Although you had promised to continue to phone me, you hadn't.

Apparently, your commitments to me meant nothing. That hurt me deeply, not only for my own sake, but also because your behavior was a reflection of the seriously flawed ethical code with which you were being raised.

It was time to take action, and half-way wouldn't be good enough.

What followed was an absurd charade occasioned by your mother's attempting to thwart my communicating with you. Never mind that our divorce agreement, which bore her signature, acknowledged the need to maintain my relationships with my children. Scientology "ethics" in action!

I wrote you to remind you of your promise to phone me.

I called Suzanne several times; reaching her took nearly as much persistence as had reaching Ben.

She waffled, she stalled, she said it was "up to Amanda" (sound familiar?) whether you called, then she said you'd call "soon," but refused to be more specific.

Just after I sent you a Valentine's Day card which, in addition to relating some news, said, "It makes me sad that you can't call me," I received a letter from your mom that said, among other things, "...please do not call me at work in the future."

I guess she was tired of being reminded of her responsibilities as your parent. Of course, since she had no home phone, what she was saying was, "Please don't call me anymore." I ignored her request, of course.

I had my lawyer request a hearing with the court to compel you to phone me and to allow me to visit you in Florida. The court had set the hearing for late April.

That wasn't good enough. In frustration, I wrote the judge, explaining that the matter required earlier attention. He re-set the hearing for late March.

Then, I received a card from you, dated February 21, 1996, which said you'd received my letters, you were back with your friends, studying, and having fun.

I recognized your card as an example of "fair roads / good weather," a Scientology name for a communication that communicates nothing. It was hardly a substitute for our earlier phone conversations.

So I wrote you to say I recognized the card for what it was. I told you I had scheduled a court date, and I expected to be given permission by the court to visit you, which I would then do, as soon as possible. I invited you to think of enjoyable activities we could share.

On the morning of the hearing, my lawyer received a fax, an affidavit from your mother, claiming she had not received sufficient notice of the hearing because it had not been sent to her correct address, and asking that it be delayed. She also said you wanted to attend the hearing to express your feelings about my motion.

All things considered, the lawyer deemed it best to accede to her request, so the hearing was put off for a month. How frustrating!

Linda and I decided to drive to Florida to force the issue. If your mother was going to continue to try to keep me from seeing or hearing from you, she was going to have to do so in ways I could document for the benefit of the court.

We decided to take Ben's car so he could have it in Florida. Linda drove it, and I drove my own. We left in early April. It took us four days to arrive in Clearwater.

About noon on April 10, we entered the Ft. Harrison, the former resort hotel which is now headquarters for Scientology's "Sea Organization." We walked up to the reception desk, where I asked for Suzanne. Perhaps on account of our not being in uniform, as Sea Organization members usually are, a security guard attached himself to us immediately. Within a minute of our arrival, a woman appeared; she introduced herself as Annie and told us she was with the "Sea Org's" Office of Special Affairs and that Ben would be down to see us soon. Sure enough, he came down a few minutes later. We hugged; I told him we would like to meet his wife, maybe take them to dinner. Annie hovered in the background. Suzanne then came on the scene; I told her I wanted to see you. She said you were busy, but she would try to arrange a later meeting. I agreed to phone Ben in the afternoon to arrange a time, then Linda and I left the Ft. Harrison.

Having a bit of time on my hands, I visited the downtown Post Office, where I determined they did indeed deliver mail to 210 So. Ft. Harrison, the address of the headquarters where Suzanne worked at the time of her affidavit which caused the hearing to be delayed. That was the address she'd claimed was not her correct one.

Next, I met with an insurance agent to determine what had to be done to allow Ben to take posession of his car.

I called Ben later that afternoon, as we'd agreed; he suggested Linda and I return to the Ft. Harrison at 5:30, which we did. We were met immediately by Annie, who showed us to a room downstairs, where Suzanne, you, and a man who introduced himself as Sergio, a "public chaplain" or some such, were waiting. Sergio said that was his office, and he wanted to make sure all his myriad electronic gadgetry was turned off (though I noticed one little red light continued to glow) and he would then leave us to use the room in private for as long as we wished. He left, and Ben arrived. Suzanne asked Linda to leave the room, so she went out to a reception area and talked with Annie. Suzanne closed the door, and you explained to me that you were very busy and didn't want to spend any time with me while I was in Clearwater. You said you thought I had enough time with you during the two and a half months per year of court-ordered visitation and you didn't want to commit to any visits at other times. You then re-opened the subject of my continuing association with Bob. You said you wanted that issue resolved (that word again), but you made it clear that the only resolution that would be acceptable to you was my agreeing to discontinue communications with him. You were nasty. You were in uniform; you looked scrubbed, glossy. You were tough, hard, determined. It occurred to me that one could examine your insides from top to bottom and find no trace of a smile. You were almost unrecognizable to me.

