“Well, don’t you look different, Emma.” Carl smiled.
“That’s not my name.” My eyes opened wide at the remembrance of my own name. Not just my first name, but also my last name—the one I had not been able to use since I was four years old. “My name is not Emma. It’s Misty… Misty Griffin.”
“Misty Griffin?” Carl said with a perplexed frown.
I nodded and spent the next fifteen minutes telling them my life story.
“Wow. We had no idea.” Carl shook his head. “That is a crazy story, and you are quite a remarkable young woman.”
I sighed. It was a crazy story, and what I was doing now seemed even crazier. But suddenly I had an idea. What about calling Aunty Laura to see if I could stay with her for a few months? Carl and Karen thought it was a fantastic idea; the only problem was that I had no idea how to reach her. Carl turned on the generator so Karen could look online for the phone number of Laura’s furniture store near Seattle. I sat next to her, fascinated by how fast things popped up on the computer screen.
“You are going to need to learn about computers,” Karen said as she saw my fascination. “Everyone is online these days.”
I looked at her and then back at the screen. The idea was foreign to me, but I knew she was right. I was just not ready to process everything yet.
“All right, here we go.” Karen clicked on the name of the furniture store. “Is this the right one?”
I nodded and felt a little panicky as Karen dialed the number. I didn’t want to have to explain what had just happened to Aunty Laura, and I was worried because she was Brian’s sister. I felt as if I couldn’t trust anyone. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves as I heard Karen say, “Hello. Um, yes, I would like to speak with Laura… It is in regard to her step-niece.”
There was a pause, and I put my ear to the other side of the phone. What if she said no? What if Brian had convinced her I was a bad person? I would have to go to the halfway house. Breathlessly, I waited.
“Hello?” I heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line.
“Hi. Yes, I am calling on behalf of your step-niece, Misty Griffin,” Karen said in a professional voice. It was easy to tell she had not always been a horse rescuer in a flowered dress and scarf.
“Okay?” I heard Aunty Laura say hesitantly. “Has something happened to her?”
“Well, sort of,” Karen glanced over at me. “Hold on one second, please.” She put her hand over the phone and turned to me. “What should I tell her?”
I swallowed and reached for the phone. “Aunty Laura,” I said in a nervous voice.
“Yes, honey, what is it?”
“Hi, it’s Misty, and I was wondering if I could come and stay with you for a few months?”
There was a pause. “Of course, you can stay with me,” Aunty Laura tried to sound cheerful, but I could tell that she knew something was wrong. Relieved, I nodded at Karen and gave her the thumbs-up.
“Where are you right now?” Aunty Laura asked.
“I am in an Amish community in Minnesota,” I explained. “But I am leaving the Amish, and I don’t know where else to go.”
“Does Brian know you called me?” Aunty Laura asked.
I swallowed hard; Mamma and Brian were my only problem now. I would no longer be sheltered in a community. What if they came after me for calling the police? Aunty Laura had no idea about the torture Samantha and I had endured at the hands of her brother. I felt like I was going back into the past and fervently hoped I was not making a mistake.
“No, he doesn’t know, Aunty Laura.” I was shaking. “And I hope you won’t tell him till I get there and explain what happened.”
“Well, okay,” Aunty Laura relented. “Are you okay, honey? Did someone hurt you?”
I didn’t feel like explaining anything and put a hand to my forehead. I had told the story to the police already and did not wish to tell it again. Karen took the phone from me and whispered, “You are going to have to tell her what happened.”
I just nodded numbly. I listened while Karen talked to Aunty Laura.
“Hi, Laura. It is Karen again. Yes, Misty is staying with me right now. This morning she was hurt and assaulted by the bishop of her church. The man that did it is threatening to kill her in her sleep. No, she is okay, but she is in shock. Yes, she has definitely left the Amish. She is wearing one of my flowered dresses right now. Okay, we will call you back when we have details for her arrival. Thank you so much. Bye.”
“Your Aunty Laura wants to know if you need money for a plane ticket,” Karen said as she set down the phone. “But I just realized you can’t even get on a plane because you don’t have any form of ID.”
“ID?” I queried with a frown.
“Yeah. You know, picture identification card.”
“Oh,” I just looked at her blankly. “I didn’t know you had to have that.”
“Yeah. In the real world you have to have it. Do you even know your social security number?”
I shook my head. Mamma had given me my social security card when I turned eighteen, but when I joined the community, they made me put it in the wood burning stove.
“What the heck?” Karen shook her head. “You are like an illegal alien, and we have no way to get your social security number because we have no way to prove who you are.”
I shrugged. I had known that Mamma and Brian had driver’s licenses, but I had never known it was mandatory for everyone to have picture IDs and social security numbers.
“You are not going to be able to get a job without it.” Karen sighed. “And you won’t last long without a job.”
I bit my lip and stared at her. What she was saying was all so strange to me; I was a girl that had spent her entire life detached from society. I did not comprehend the seriousness of what she was saying and reassured myself that everything would be fine. God would get me through this. He always did … all I had to do was follow His lead.
