Free Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall

confiding in Rachel her fears about losing more of her sons and had sought her help drafting a letter to the prophet. Meanwhile, Rachel had independently gone to Uncle Rulon for advice. She and Kassandra knew that the previous morning Mom had gone to see Warren, who’d been acting for his father. To ease the severity of our situation, it had been arranged that my two sisters would accompany us on the long drive south. They tried to play games with us to lighten the mood, but I was too old and too aware to be distracted.
    During the ride I searched my mother’s face for answers, but not surprisingly, it offered none. I knew I wasn’t to question the prophet—or God—but I was desperate. “Will we ever see Dad again?” I asked Mom.
    “I don’t know, Lesie,” she replied, using the nickname, pronounced “Lee-see,” that I’d had since I was very young. “Put it on a shelf and pray about it.”
    This was Mom’s and the FLDS’s standard response to questions that had no easy answers. Between Craig’s departure and the troubles at home, my shelf was already full. Now I worried it would tip over.
    At the time I was so focused on my own experience that I didn’t stop to think about how that day affected my father, and it was not until years later that we had a chance to talk about it. In the hours before we were gathered in Uncle Warren’s office, Dad had been summoned to see the prophet at his home in Salt Lake. He was immediately shown to the prophet’s private office, where he found Uncle Rulon and his son Warren. As had become the case in recent years, Warren was there to speak on behalf of his father. Although Uncle Rulon was still officially the prophet, he was in his mid-eighties and not as active as he once had been. Warren had taken on many of the traditional responsibilities of the prophet. A year earlier, it had been Warren who performed Dad’s marriage ceremony to Mother Laura, and here he was, once again, delivering his father’s directives. Taking a seat across from the men on one of the chairs, my father didn’t know what to expect as he adjusted himself and waited to be addressed. Warren did not waste any time getting to the point.
    “The prophet has lost confidence in you as a priesthood man and is taking Sharon and her children away,” he blurted out.
    The words were an assault and Dad was too overcome by emotion to respond. It seemed like only yesterday that he had been honored with the addition of a third wife. Now, as Warren had bluntly put it, Dad was losing Sharon and all of her children. He sat there listening to Warren speak, and the reality of the situation began to sink in: Dad had been stripped of his priesthood duties as they pertained to Mother Sharon and her children, but Mothers Audrey and Laura would remain under his control. As he sat listening, he wondered how everything could have slipped through his fingers so quickly. Rising to leave, he was too besieged by emotion to speak and left in bewilderment. My father later explained that he’d felt as if he’d become detached from his body as he heard the prophet’s revelation that day. The words had been spoken, but Dad just couldn’t make them feel real inside.
    When he returned home, he found the belongings of Mother Sharon and her children had already been taken away. Mothers Audrey and Laura were shocked by the news. They too had been unhappy, but they’d never thought it would come to this. In the weeks ahead, Mother Audrey felt a devastating loss. While things had not been working in the house for quite some time, losing Mother Sharon and her children was much more upsetting than she ever imagined.
     
    W hen our two vans arrived at the prophet’s Hildale home, my mother’s brother Robert was waiting for us. He’d been instructed to take us to the Steed family ranch, some 150 miles outside of Short Creek near Widtsoe, Utah. My heart was momentarily warmed as I watched his hug seem to give my mother strength. It had