition, they decided to find jobs first. They hadn’t worked in more than two years, and their only work experience was in the food industry. So they picked up applications from several chain restaurants in Fresno, including Chili’s, Chevys, and Macaroni Grill. I encouraged all of this, knowing that working would build their self-confidence and self-sufficiency, and also would help them meet new people.
“Alysia, what should we put here?” Kiani asked, pointing to the line on the application that said “education” and asked for the applicant’s high school, then college, followed by any postgraduate studies.
After struggling for an answer, I said, “I guess just write ‘home-schooled.’ ”
“But we don’t have diplomas,” Rosie said, concerned the managers wouldn’t understand.
“Maybe you can explain it during the interviews,” I offered.
It didn’t get any easier after that. The applications also had lines asking for the reasons they had left their previous jobs. I hardly thought “abusive father” constituted an acceptable response.
“Should we put ‘pregnant’?” Kiani asked.
I tried to think of a better alternative but couldn’t.
“I guess so.”
A few days after they turned in their applications, it dawned on me that no local establishment would hire them. Kiani Wesson and Rosa Solorio were household names around Fresno.
This community had been so generous to crime victims in the past, donating money, clothing, and scholarships. The police department h
ad honored other victims, recognizing what they’d been through and asking them to speak about their experiences. Following the disappearance of pregnant Laci Peterson, the city of Modesto was covered with yellow and blue tribute ribbons, even after her body and that of her unborn son were discovered. But when it came to the Wesson family, few people in Fresno had shown any compassion for the surviving members.
I was outraged. How dare people judge these poor people and treat them as if they had the plague? It wasn’t as if these women were asking for a handout; they just wanted a job.
Needless to say, Kiani and Rosie didn’t get any calls back. The whole situation left me nauseated.
HALFWAY THROUGH MY recuperation, my dad came to visit from Michigan. He was retired now, but he still taught graduate business courses at two colleges. The girls seemed excited to meet him, but when he and I got back from the airport, they were nowhere to be seen. Their car was out front, so I peeked into their room. Still no one. Then I heard noises from inside the long mirrored closet.
“Don’t tell me you guys are in ….,” I said, pulling open the sliding door to expose Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie, red-faced from laughing. “You’re hiding in the closet? How long have you been in there? You know what? I don’t even want to know. Get out of there and come meet my dad.”
“We’re scared,” Rosie whispered.
“Why? He’s only the nicest man on earth. Come on!” I said, pulling Rosie out of the closet and pushing her forward as she tried to walk backward.
“Okay, we’ll go out there,” Elizabeth said, finally giving in.
“Good. I’ll lead the way,” I said, praying they would follow me.
“Dad, I’d like you to meet Elizabeth, Kiani, and Rosie.”
“Hi, I’ve heard so much about you,” my father said with a smile, getting up to shake each of their hands.
He tried to strike up a conversation, but he could sense how nervous they were and left them alone. They waited a few seconds, then walked back toward their room. “Nice meeting you,” Elizabeth said over her shoulder, too quietly for my dad to hear.
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