“Don’t worry, Karen,” I said. “Once I get to Seattle, I will ask around and figure out how to do everything.
“You are so brave.” Karen smiled at me. “I am not sure I could do what you are doing. It’s going to be a whole different world out there for you.”
I nodded. That it was, but I was glad for what I had done. I believed God had finally answered my prayers, and now I knew that the desire to be a medical missionary had not been just a fleeting dream, but rather an unforeseen destiny.
“Okay.” I stood up and stretched my back. “I need to go back to Peter’s house to get my hope chest. I have a thousand dollars in it.”
“A thousand dollars?” Karen raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes, a thousand dollars.” I nodded. “It will pay for my bus ticket and a few necessities to get me to Seattle.”
“Well, that is awesome.” Karen nodded. “That definitely helps. I thought you had no money.”
“I wasn’t supposed to,” I explained. “But it was mine, and I hid it away. And now I am glad I did.”
“You are one smart cookie,” Karen said as she put on her coat.
Carl and Karen drove their pickup truck over to Peter’s house, and I watched as they seemed to argue with him for a few minutes. Then they went inside and came out with my hope chest. A tear spilled down my cheek as I remembered the birthday when it was given to me, and how much it had meant then. Now it was just a big cedar box that would probably be left behind as I embraced my new life.
Shunned
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
—Nelson Mandela
After much discussion, Carl and Karen decided they would drive me to Seattle. It would be a long drive, but if they took turns driving, they said we could make it in a little over a day. Karen said there was a horse rescue they wanted to see in Montana
, and this was the perfect opportunity to go. The only problem was that she had to call her probation officer and get permission to travel. She said it usually took about a month before she could be cleared to leave the state. I did not want to wait that long but decided I should accept their kind offer to drive me to Seattle rather than my taking a bus by myself.
The next month went by in a haze. Karen said she was not allowed to have anyone living in the house with them, so I stayed in the small, eighteen-foot trailer in back of the shop. At night I stayed awake, terrified that Peter would make good on his promise to come in the night and smother me in my sleep. I sat on the tiny bed, holding a broom to defend myself. Sometimes I dozed off, only to be jerked awake by the horses making noises in the barn behind me or by Simba’s deep growl. I left my kerosene lamp on low and would read much of the time. The door of the trailer was thin, and I was afraid that Peter could just rip it off if he really wanted to get in.
At night, when I went into the trailer, I would put a long two-by-four in front of the door. Then I tied it to a long piece of twine which was, in turn, tied to the door handle. I fastened several aluminum cans on the piece of twine and I hoped they would make noise if anyone tried to get in. I thought of asking Karen if Simba could stay with me at night, but I knew that if he managed to get out of the trailer and was found on one of the local ranches, he would be shot and that would be an unbearable loss.
During that month, I counted at least three times when, during the night, Simba started barking and growling like he did whenever Peter came near. Once, I fell asleep and dropped the broom. Frantically, I reached for it. My hands shook, and I dropped it again. I jumped down to grab it again, and then sat on the bed, waiting for someone to try to open the door. To my relief, no one did, but I was badly frightened and very tired from lack of sleep. It was one of the longest months of my life.
During the day, I took naps and helped Karen and Carl with the horses. I went to town with them a few times, and Karen took me to a thrift store to get some different clothes. I chose a few long skirts, blouses and T-shirts, as well as a couple pairs of flats. As I tried them on in the dressing room, I thought of how worldly I looked. I tried on a pair of jeans but could not stand the feeling of having something so close-fitting around my legs.
I really liked the denim skirts; paired with a T-shirt or blouses, they made me feel more like the rest of the world. I still wore the scarf on my head, though. I was going through so many changes and was not ready to let go of everything just yet. As it was, with every new choice I made, I could constantly hear a small voice in the back of my head saying, “You are going to hell.”
The days seemed to drag on. I was anxious to get to Seattle and a couple of times I thought about telling Karen and Carl that I would just buy a bus ticket, but that seemed ungrateful, so I didn’t do it. When I was not helping with the horses or visiting the nearby town, I read some of the novels Karen had lying about. Karen studied for her veterinary class, and she left the radio on. I was intrigued by the radio. I had never realized how much fun it would be to have one on while you worked or sat reading. We mostly played gospel songs, and I found myself singing along to this new kind of Christian music.
I sent a letter to the YWAM in Jacksonville, Florida, asking them what I needed in order to attend their next missionary training school. They wrote back that all I needed was a high school diploma or GED and fifteen hundred dollars. Karen nodded in approval and told me it would be easy to save up fifteen hundred dollars over the summer, so I should be able to attend the next class that started in January.
“Okay,” I said happily, starting to feel excitement now that a plan was starting to form. “But they also say I need a GED. What is that?”
“Oh, it’s a high school equivalency test.” Karen was studying the picture of the African orphans at the top of the page. “You went to the eighth grade, so you should do fine on it, although you may need to take a few classes at the college first. I am sure you can get the GED by January.”
I frowned. “But I didn’t grow up here, Karen.” I looked at the floor in shame. “I don’t have an eighth grade education.”
“Oh?” Karen bit her lip. “What grade did you go to?”
