Deadly Devotion

by Alysia Sofios

  Gypsy couldn’t believe the irony. Earlier that day, they had been moments away from killing themselves with that same gun.

  But Lise was more worried about her upset stomach than about getting a spanking. After having ingested all that glossy paper, she didn’t feel very well.

  “I can’t believe I ate my favorite pictures,” she whispered to Gypsy, frowning. “Now they’re gone.”

  JUST TWO YEARS apart in age, Gypsy and Lise were practically inseparable. They sat together, did chores together, and even acted alike. Marcus had been too busy spending time with the girls he considered his wives to notice that Gypsy and Lise were avoiding him until one day he startled them in the hallway. He gave them a sour look, then brought up the incident that night in front of the others.

  “Today I was walking by these two,” he said, pointing at Gypsy and Lise, “and these idiots cowered. Gypsy never says hi to me anymore, and she’s been hiding from me. Now Lise is following this idiot, and it’s going to stop.”

  With that, he implemented a new rule for the pair, whom he often called the “black sheep” of the family. From that day forward, they had to give him an enthusiastic good-morning hug and kiss. If they didn’t seem sincere, he would beat them. Marcus’s two youngest daughters with Elizabeth went through the motions and feigned affection for the next couple of years, but he could clearly sense that he didn’t have the same power over them as he did over the older girls. He was right. Gypsy, in particular, wished he’d just leave her alone. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  Marcus gave up on her and Lise in 1999, when he decided to leave them on the Sudan with Serafino and three of the babies while he, Rosie, and her new infant, Ethan, moved with the rest of the family to Fresno to buy a house to fix up. Marcus visited his six children on the boat every so often, but for the most part, they lived by themselves for the next year.

  AT FIRST, LIFE on the boat was tolerable for fifteen-year-old Gypsy. During the summer, the kids were allowed to be seen above deck. But when fall rolled around, they had to retreat below again so no outsider would report them for not being in school.

  Sometimes Gypsy would sneak out in the dark, but it was so cold and damp that she felt like a prisoner. The sun hadn’t hit her face in months, there was no television, and every day she endured the same routine: she cooked breakfast, bathed the kids and schooled them, washed dishes and cleaned, played with the kids, put them down for a nap, fed them dinner, washed dishes, and went to bed.

  As sunlight shone through the two windows, Gypsy dreamed about being on land and going to a real school, in a real classroom. When dusk descended, she turned on their two small kerosene lamps so she could read. Elizabeth had bought dozens of books for the boat at the thrift store, including Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries, but Gypsy read her favorites, Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, and Little Women, over and over.

  During the rainy season, she was often awakened by water dripping on her head, her bedding soaked around her. She grew increasingly depressed, and although she often plotted schemes to sink the boat, she never followed through. She wanted to die, but she was too afraid of the pain to do anything about it. The only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that she was almost old enough to get a job somewhere.

  At night, she would get on her knees and beg God to save her. “I will do whatever You want,” she said, sobbing. “Please help me. I will never forget to pray to You.”

  When she turned seventeen, her prayers were answered. Marcus moved them all back to Fresno and sent Gypsy to join her sisters on the Radisson staff.

  By this point, Marcus had kicked Sofia out of the house for having a relationship with a man she’d met at work. At least that was the story Marcus told the rest of them. In truth, he had stabbed her for wanting to leave the house, then kicked her out after she decided to stay.

  After the Sofia incident, Marcus imposed even stricter rules for the girls to follow at work: they were not to look at, talk to, or touch their male coworkers.

  “What if someone asks us a question?”

  “Don’t answer and walk away,” he instructed.

  “May we say hello?”

  “Absolutely not. Pretend like they are not there. You must ignore them at all times, or they may get the wrong impression and think you want a relationship with them.”

  Marcus charged his strong soldier Rosie, the loyal one who never disobeyed him, with enforcing the rules. Although he told all the girls to spy on one another, Rosie was the most regimented, watching her cousins’ every move for the slightest hint of inappropriate behavior and reporting any violations to him each night.

  “Is there anything I need to know about your sisters?” he asked one night.

  “Well, Gypsy was carrying trays of food and one of the workers opened the door for her, and she walked through it,” Rosie said.

  Shaking his head in disapproval, Marcus said, “Thank you, Rosie.”

  He walked into the room with the girls, each one praying she hadn’t done something wrong. Gypsy held her breath when he stopped in front of her.

  “Gypsy, I need to see you in the room.”

  The door-holding incident flashed into her mind. Why had she walked through that door? She’d had a feeling Rosie was watching. It was just that she was carrying so many trays, and she couldn’t put them down.

  Marcus closed the door. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  Please don’t hit me.

  She made her case, but he wasn’t swayed.

  “Next time, you walk to the other door and open it yourself,” he said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He struck her violently with the switch. Next time, she vowed to open her own door.

  AS THE CHILDREN grew older, they confided secrets to one another and also to their diaries, a family habit the Wesson sisters and cousins practiced to record their personal thoughts. As the year approached 2000, their entries— especially Sebhrenah’s—increasingly reflected Marcus’s philosophies.

