a time, Grace and I began packing our things in boxes. My sister made labels that said things like “shoes” or “books.” I numbered my boxes, meticulously cataloguing every single item that went into each one (“Shoes—Blue Wedge Heels from Jael’s Wedding”). I tucked each piece of jewelry I owned into a tiny white envelope labeled with the date and occasion on which I’d received it. If I ever forgot any detail, there would be no one around to remind me. I copied sixty-three DVDs’ worth of home movies, watching scene after scene play like a funeral reel.
And all the while I knew what would happen when we left. I knew the heartbreak they would feel, and the betrayal. I had felt it when Josh left eight years earlier—a devastating postmortem that went on for weeks after he left. We had racked our brains looking for every sign of his duplicity. And with each new instance we found, we had transformed our horror into outrage. All of us who remained were disgusted with his perfidy. How could he? What sort of monster could pretend to be one of us, knowing all the while that he was going to abandon us forever?
It did not occur to us to think of his devastation. We couldn’t see his terror, or his despair, or his desperation. It was so much easier to rewrite history and cast him as a villain. To insist that he didn’t care about us. That he was a selfish jerk who wanted only to pursue his own lusts. We could not imagine that this nineteen-year-old boy could have a legitimate reason to leave the only Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world today. We could not consider that there was anything truly wrong with us.
My parents, my brothers, my sister, my Gramps and my Gran—they would all look back just like I had. They would see me copying those home movies. Interviewing Gran. Cleaning out my bedroom. They would search through all the text messages and emails I had sent. They would remember my tears and my refusal to tweet, and they would wonder how I ever could have looked them in the eye. They wouldn’t understand that I’d wanted to tell them everything. That I’d tried so hard to keep them. That I’d been begging for change.
That I’d wanted to stay.
* * *
November dawned, and Grace and I couldn’t hold on anymore.
Steve had announced a new round of Sign Movies—short videos, each featuring a member of the church explaining one of Westboro’s signs—and asked all members to choose which sign they wanted to address. Grace and I both signed up, but we knew we wouldn’t go through with it. The videos would be filmed November 23 to 25, so we had until then.
Less than three weeks.
We didn’t know it yet, but we wouldn’t make it even that long.
At the end of September, as Grace and I were starting to plan our exit in earnest, it became clear to me that Justin and Lindsey wouldn’t last at Westboro. Especially from the perspective of an outsider, their treatment must have seemed so bizarre and unjustified. Why would they tolerate it indefinitely? So I reached out to Justin, ever so cautiously, to see if they were going to leave, too.
They were.
We started talking. First Justin and I. Then Lindsey and I. But Lindsey still didn’t want to talk to Grace. She was still suspicious. I told Lindsey that Grace had assured me there had never been anything more than friendship with Justin, and that I believed her. On the day that Grace finally spoke with Justin for the first time since May, I sent her a message:
MEGAN: Dear Gracie, Just in case I don’t get back before you leave, a word of caution (as if you needed any more…): be careful with what you say to Justin. I know you’re cautious and discreet, and I know you wouldn’t deliberately do anything to hurt a friend. Just be careful not to put him in a position to be secretive or duplicitous to his wife; distrust—especially in that kind of relationship—is poison. No matter what, you’re a likely temptation. Sweet, charming, beautiful, talented, funny, and more. All those things + closeness to Justin = easy for Lindsey to suspect something. Make your conduct above reproach, and (if she’ll give you the opportunity again) be her friend. Make sure she knows she can trust you. You’re a good person. And you want good