I shook my head. “I went through the second or third grade, I guess. I really don’t know. I learned how to write. I can add, subtract and multiply single digits.”
“You didn’t learn anything else, like how to write a paper, or science or history?” Karen looked mortified.
I shook my head. “No, but I did write for the Amish paper, and I read a lot of history books.”
Karen looked pensive. “Well, I don’t know,” she said, trying to mask her shock, “but I am sure your aunt will help you once you get there. You just may not be able to get your GED by January.”
“Why not?” I frowned.
“Well, you have to learn almost eight years of school first. Maybe, if you really put your head in the books you could do it in a year, but not in six months. And besides, you don’t even know how to study for a test, do you?”
I shook my head. “No, but it can’t be that hard.”
“Yes, it is that hard,” Karen said. “You were never in school, so you never learned the discipline or the skills it takes to study. You have no academic skills. I am just being honest with you, Misty. It’s going to be very difficult.”
I was frowning, but not discouraged. “Don’t worry, Karen. I will make it by January, just you wait and see.” I started to smile again.
Karen smiled back and shook her head. “Is there anything you think you can’t do?”
“Well, where there is a will, there is a way,” I said as I stood up. “I believe everything is possible as long as you follow what is right and your intentions are good.”
Karen nodded. “I guess you are right, Misty. I am so going to miss having you around. You are a real inspiration.”
I shrugged. I did not feel like I was an inspiration, but I did feel fortunate to have everything falling into place.
I sent a letter to Samantha explaining what had happened. I wanted her to hear this news from me, as I knew word that I was leaving the Amish would soon start flying from community to community through family letters. I was sure it was one of the most interesting things that had happened in our community in a long time.
I sent the letter with a sigh. I did not know if I would ever see or hear from Samantha again. It was the only thing that really made me wish I had not left. I would miss many things, but nothing as much as my little sister. It was what I had to do though, and I hoped I would set a good example for her. I felt like I was being blackmailed — either come back to the church or lose my sister forever. It was definitely hard, but I could no longer be associated with people that bound a person the way the Amish did.
Since I did not go to church and was now wearing non-Amish clothes, I was officially shunned. Why I had left did not matter; I was a worldling and destined for hell.
Finally, the waiting period came to an end. While I was nervous about leaving, I was really happy to go. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep. I had barely slept at all the previous month, and when I did, I had nightmares so terrible that I often woke up screaming. Karen and Carl said they were both worried about me and were afraid I was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Carl had been in the Army when he was younger and he said I showed all the classic signs. I jumped and screamed at the slightest noise, and if someone reached out to touch me, I backed away from them like they had a knife in their hands. I hated this, but I did it without thinking, always apologizing afterward. It made me uncomfortable to think I was not in complete control of my actions. I had always prided myself on my self-control and being able to stay calm and logical in a crisis. However, after Peter attacked me, I was a little broken inside and I was at a loss as to how to fix it. I hoped once I got to Seattle and into a safe environment, my fears
would go away.
It was one of the last days of April when we set out on our road trip. Karen and Carl were excited. They said they loved to travel and were expecting this to be an eventful trip. It was spring—a great time of year to travel. The hillsides were blooming with wildflowers. I was glad I had set aside the thousand dollars — I had spent less than a hundred so far. I gave two hundred to Karen to pay for the gas; she said she was very grateful, but she did not want to accept it. I told her I wanted to pay my way and said it would make me feel better, so she nodded and accepted the money. It felt good to be able to pay for something. It may seem strange to the average person, but paying my own way gave me an incredible feeling, like I finally had control over my life and my finances as a single woman. It made me feel as if I mattered just a little bit.
As we packed my things into the back of the small truck, Karen commented that I did not have many belongings and asked if I was sure I did not want to bring any of my Amish clothes for the memories. I frowned and shook my head. The only item of Amish clothing that I brought with me was a light blue apron that Samantha had made for me. I took my hope chest, my sewing machine and the new clothes I bought at the thrift store. I don’t know why I took the hope chest and sewing machine, but I thought they might be useful. Just shows how Amish my thinking still was, and how much I was going to have to learn about the new world.
It was a long drive, and Karen and Carl took turns napping, but I could not sleep the entire trip. Although I was exhausted, I was too excited to sleep. I stared out the window as the currently familiar scenery was replaced with countryside that looked similar to what I had left behind years before, from a different lifetime. It felt as if I were moving in reverse time. I kept telling myself I was not going back to the mountain to live with Brian and Mamma, but the closer we got to eastern Washington, the more anxious I felt. I tried to sing along with the radio — my newfound friend — but it did not stop the tears that started rolling down my cheeks as we entered Washington State. Living in the Amish community, I had thought I would never be back there and I had tried my hardest to block out the memories of Fanny and Grandma. Although it had been hard, I had been somewhat successful. Sometimes, a certain smell or sound would bring terrible flashbacks of their tear-stained faces, and I would run to a corner where no one could see me and try to choke back the tears. I would tell myself there was nothing I could do to see them again. But now I was on my way to Brian’s sister’s house and I felt as if I was headed back in my old life.
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