  Sebhrenah used a white day planner as her diary, crossing out the “1996” date and writing in “2000.” On the cover, she wrote in cursive “Sebhrenah April Wesson,” then drew a dove.

  The world tries to destroy God and all that he has made, but these are the last days, and things will get worse. They take away our children.…They take fathers out of their homes so he has no control. They give women power. They teach [women] not to be faithful and [not to be] loyal wives. This world is twisted. God needs to come very soon.

  The Lord says be fruitful and multiply.…The world does not like children, so they say teens cannot have babies. If they do, they’re taken away and put in foster care, to be raised up without love and care. They take away the man, which is the head of the house, and put him away if he tries to control his family.

  Always keep to the Lord and stay with him always. He is the only way toward peace and redemption.…Trust in him in these last days, because there is no one else to turn to, only Jesus.

  Although Sebhrenah mostly wrote of doomed times, she also penciled an occasional message of hope into the margin.

  There is always light behind the clouds.

  Now that Gypsy was working, she didn’t spend as much time writing in her diary. When she did write, however, she never repeated Marcus’s rhetoric. She may have agreed to follow his rules, but she still didn’t agree with them.

  Before she left for work each day, Gypsy pulled her long hair tightly into a bun, adhering to Marcus’s rigid dress code.

  “Get into the room,” he demanded one morning, interrupting her.

  “Why?”

  “Do you wear your hair like that to work all the time?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your cousin saw you and said you had your hair down.”

  “Well, sometimes I’ll pull it down after work while I’m waiting to go home.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because it hurts. I get a headache.”

/>   Marcus yelled for his loyal niece, who came running.

  “Rosie, does Gypsy ever look different at work?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen her putting on makeup and fixing her hair.”

  Gypsy tried to protest.

  “Shut up. You’re lying. You’re just showing off,” Marcus said, raising his voice. “You want to show off? I’ll shave off all your hair. Would you like that? I’ll make you bald and see if you want to show off. Don’t think I won’t do it. Now get your ass over there and get the spoon.”

  Gypsy retrieved the dreaded metal utensil from its usual place.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  Gypsy held out her right hand and rotated it to reveal her palm. She wasn’t sure why, but the left hand always hurt more than the right.

  He began to strike her, the sound of metal smacking against skin reverberating in her ears as she held her hand as steady as she could. If anyone moved during a beating, Marcus would start his count over.

  By the thirty-sixth hit, Gypsy couldn’t take it anymore and dropped her hand.

  “Get out of here,” he said, disgusted.

  She was grateful that he’d stopped. Her right hand was numb and had already swelled to twice the size of her left. The holes in the spoon had pierced her skin, and the lacerations were bleeding.

  She hurried to her catering job, where she had to lift heavy trays and serve hot plates. All through the night, the pain grew more intense until she could no longer hold back the tears.

  “What’s wrong, Gypsy?” a female coworker asked, concerned.

  “Oh, nothing,” Gypsy said, hiding her hand behind her back as she walked away. What would people think? She was eighteen years old and still being beaten by her father. It was horribly embarrassing.

  The bruising set in the next day, and so did Gypsy’s resolve to escape to a better life.

  Sixteen

  Between my time on the morning show and at home in recovery, it had been more than six months since I’d worked the afternoon shift, which was just long enough to forget my old routine.

  Now that it was February, the weather was getting warmer, so I opted for a brightly colored spring blazer and skirt to celebrate my return to work. My winter suits would remain untouched until the following year.

  My hair had grown out a bit since my accident, and it hung just past my shoulders. I hoped Max wouldn’t notice. Shortly after I’d moved to California, he’d sent me off to the salon to get a more “credible look.” The stylist had turned my long, curly hair into a short, straight do, cropping off a chunk of my identity in the process. Now the length was somewhere in between—just like me.

  Although I felt I was returning to my old self physically, every other part of me was evolving into a more understanding, more compassionate, and more sensitive person. As I walked through the doors of the bustling newsroom once again, I wondered how well my new outlook would last in the unforgiving world of journalism. More important, what would happen when everyone found out my secret?

  It was one month shy of the Wesson trial, and newsrooms across the city were humming with anticipation. This was going to be one of those major stories that demanded a higher-than-usual level of coverage, which meant journalists’ regular work schedules would be changed and vacation requests would be denied. On the upside, plenty of overtime would be approved.

  Speculation was rampant among reporters and photographers about which of us would get to cover the big trial. A few weeks later, a dozen of us were waiting for Police Chief Jerry Dyer to take the podium at a news conference about gangs, when one of the TV photographers patted me on the shoulder.

  “Good thing you’re all healed up, Alysia,” he said, tapping me a bit harder than necessary to prove his point. “I have a feeling this one’s going to keep us on our toes.”

