early one morning in late May, and I found her on her bed looking panic-stricken and ready to vomit. She was hysterical, telling me she had just received a call from the wife of one of the new Westboro converts. Justin and Lindsey [names changed] were about my age. We saw their conversion as a testimony to the power and sovereignty of God: He had turned their hearts to His truth.
The couple and their baby boy had rented a house from my parents located just a few doors down from ours, and Bekah, Grace, and I visited often. We liked them immediately and were in awe of their lives and talents. In contrast to the lives we had led at the church—structured, protected, controlled—theirs had been full of exotic places and experiences. Their transition in forsaking that worldly life to stand with us on the picket line was mind-blowing to my sisters and me, and we wanted to understand their conversion in every minute detail. In Lindsey we recognized the same creative energy that animated Grace, and the two bonded over their mutual love of style and art. Lindsey’s repertoire of skills was broader than my sister’s, and they made plans for Grace to take lessons from her—drawing, painting, sewing. We would have dinner together, watch movies at their house, and stand together on the picket line in Topeka, Grace and I quizzing them endlessly about their life before Westboro.
The alacrity with which we took to this new family was remarkable, but not unusual. I wasn’t aware of the pattern at the time, but Grace and I often bonded with outsiders in this way. We harbored a deep curiosity about the world outside, and we indulged it as much as the constraints of our lives would allow. She and I would sit on the floor of my room or hers and read books and stories aloud to each other for hours, not just the Bible but everything from Anna Karenina to the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. When it was Grace’s turn to read, I’d pull my hands through her long, dark waves to detangle and braid them, or massage her scalp in slow, methodical motions, or paint her nails in one of the colors approved by our father—light pink, nude, or clear—while we contemplated the curious lives and ideas of these characters. Whenever journalists and filmmakers came around for interviews, Grace and I would ask almost as many questions about their lives as they asked about ours, and we grew attached if they spent more than a few hours with us. On the day that Louis Theroux and the BBC crew departed after three weeks of filming, we exchanged gifts—including baby clothes and blankets for the sound engineer, soon to be a father—and then I retreated into my house to cry in my bedroom. The four of them had been so kind to us. I believed their choices would lead them to Hell, but I cared about them. I didn’t want to say goodbye forever, and it frightened me that I regarded them with such affection. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
But now with Justin and Lindsey, we didn’t have to say goodbye. They had had as many fascinating experiences as the journalists we encountered, but here there were no limits or constraints. We didn’t have to keep them at arm’s length, because we were allowed to cultivate friendship with them. They were part of our community. They were safe.
All of that ended on the morning of the phone call. Lindsey had discovered that Grace and Justin had been texting extensively and was convinced that my little sister had designs on her husband. The two had class together at the university and had grown closer over the course of the semester, conversing often about everything and nothing. I’d had no idea how frequently they’d been texting, but when I listened to Grace describe the messages, I instantly thought of C.G.: The discussions never touched on “inappropriate” topics, but the closeness itself felt improper to me. The fear on my sister’s face twisted my insides, especially since I knew what was coming. I wanted to defend Grace to our parents and to the elders—“She didn’t know what she was doing!”—but an angry call from a jealous wife was a scandal that couldn’t be smoothed over by a plea