Keep Sweet

by Michele Dominguez Greene

  “Can I help you, miss?” the officer asked. The name tag pinned to his uniform said OBERG. He had thin hair and a large belly.

  “My name is Alva Jane Merrill. I’ve run away from the FLDS in Pineridge, about an hour from here.”

  From inside the police car, a younger officer leaned over. “That’s the little girl we were looking for, isn’t it, Oberg?” he asked.

  “Appears that way. Do you want to come down to the station with us, young lady, so we can take a statement?”

  “Thank you, officer.” I climbed into the back of the police car, relieved to be safely off the streets of the unfamiliar town. Officer Oberg asked how old I was.

  “I’m fourteen, sir.”

  “Kind of young to be out on your own, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, but I had to escape. My family was going to marry me against my will. And I have heard that there is an age-of-consent law.”

  The younger officer whistled, let out a chuckle, and said, “She’s a smart one, that’s for sure!”

  When we arrived at the police station, Officer Oberg took me inside to a room with a chair and table. “I’ll be back to take your statement in a moment, miss. Would you like some decaf? A Sprite maybe? There’s herbal tea, too.”

  “No, thank you, sir.” They must be Mormons. I knew because they had no caffeinated beverages and Uncle Kenton says that the Gentiles drink their weight in coffee and Coca-Cola every day, rotting their brains and their insides. That the officers were Mormons made me feel better. They would understand. Mainstream Mormons don’t practice plural marriage, and I knew that they could be excommunicated from the LDS church if they were caught at it. But they knew the history of their own church. It would be easier to explain things to them than to Gentiles of a different religion altogether. I waited a long time for Officer Oberg to return. I thought that perhaps he had forgotten about me. Finally, he came back with an official-looking form. He sat across from me, drinking a Sprite.

  “Okay, miss. So you say you’re escaping a marriage that your family has arranged for you in Pineridge, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And why are you opposed to getting married? Isn’t that what all young girls want?”

  His question surprised me. “Well, yes, I want to get married … but not to the person my parents want me to marry.”

  “But you’re just a kid. You must have a crush on a boy from school or something, right?” He smiled at me in a way that made me uneasy. I didn’t know how anything worked on the outside world but I didn’t think this officer Oberg was supposed to be asking about Joseph John. But maybe he had seen him? Maybe he had picked up Joseph John after he was expelled?

  “Have you seen a boy named Joseph John Hilliard? He was expelled from Pineridge a few weeks ago.” Officer Oberg sat back in his chair drumming his fingers on his stomach, a wide grin spreading across his round face.

  “So that’s it, isn’t it? Off chasing a bad boy who got himself kicked out?” His laugh made me even more nervous.

  I wished the younger officer would come in. I didn’t like Officer Oberg or the way he smiled at me. I squirmed; I hadn’t used the restroom since before I left Pineridge.

  “May I be excused to use the ladies’ room, sir?”

  “Of course, honey. It’s right down the hall to the left.”

  I hurried to the bathroom. When I was done I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that my hair was disheveled, my dress stained from the fall in the dirty alleyway. I certainly didn’t look respectable; perhaps that was why Officer Oberg had questioned me that way. I did my best to straighten my hair out and smooth my dress into place. I walked back to the interview room, hoping that the other officer might have come in. When I opened the door, I saw that Officer Oberg was still there. But someone new had arrived. My mother and father sat stiffly, awaiting my return.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE NEXT MOMENTS WERE A BLUR, FACING MY parents and the realization that the police had called them to come for me. The officers were supposed to protect me, but they were delivering me back into the hands of the very people I was trying to escape from. Mama grabbed hold of my arm and Daddy shook hands with Officer Oberg, who said, “Do you know Leon Knast? Is he still living out in Pineridge? He’s my second cousin on my dad’s side.”

  He’s FLDS. He lives out here but he’s part of it!

  My parents led me to the car in silence. I was afraid to even look at them. Once they started driving, my father said quietly, “You’ve broken my heart, Alva Jane. Broken it into a million pieces. I never expected this from you, not from you of all my daughters.”