  I hadn’t seen many of my media colleagues back in the field until now, so they were asking questions about my injuries and recovery. I still had the occasional postconcussive headache, but I was energized to be in the middle of the action again. It surprised me how much I’d missed the competition, the chase of the stories and the pressure of making deadline. The nightly adrenaline rush could be addictive, and I had forgotten how good it felt to work the evening news.

  “I’m ready for it,” I said, knocking on the wood podium in front of me.

  “Thank God this one is in town,” a male TV reporter said. “I’m sick of driving.”

  He and a few others in the room had spent months covering the recent Scott Peterson trial, three hours away in Redwood City, where the judge had moved it. The new venue was almost a hundred miles from Modesto, where Peterson had gotten so much negative publicity.

  I hadn’t covered any of the actual Peterson trial—or any other high-profile, out-of-town cases for that matter—but from what I’d heard, they were fun for the first few days, but they lost their appeal after weeks of living in hotel rooms, eating fast food, and commuting on weekends. Even though Marcus was being tried for twenty-one more charges than Peterson, legal experts expected the Wesson trial to be a similar six months in length.

  Marcus faced a total of twenty-three charges: nine counts of first-degree murder and fourteen counts of raping and molesting his daughters and nieces. The DA’s office had added a “multiple murders” special circumstance allegation to his charges, making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted of murder.

  Three of the sex counts were for oral copulation and the continuous sexual abuse of Sofia; seven were for the rape and continuous sexual abuse of Kiani, Ruby, and Brandy; three were for the rape of Rosie and Sebhrenah, and one was for the continuous sexual abuse of Gypsy. Except for Brandy’s, each rape charge corresponded to a child Marcus had fathered with each woman.

  “Do you still keep in touch with the family, Alysia?” a male newspaper reporter asked.

  “Just the girls,” I said, not divulging how closely I’d stayed in touch with Elizabeth, Kiani, Rosie, and Gypsy.

  “How do they feel about testifying against him?” another reporter asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “I know they’re nervous.”

  Just then, the chief walked in. “Are we ready to get started?” he asked, watching us scatter to pick up our notebooks and turn on our cameras.

  It was perfect timing. The chief had saved me from having to talk any more about my covert relationship with the Wessons.

  THAT SAID, MY secret actually wasn’t much of a secret anymore. As is typical in the news business, my trusted friends had had a hard time containing the juicy gossip, so word had already spread about my living situation. To my knowledge, though, my coworkers had at least kept it “in the family” at our station.

  A couple of my coworkers alluded to it in casual conversation, and when I asked them what they meant, they said, “Everyone knows. It’s no big deal.”

  Given the usual flow of information, I was fairly certain that “everyone” included my boss, although I figured he still didn’t know the full story. I was nervous about his reaction, but I was also somewhat relieved that everything was finally out in the open.

  I didn’t think I’d lose my job over my actions. Worst case, I figured Max would simply take me off the story. I just wanted to get the conversation over with. I’d been thinking about it for months and had even played over possible exchanges in my mind. But with my changing jobs to the South Valley and then the car crash, it had just never seemed to be the right time. That said, I felt bad about letting ten months go by without saying anything.

  Max was meeting with the reporters in line to cover the trial, and I was sitting at my desk, anxiously waiting for my turn. I was staring at a picture of Cosmo when my phone lit up. Max was calling me to his office.

  I’d heard the plan: we were going to have a reporter in the courtroom from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. to take notes on the proceedings and set up any necessary interviews; a second reporter would do a staggered afternoon shift to turn the information and video into a
story for the evening news at 10:00 P.M.; and a third reporter would stay in the newsroom, ready to head to the courthouse or turn a new story that night by interviewing legal experts about issues raised in that day’s testimony.

  I nervously climbed the stairs to Max’s office with no idea how, or even if, I would fit in to this plan.

  “So, how are we going to handle this trial with you?” he said with veiled innuendo, as if he wanted me to know that he was already aware of my situation, a common power play in journalism.

  I looked at him, but I still couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, so I took a deep breath and started talking.

  “As you may or may not know, I have gotten close to the family over the last few months,” I said matter-of-factly, trying to play down the significance of our relationship.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Very close, I guess you could say.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  So far, so good. He isn’t jumping down my throat. At least not yet.

  “And the Wesson girls have been in my apartment.”

  “Okay, let me suggest something,” he said abruptly. In retrospect, I realized he’d wanted me to stop talking, but at the time, I felt this compulsion to explain myself, so I kept going.

  “Well, I was going to talk to you about this earlier, but then I went to the South Valley and then my accident—” I said.

  “What I was going to suggest,” he said, interrupting in a fatherly tone, “is that you cover only the family aspect of the trial, and we have another reporter cover the hard-news angle. You know the family, they feel comfortable with you, and you think you can do a good job telling their side of things, right?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “That sounds like a good solution.”

  By then I sensed that he didn’t want to hear the whole story, and I was relieved that I didn’t have to disclose anything more. It had been my decision alone to take in the family, after all, and I didn’t want my boss or anyone else to get in trouble for my actions.

  “Let me run this by a few people before we make a final decision,” he said, referring, I assumed, to his superiors at the station.