It seemed as if several hours passed, which is a long time for a nine-year-old to remain silent in the midst of such stress. But still, I knew sitting on the floor huddled with Celia was better than being questioned. So I waited and watched.
Baldy finished questioning the adults, though he didn’t get any helpful information. He jotted down a few notes, then stood and headed toward the front door in the living room where Celia and I had sat since the men first descended upon our home.
I’d never been more grateful for my big sister, older than me by two and a half years. We continued clasping hands under the blanket during the entire raid. Her presence strengthened me and gave me a confidence I didn’t know I had.
If we had been interrogated, we would have done fine. We were extremely well coached. Thankfully, they left all of us kids alone —this time.
After what seemed like hours, the FBI agents left, and we began cleaning up the mess they had made.
The majority of our religious teaching came from my dad’s prophetic revelations. However, my mom and the other sister-wives allowed those of us who wanted to go to Sunday school to board a church bus that came down our street every Sunday morning. At the local church, teachers handed out prizes to kids who took home handouts, answered the questions, and then brought them back the following week. I didn’t always know the answers, but I sure wanted the stickers and little plastic dime-store toys they handed out as prizes.
One Sunday morning, our teacher asked my age-group, “Who is God’s Son?”
I had no idea what the correct answer was. After attending Sunday school a couple of times, I caught on to the fact that no matter what question they asked, answering “Jesus” meant I was right about half the time and would get rewarded for getting the answer right. I never spoke that name at home, though. The sister-wives and other adults only spoke that name with derision, if it was spoken at all. The difference was stark, and the kindness of the Sunday school teachers and the bus ministry workers stuck with me.
In January of 1978, all us kids went back to school after Christmas break. Though school tended to be a blur of faces and places because of our many moves, I recall this month clearly. The entire city had worked itself into a frenzy about the Denver Broncos playing in the Super Bowl against the Dallas Cowboys. My sister Kathleen was a huge Denver Broncos fan. We owned an old television, and adult family members would gather around to watch the football game each week, even though the poor reception made the image grainy and hard to see. The younger kids were shooed away.
One morning at school, our teacher stood before the class and announced, “The Denver Broncos organization has asked our school to make a spirit banner. Everyone who wants to can write something on it to help spur on the team and the fans. They’re actually going to hang our banner along one of the hallways of the stadium.”
The class buzzed with excitement about this project.
At the appointed time, our teacher led us into the hallway where the banner hung along the wall that backed up to the library. I stood and stared at the banner, not really knowing what to do next. A girl in my class handed me a brown crayon and said, “C’mon, don’t you want to cheer on the Broncos?”
I stared at the brown crayon, then back at the banner. Suddenly, I knew I didn’t want to use a plain old ugly brown color. I walked over to the bin of crayons atop a desk someone had pulled into the hallway, and I selected bright orange instead. I knew enough to know the Broncos’ nickname was the Orange Crush.
I had no idea what to write, so I simply copied what another student had penned much further down the banner from where I stood. Though I’d never even watched an entire football game in person or on TV, working on that banner helped me connect with the other kids in my class.
Participating might sound like such a little thing, but the act made me feel normal and included. It gave me the opportunity to be part of something bigger than myself. Truth is, I couldn’t have been more ignorant of what a Super Bowl was. I didn’t know anything about football. But I didn’t care about any of that. I cared about feeling like I belonged. Working on that banner gave me something in common with my fellow students. I’d felt like an outsider my whole life, constantly hearing in my head the sister-wives’ warnings against making friends outside the family. “Never fraternize with the enemy,” they said.
Worse, we felt conspicuous when we were singled out as different because of our faith. In fact, mere weeks before the Super Bowl hype, the faculty at school sent all of our family’s children to the library during the class Christmas parties. They told me my mom had directed them to sequester us “because we don’t celebrate pagan holidays.” So, as silly as it may sound, the Super Bowl excitement allowed me to be a chameleon. I didn’t stick out in my ratty, outdated clothes or because of my unusually large family. For the first time in my life, I found something outside of the cult that allowed me to safely and inconspicuously participate. And oh, the joy of blending in!
THE JOY OF BLENDING IN continued for me even though the Denver Broncos lost the Super Bowl that year. I always did my best to adjust to our new homes and schools. In Denver, I had even met a couple of girls I secretly hoped might become my “at school” friends, since we were not allowed to bring friends home or go to their homes to play. Unfortunately, one night my hopes were quickly dashed again.
Someone was shaking me, and I woke with a start. “What’s going on?” I said as I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and tried hard to resist my beckoning pillow, however thin and flat.
“Shhh! Don’t ask any questions. Just get your shoes on quickly,” Teresa whispered. She and Yolanda made their way around the darkened room to wake all the children. “Hurry, we need to leave in two minutes.”
I joined my brothers and sisters (six that I remember) in the back of a station wagon and tried to find a comfortable position.
“Where are we going, Mom?”
Her look clearly said not to pursue that subject. My half-brother Ed rode shotgun; he was old enough to drive, so he and my mom took turns at the wheel.
I hoped to get a little more sleep during the drive to who knows where.