In addition to paying my tuition at the Christian school, allowing me to live with them rent-free, and now letting me drive the station wagon, Mark and Lillian paid me seventy-five dollars a week to help them run the appliance business and take care of their children. I wasn’t given cash each week. Instead, I kept track of how much they owed me on a calendar hanging in my room. Whenever I needed money, I just asked them for it, explaining what I planned to spend it on. I tried to time my requests when I knew it would be convenient for them to pay me, which meant asking soon after they made cash sales.
After I amassed several hundred dollars on account with them without spending anything, Lillian took me to the bank to open a savings account. I felt so grown up and empowered having a bank account with money in it. I loved watching the balance grow every time I asked Lillian for money and deposited those funds, so much so that I rarely found anything I wanted enough to make a withdrawal.
With Christmas Day approaching, I decided I would send my mom and my siblings some tasty treats as gifts. Lillian had the best popcorn ball recipe, and adding plain M&M’s to it only made them better. Lillian helped me get the large, round tin ready for mailing.
“Do you think they’ll like them?”
“Of course. And I think they’ll be really surprised.” Aside from my annual secret birthday phone call from my mom, we did not stay in touch. Cult members were forbidden from having contact with any family members outside the cult.
That thought made me sad, but I tried to hide my emotions from Lillian since I knew she’d lecture me about not being grateful.
Suddenly, the brown paper bag that Lillian was using to wrap the metal tin fell to the floor. She pushed back her chair and said, “Come with me.”
I got up and followed dutifully behind her as we headed toward her and Mark’s bedroom.
She opened the louvered double doors of her closet, knelt down in front of it, and began rummaging through bags of clothing, boxes, and assorted items.
“What are you looking for?” I couldn’t imagine what would be so critical that she’d stop in the middle of a task. That didn’t seem like Lillian.
She ignored me and kept digging. Finally, she located a flat, gray box. “Sit down. I want to show you something.”
I sat across from her on the floor, my back leaning up against their bed.
Lillian lifted the lid off the box and took out a leather-bound book that was stuffed with papers.
“What is all that?”
“It’s stuff from Dad —letters, his sermons, and other writings.” She leafed through a few pages until she found what she’d been looking for. Her lips moved ever so slightly as she silently read something handwritten on a yellowing sheet of paper. She wiped away a tear before she thrust the letter at me.
The letter was addressed to Mark, written by my dad while he was in prison. I stared at my dad’s handwriting and silently read the letter. This time I couldn’t hide my emotions. My father had promised me in marriage to Mark! No wonder this letter brought tears to Lillian’s eyes.
I felt my own tears begin to flow, but for a far different reason. Dad knew me. He actually knew my name. In the letter, he used my first and middle name: Anna Keturah, even though my middle name was spelled incorrectly. This proved to me that my dad didn’t just know of me —the tenth child of his fourth wife —but he actually knew me.
Thankfully, the meaning and intent of the letter had no influence or consequence in our lives. I couldn’t have cared less that I’d been promised to Mark. After all, my dad was dead, and the practice of polygamy was no longer significant in our lives. Mark and Lillian had both professed their faith in Jesus Christ. As Christian believers, they would never even entertain the idea of polygamy. Prior to their conversion to Christianity, however, they’d both encountered pressure to participate in polygamy but had resisted.
Finding my one true love was my plan, too, and I believed I had already found him. My relationship with David Heyen from school was definitely secretive, much like Kathleen and Jim’s had been. I’d shared many details about my family’s background with David and considered him one of my confidants. Still, I was afraid that if Mark and Lillian knew about us, they would consider my behavior “out of control” and send me packing to Denver.
I sighed as I reread Dad’s letter, then clutched it to my chest. “Why are you showing this to me now?”
“I’m not sure. Getting the gift ready for your mom got me thinking about our lives up to now. I’ve thought about letting you see this a dozen times. I just never found the right time.”
“Do you mind if I keep this?”
“Sure.” Lillian made a distasteful face.
“What? Don’t you want me to have it?”
“It’s not that. I just don’t know why you would want it. It’s basically your father pawning you off to someone who’s already married, in exchange for their monetary support and faithful obedience.”
“I understand.” I nodded, then lowered my gaze once again to the letter in my lap. “But this is the only proof I have that Dad knew who I was. I know he wasn’t a good man —”
Lillian let out a sudden puff of air through her lips and tried to smile at me.
“I just think this shows that buried deep inside him, underneath the madness of his mind, in his heart of hearts, he must have loved all of his kids. However messed up his expression of that was, he still loved us.” I wanted so badly to believe that about him.
The following year, Celia fled Denver and the cult and came to live in Houston with our sister Kathleen and her husband, Jim. Spring Branch Church of God Academy accommodated her challenging work schedule and allowed her to complete the final courses she needed for a diploma. Celia had always been an honor student —sometimes in the top 10 percent of her class. When she left the cult, she was determined not to settle for a GED.
Celia and I graduated together in May 1987. After I crossed the stage, clutching my high school diploma, Mark pulled me into a big bear hug. This man, whose fatherin-law had offered me to him as his second wife, had stayed faithful to Lillian and had chosen to act like a father figure to me the entire time I lived with them. That warm embrace encapsulated his gentle fathering, as he whispered words I can still hear today: “I’m so proud of you.”
AFTER GRADUATION, I was excited about what the future held. I wanted to attend the International Institute of Accelerated Christian Education in Lewisville, Texas, but I held off applying when my friends didn’t get in. Instead, that fall, I worked as a monitor at the Spring Branch Academy learning center part of the day, and for Mark and Lillian the rest of the day.
Even though I was taking on more responsibility, I still thought the adults in my life treated me like one of the kids most of the time. That was never more evident than when I entered a room and everyone would stop talking. What are they hiding from me? I would wonder.