  My father’s disappointment stung me but I could not find any words to speak.

  He continued, “And you should have known that the police and other people out here aren’t going to help you. Did you hear that officer? He’s Leon Knast’s cousin. You know how many mainstream Mormons living on the outside have ties to the FLDS? How many of them go along with the apostates but know in their hearts that the day of reckoning will come when all will be made right, and plural marriage will be the law of the land for God’s chosen people? They’re not going to help you leave the flock, Alva. In time you’ll thank heaven that man did right by calling us. But for now …” His voice broke off.

  I feared what he would say next, what my punishment might be for such a grave offense. Surely the prophet had been told, surely my trespass was known to all. And surely there would be serious consequences.

  “I just didn’t know what else to do, Daddy,” I began, but my mother cut me off.

  “The time for explanations is over, Alva. And no more of your lies, either. Leigh Ann told her husband today how you lied to keep your cycle a secret. Like a good priesthood man, he came directly to your father, who had to endure the shame of having your deceit exposed in such a way!”

  I started to shake. It seemed the whole world was working against me. They knew the truth. Leigh Ann had betrayed me. My escape had failed. I was being taken back to a life I knew I could not bear.

  Outside the car the desert faded into blackness just beyond the high-beam lights. I wished I could be swallowed up into that abyss of darkness. Anything to escape the punishment that awaited me at home.

  Daddy drove in silence for a few minutes and then turned to Mama in the backseat with me. “Two of your children have disgraced our family in a matter of weeks, Maureen. Do you have any idea how this will look to the prophet? He could take serious steps against me, against our family!”

  “They are not just my children, Eldon Ray. They are yours as well.”

  “None of my others have behaved this way!”

  “What about Sister Cora’s boys? The first Eldon Ray Jr. and Lamont? They both left Pineridge,” Mama dared to point out.

  “They left on their own, they were not expelled. And none of the girls have tried to escape this way. There is something in your bloodline that brings out this disobedience. It has nothing to do with me!” he snapped.

  With that, Mama held her tongue.

  Then Daddy said, “When we return, I want you to move from the main house to one of the trailers with the older children. Cora will take charge of the twins, Carlene, Lucy, Marcus, and baby Rowena. They are young enough, they still have a chance to escape being corrupted.”

  I could not believe what my father was saying! Mama would lose not only her place in the house but her children?

  My mother’s face was drained of all color. “But Eldon Ray, they are my babies!”

  But Daddy would hear none of it. “It’s been decided. You will take Sister Marcie’s trailer. She will take your rooms in the house and share them with the smallest children, who will remain. Perhaps this will cleanse the spirit of rebellion that they have inherited from you.”

  Mama fought back angry tears and whispered, “This is Cora’s doing isn’t it? This isn’t about Alva or Cliff, it’s about Sister Marcie and you wanting to have her close by. It was the same with me, w
asn’t it? When I joined the family and Sherrie was pushed out?”

  “Be quiet, woman, I won’t have you talking against any other sister wives with your poisonous jealousy. Cora is right about you. Thank heaven she showed me the error of my ways.”

  Mama said no more. We turned into the main gates of Pineridge as the sky was beginning to break to pale gray. We pulled up outside the house and my father said, “Put her in one of the hideaways. I don’t want the other children to see her.”

  With that he disappeared up the stairway to Sister Cora’s room. The house was quiet when Mama led me inside. The hideaways were hidden compartments built into the walls of the house. Almost every FLDS home had them to hide multiple wives and children in case of sudden police raids and investigations. I had been in one when I was small and there was talk of a raid that had never happened. I’d hidden in there with Mama and Cliff; we were her only two children at that time. The hideaways were dark and cramped but safe from prying eyes.

  Mama took me to a hideaway on the second floor, opened the door, and waited, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “This is all your fault, Alva Jane. I warned you that we could all suffer, and your only thought was of yourself. Get inside,” she ordered.

