Three days pass, with Mom mostly sobbing and fretting. She is having a complete breakdown and has barely slept the whole time we’ve been here. I don’t blame her for feeling the way she does. I, too, hate our new home. But at least we have food, water, and shelter. And I have a good relationship with Uncle Steven now. I hadn’t heard anything about them wanting to separate us; it’s probably just her fear talking, though I worry that after this stunt, they may do just that. But we don’t have many options, and we have Nina and Jondy. They are fussy all the time, and we’ve run out of ways to keep them occupied and quiet in this tiny, hot motel room.
When we run out of money for food and the motel, as cheap as it is, I convince my mother to call the Combo from the pay phone in the lobby. Eventually, she gives in.
Somehow she speaks to a sympathetic soul who manages to calm her down and convinces her to come back. Within a few minutes, someone from the Combo arrives to pick us up.
As soon as we pull into the compound gates, I spot Uncle Steven in the driveway. I barely step out of the van when he grabs me in a bear hug.
“I was so afraid for you,” he says, pulling me into his chest.
In the days that follow, I notice people giving me sidelong looks. They act nice and compassionate, but I sense they are as shocked as I feel. No one has ever run away like that. Or at least I’ve never heard of it. What will they do to us?
I try to ignore my heart-pounding anxiety, focus on the OC group’s routine, and pretend everything is normal. But I’m ashamed of my mother for running away, and I’m afraid for her. The longer the Shepherds take to pass a sentence, the worse I worry the punishment will be. I know what they are thinking: Can my mother be broken and remade? Or will it be better to send her away, to make her someone else’s problem?
Perhaps unsure how to handle my mother’s volatile state of mind, or waiting for instruction from WS, no one hands down an explicit punishment. But for the next two months, she is sent out to witness and fundraise twelve hours a day, keeping her busy and mostly away from others in the Home. She doesn’t speak Thai, so her role is to act as a silent partner to whomever is assigned to sell our Family cassette tapes door to door, which is good, as she moves through her days in a fog.
She is put on the sharing schedule with Big John, a hulking American she tells me she is not attracted to, but he’s the only adult here I like. He lived with us at the Farm for a while and took care of us kids, though Mom says he’s just a big kid himself. He would teach us funny System songs and bench-press us over his head. One time, for a costume party in Macau, he dressed up as the Incredible Hulk. He soaked in a bath of water and green food coloring, only to discover too late that the dye wouldn’t come off. We all got a good laugh at him wandering around the Farm for weeks looking like the Jolly Green Giant.
But here he looks smaller somehow, deflated. He was put on a month of Silence Restriction right after they took me off it, big sign and all. I don’t know what he did to receive such a harsh punishment. Perhaps they are trying to crush the kid out of him.
It’s been a few weeks since our return, still no punishment doled out, and we are in Devotions, reading a new Mo Letter. It says that if you have a big family (many have eight to ten kids now), and you are struggling to support yourself in a poor mission-field country, you should consider going back to the US or another wealthy country to drum up funding from relatives and churches that can support you as a missionary overseas. Like he did in one of his earlier Mo Letters, Have Trailer, Will Travel, Grandpa is now suggesting some Family members return to the US and witness around the country in trailers. That way they will be less likely to get sucked into the trappings of a comfortable life in America and retain their Gypsy missionary lifestyle and zeal until they can make it back overseas.
The adults can’t hide their shock. According to Grandpa, America is evil, Great Babylon the Whore. America is just awaiting God’s imminent judgment for its sins and for persecuting the Family, God’s true children. God is going to destroy it, especially California, which is going to slide into the sea as punishment for its sodomy and for polluting the world with its consumerism and violent movies like Rambo.
Is this a test to see how dedicated people are? Who would want to go back to America?
As the room clears out, my mother leans in close to me. “I’ve always dreamed of being a Gypsy and living in a trailer,” she says wistfully. “My spirit helper is a Gypsy.”
Nearly a month later, she is buzzing with excitement at family time, almost like her old self. “We are going to America!” she declares. “We leave in a week.”
“But, Mom,” I begin, trying to ground her. “We don’t have any money—”
She pulls me into a hug. “Grandma has sent us tickets. We are going to get a camper and live like Gypsies as I’ve always dreamed.”
This, I realize, is our punishment. They are glad to get rid of us weak links in the chain.
There’s nothing to prepare and few goodbyes. Everything I own is already packed in one small carry-on under my bed. We’ve been here just four months, so I haven’t bonded with anyone outside of Uncle Steven. On our last day, he hugs me and prays over me. I feel his sorrow at letting me go now that he has finally molded me into the perfect yielded disciple. He hints that I might stay without my mom, but I know instantly I will take my mother’s side over any Shepherd. I pretend I’m sorry to leave, but after everything, I’m glad to start over somewhere else.
With our small suitcases, we board another plane. This time, to America.
15
The Land of Much Too Much
I am an American, born to two American citizens, and yet, while I hold an American passport, I’ve never been to America. It’s August 1989, and I’m twelve years old.
Though my mother’s father is in Indiana and her mother is in Georgia, we are flying to Miami. I don’t know what to expect. The only visual I have of the United States is from the movies I’ve watched growing up. Most, like Singin’ in the Rain and It’s a Wonderful Life, are too outdated to rely on, but Twins and Crocodile Dundee II might be closer. I imagine wide streets, big cars, and lots of white people.
We board the plane and file into our seats. The stewardess gives me my first Toblerone chocolate bar, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. So much better than the carob bar Mom gave each of us for Christmas when I was six. My parents never gave us candy, so I made that Christmas carob bar last for months by breaking off half a square every few days and taking tiny licks of sweetness as it slowly melted in my fingers. When my mother saw me, she threw up her hands. “How can you stand that? If it were mine, I’d gobble it all in one day,” she said.
As I slowly eat my Toblerone, I feel excited for the plane ride, though less so about our destination. Going to live in America is worrying. I’ve been taught all my life that America could be destroyed at any moment. I’m hoping God will protect us.