I certainly didn’t mourn my father. Not since I’d learned about the kind of man he was. Not since family members had told me how he had manipulated others for his own agenda. Not since I understood that he’d ordered numerous deaths of people I loved and cared about, only because they tried to get away from him and his cult. I wished I had a way to obliterate the word Beloved from the marker. I ached inside to feel something —anything —about my dead father, other than the deep-seated anger that surfaced on occasion.
Empty. That’s how I feel. I didn’t say the words that screamed in my mind. You were never there for me. I was raised fatherless. How dare you put all of us in danger! I willed my accusations to reach his ears beyond the grave.
I closed my eyes and prayed silently, begging God for strength and for a forgiving heart. I asked Him to help me be a better parent to my children than my dad had been to me. I vowed once more to love them well and protect them with everything inside of me. When I opened my eyes, I saw Estella had moved two steps closer to the grave.
She held one hand over her heart, breathed in deeply, then started mumbling in Spanish.
I caught a word or two, but most of it was unintelligible. I watched, transfixed, as she seemed to rally all her strength —for what, I didn’t know.
Finally she spoke clearly, still in her native Spanish, her voice growing louder as though she gained power from quiet places inside herself. “Mr. LeBaron, here is your daughter. What do you have to say for yourself?”
I gasped as I watched her stand up to my father. She pointed an accusing finger at the gravestone, gesturing in a staccato motion, as though she were poking him in the chest.
“You’re lying there —dead for many years.” Then she turned and motioned toward me in a sweeping gesture. “But here stands your daughter! She has overcome.”
I had no idea I was crying until I tasted the salt of my tears. I watched in awe as this tiny Guatemalan woman set aside her own grief for her son to be my advocate. Her words touched ravaged places in my heart I didn’t even know existed. Her strong words spoke to me more than they did to my dead father. It was as if we were in a courtroom and my father was on the stand. I couldn’t believe it. Someone had stood up to him.
Finally.
Someone called him to account for the pain of my childhood and the anxiety that had consumed my life and still threatened my ongoing happiness. Someone understood how he had devastated our lives by his calculated choices. Someone understood and spoke out about what he had done. Estella’s words flooded my head, my heart, and my soul, washing away my fear and ushering in a strength I’d not known before. She pronounced my father guilty of his offenses against me and my family.
I knew Estella’s words came from a place deep inside. Since I was Madlin’s best friend, Estella treated me as one of her own daughters. This woman, small in stature, loomed large before me that day.
When she spoke those words, overcoming her own reluctance to challenge my dead father, I felt release from his bondage. Finally someone has spoken the truth to him and said what needed to be said. This woman had an economy of words, but every word had power.
Estella’s undeniable challenge fueled a growing fire within me that spread throughout my body. I had lived long enough with myriad uncertainties swirling around my life, questions that kept me from embracing the present, fears that held me back emotionally. I had longed for answers. For closure. For peace. God had used Estella as the catalyst for all these things and more.
I breathed in until I thought my lungs would burst and held it while I spoke a prayer inside myself.
God, thank You. You knew I didn’t want to come here, but You knew who needed to be at my side, and then You gave her just the right words to speak on my behalf. Thank You for redeeming my childhood and my story as only You could. I am Your daughter forever.
I let out my breath slowly, eyes still closed. I could feel strength and resolve pulsing through me. I hugged Estella tightly before we headed back to the car.
A weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I felt like a different person. Because of God’s power that had been at work in my life long before I knew Him, and through His unconditional love, I was who He created me to be.
EPILOGUE
* * *
THE SMALL WHITE HOUSE came into view as I rounded the corner. I pulled into the driveway and heard the sound of gravel beneath the tires of the rental car. My eyes were drawn to the apricot tree in the front yard as the memory of my mom singing to me flooded my mind: “I looked out the window and what did I see? Popcorn popping on the apricot tree . . .”
This trip had been a distant milestone on my journey of writing my story, so knowing that it had finally arrived was a bit daunting. My mom and I had been discussing this trip since I’d begun writing the first draft of this book in January of 2014. What will she think about what I’ve written, since she still believes in polygamy? Will she understand why I had to tell my story? How will she react to reading about the things she did not know had happened? So many questions ran through my mind as I approached her home, steps closer to our highly anticipated visit. I had struggled over the years with wanting to lash out at her in anger while at the same time wanting to protect her.
It’s a dichotomy I still struggle with. I hid my suffering from her for the same reason others who have experienced hardships do: We don’t want to cause more pain. I had reconnected with my mom as an adult with the realistic understanding that a sense of disappointment would be inseparable from the love I have for her. She simply could not be the mother that I need her to be while still maintaining her beliefs in the religious system that has caused such devastation to so many. Her duty and loyalty to her religion had already been firmly established. That is evidenced by her inability to refrain from talking about her beliefs to her grown children even though it causes us pain to hear her go on. In spite of all this, she and I have cobbled together the best relationship possible under the circumstances.
As much as the prospects of this visit filled me with trepidation, I was determined that my eighty-five-year-old mother would not read my story alone. Some of the events I’d written about would prove painful for her to read, and I wanted to be physically present so we could talk about those hard things together. My intention all along was to be the hands and feet of Jesus to her, to comfort her heart with my very presence. I wanted her to see me, alive and well, with her own two eyes. I wanted her to know that I had matured —both physically and spiritually —and would not allow the pain of having grown up as the polygamist’s daughter to determine the outcome of my life.
I rolled to a stop in front of the house, shifted the car into park, and opened the door. I took a deep breath, reached into my bag, and pulled out the manuscript I’d had bound, complete with a color photo of the book cover on top. I wanted to show it to Mom immediately. I walked over to the apricot tree and plucked a ripe, juicy fruit, warm from the sun, from its bountiful limbs. Just holding it in my hand was comforting. Then I walked up the steps to her front door.