  I knelt and climbed in. My heart broke for my siblings who would leave the main house to live in the trailers, out of favor with our father. But I was not to blame for Daddy’s change of heart. I’d heard what Mama said in the car. It wasn’t about Cliff or me, it was about Sister Marcie, whose trailer Daddy had been visiting every night. It was about all the things Mama had predicted and feared with a new young wife in the fold, the things I hadn’t wanted to believe about my father.

  I sat against the wall, my knees drawn up underneath me. My mother closed the door behind me and I heard a latch slide into place. I tried to open the door and found that it was bolted shut from the outside.

  The outside? Why on earth would a hideaway have a lock on the outside?

  I began to panic. There was no way out! I listened to my mother’s footsteps disappear. What if they left me inside forever, a disgrace to the family better to be forgotten? I did not sleep. When the sun came up and a thin ray of light filtered in through the wooden lathe to the hallway, I saw writing scratched into the wall of the hideaway. The words read, HELP ME. I AM SHERRIE.

  Sister Sherrie, my father’s third wife, who hardly spoke and was afraid of her own shadow, who lived alone in the converted shed out back? Sister Sherrie, who had been pushed out when Mama joined the family, like she said in the car before Daddy silenced her. Had sister Sherrie been locked up here once as well?

  My father built this house; there were no prior inhabitants. If Sister Sherrie or anyone else had been locked up in here against her will, it had been Daddy’s doing.

  What kind of man was my father? He was the sun that our family orbited around. He was always ready with a grin and a slap on the back, secure in his role as the prophet’s right hand. But now that he was afraid of losing Uncle Kenton’s confidence, he was showing a different face altogether.

  I had seen him the way a small child would, believing in his easy smile and the little trinkets he had handed out to his favorite children, the extra piece of pie, the prettiest fabric for a new dress. Who was he that he could cast a favored wife aside so easily and take her children from her? That he could lock up a daughter in this dark hole? What else was he capable of? What other secrets did this house hold?

  I thought back to my punishment in the barn, the uncontrollable fury that overtook him, the way his hand dripped with sweat when it was over, and how Mama held me still to receive the blows from his belt. I thought I knew them. But now I saw that I did not, that I never had.

  The realization hit me like a blow to the stomach, but unlike the whipping in the barn, this time I did not cry. The time for tears was past. Every face I loved and trusted belonged to a stranger, an enemy. Their love for me was not love at all but something else. I was just a pawn in my father’s quest to secure his position with Uncle Kenton and, in turn, a playing piece in Mama’s plan to regain Daddy’s favor.

  The pain of this truth hurt more than anything else. Worse than the beating with Daddy’s belt, worse than the silence, than being shut out of my family. It was as if I had been ripped away from a part of myself. It was betrayal, knowing that everything I believed in had been false. Above all, I knew that my survival was in my own hands. But for now, my life was in theirs.

  All day I stayed locked up in the hideaway, unable to move. I had no water, no food, even when the midday heat rose. Maybe they hoped that I would die in there and make everything easy for them. It was well after bedtime when I heard Mama’s footsteps in the hallway and the door jerked open. My bladder was about ready to burst and I ran to the bathroom to keep from wetting myself. When I came out, Daddy stood with Mama at the top of the stairs and said the words I dreaded to hear.

  “The prophet wants to see you now.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I STOOD IN THE PROPHET’S OFFICE, LINED WITH photos of former FLDS leaders and a large drawing of Brigham Young. My parents had forbidden me to change my clothes, so I still wore my stained dress from my trip to Moab. I felt dirty and ashamed facing the most powerful man in Pineridge in such condition.

  My mother and father stood beside me, ready to hear the prophet’s judgment. Uncle Kenton rose from his desk and stood to face me, his hands folded in front of him. “So, you tried to escape your marriage, to escape the community that nurtured you, loved you, and provided you with a clear and easy path to the celestial kingdom. Can you tell me why, Alva Jane? Why you have rejected God’s love and his plan for you?”

  I was too intimidated to speak directly to the prophet, I didn’t know how to explain myself now that he was standing right in front of me. My reasons for leaving seemed weak and immature compared to God’s plan for me. I looked at my dusty shoes and said nothing.

  “And you, Eldon Ray, how can it be that two of your children have shown such disobedience in such a short time? Aren’t you in control of your household?” Uncle Kenton asked.

  “Yes, I am, Uncle Kenton. I have taken steps to root out this rebellion that comes from Maureen’s family line. Today she was moved from the main house with the older children to one of the trailers out back. Sister Marcie, your niece, has been moved inside the main house to help Cora care for the younger children and protect them from this inheritance.”

  “Perhaps Marcie will prove to be more reliable in bringing up righteous offspring, willing to accept God’s wisdom,” Uncle Kenton said with a sharp glance at Mama, who kept her eyes on the floor. He turned his attention back to me.

  “As for you, young lady, you need a firm hand and the stability of marriage to bring you to heel. Your heart is in the wrong place and it must be made right. My brother Wade has generously agreed to go ahead with his marriage to you, despite your disobedience. You should count yourself lucky that any Pineridge man will have you after your behavior, but my brother is forgiving and righteous in his service to God.”

  Uncle Kenton moved to the door of his office and opened it, ushering in Wade Barton. Panic took hold of me. I was trapped in this room, with my parents behind me, the prophet before me, and the man they intended to marry me to waiting, ready. There was no way out.

  “I’m going to perform the sealing ceremony right here. I think it prudent not to take any more chances with Miss Alva Jane,” Uncle Kenton said.

  I felt sick and dizzy. Here, in the middle of the night, in a filthy dress with no ceremony, no celebration, I would begin my life as the sixth wife of a man I felt nothing but fear and revulsion for.

  “Brother Wade, please take Sister Alva’s right hand in the patriarchal grip,” the prophet began.

  “Do you, Brother Wade Barton, take Sister Alva Jane Merrill by the right hand and receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife and you to be her lawful and wedded husband for time and all eternity?”

  “
I do.”

  “And do you, Sister Alva Jane Merrill, take Brother Wade Barton by the right hand and give yourself to him of your own free will and choice?”

  Uncle Kenton’s words hung in the air. I wanted to scream, This is not my will! They all knew it, yet they stood before God and lied. And they wanted me to lie also. I could not speak although everyone was waiting for my response. I felt my mother’s hand on my back, prodding me.

  Mama leaned in and whispered, “Be strong. Trust in the Lord.”

  Uncle Kenton repeated the vow, forcefully.

  Finally I whispered, “I do.”

  “Now go forth and replenish the earth with good priesthood children. May you be fruitful and multiply,” Uncle Kenton said with a satisfied smile.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at my new husband. Uncle Kenton told him to kiss the bride and I felt Wade’s thick lips pressing against mine. I closed my mouth, tightly. The whole thing was over so quickly. My fate was sealed.

  My parents thanked the prophet for his forgiveness and generosity. They thanked Brother Wade for saving me from ruin and perdition. Daddy held my hand in his and said, “You’ll see, Alva. This is for the best. You have to trust your parents and the prophet.”

  Mama smoothed my hair into place and whispered, “Keep sweet, Alva, above all.”

  The prophet yawned. “You may use one of the bedrooms on the basement floor for your wedding night, Brother Wade. You don’t want to disturb your household at this hour, not with Sister LeNan so close to giving birth.”

  “Thank you, Kenton,” Brother Wade said, taking me by the hand and leading me into the darkened hallway, down the stairway to the lowest level of the house. The walls of Uncle Kenton’s mansion were thick limestone. It was like a fortress with many rooms below the ground level, secret meeting rooms for the councilmen, for special ceremonies. It was in one of these impenetrable rooms that Sister Ann Marie had received her discipline for the same offense that I had committed, at the hand of the husband that we now shared.