Suzanne then broke her silence to make a few comments about our issue concerning Bob, but I made it clear to her that she wasn't going to get anywhere, so she backed off. I then turned to Ben and asked him about the status of his "disconnection," explaining that it seemed strange that he was agreeing to meet with me under that circumstance. He said the disconnection was still in effect. I then asked what he wanted to do about his car (which he had seen in front of the Ft. Harrison earlier). I explained that I had determined what was necessary for him to take possession of it and to operate it legally, and asked whether he would like to do that. He looked away and didn't say anything. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes; still, he didn't talk. After about 20 seconds, you started nattering, but I stopped you and asked Ben what was happening. He just sat there with his head lowered, holding his glasses in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other.

Finally, I asked whether he still smoked, and he said yes. I said, "Good! I could really use a smoke. Let's take a walk!"

I knew exactly what was happening: That car symbolized some of the finer things we had shared in renewing our relationship the previous winter, but having been forced to choose between his loyalty to me and his loyalty to Scientology, he'd disconnected from me, thereby reaffirming his loyalty to the organization. Therefore, he couldn't accept the gift. But in having to act in accordance with his decision, he found, and showed, that he was far from comfortable with it. On one hand I was pleased that my young son, who had surely been trained to be invulnerable emotionally, was showing himself still to be vulnerable. On the other hand, his turmoil was excruciating for me.

So we took a walk, and we talked. He explained how desperate he believed the state of the world to be, how urgently he had committed to its salvation, and how hard he was working toward that end. I knew he was propping himself up, and I desperately wanted to find a way to impede that process, but I could think of no way to do that without being critical of his organization or of his efforts, and I'd long since realized such an approach would be counter-productive. Instead, I expressed admiration for his dedication, and tried to tell him how rich and rewarding my life was while admitting I wasn't doing as much to save the world as I might. It was a good talk. After about 20 minutes, we arrived back at the Ft. Harrison, where Suzanne was waiting. I did not see you again during that visit.

Exhausted, I met Linda, and we returned to the state park that had become our temporary home to compare notes and to lick our wounds. Next day, we put Ben's car into storage in such a way that he could take possession of it whenever he wished; we drove back to Colorado soon afterward.

Before our April court date, Suzanne acceded to my demands for communication and visitation with you, thereby demonstrating to my satisfaction that her whole strategy for dealing with my complaints, and the reason why she'd written the affidavit that had caused the postponement of the hearing, had been to delay.

Your disconnection from me had been terminated by order of the court.

I was very glad when you called me, the last day of April. We chatted comfortably for about half an hour, and I suggested Linda and I might travel to Florida to visit you, beginning May 13th, and including the weekend of the 18th and 19th.

You called back a bit later to say the weekend I'd suggested was a Scientology holiday, and to ask whether I'd consider delaying our trip for a week. I asked what the holiday was, but you were evasive. Finally, you said it was the anniversary of the publication of Dianetics. I agreed to consider the delay.

After our conversation, I pulled a Scientology publication containing a list of the organization’s holidays from my bookshelf and determined the anniversary of Dianetics was indeed a holiday, but it occurred on May 9. Perhaps you hadn't been altogether honest with me; perhaps your mother's delaying tactics had become yours as well.

About a week later, you phoned again. Yes, you said, the Dianetics holiday was to be celebrated on May 10th, a Friday. The problem was my proposed dates for visiting you conflicted with time when some long-time friends of yours were coming to Clearwater. I agreed to delay our visit for a week, but I felt I'd learned nothing new about what you were doing or why you were doing it.

In May, Linda and I flew to Florida, got Ben's car out of storage, and enjoyed a series of five visits with you, including one entire weekend.

You expressed a desire to see a movie during our first night together, and Linda and I agreed. We picked up a pizza; then, as we drove toward the theater where the movie you had chosen was showing, I began to realize I had mis-calculated its location; it was much further north on U.S. 19 than I had realized. We ate our pizza in the car so we could arrive on time. Sadly, the movie, “The Craft,” wasn’t worth the trouble, though I admit you liked it much more than did Linda or I.

I asked you that night why you weren’t wearing your glasses and you explained you’d lost them. When I asked whether you were going to replace them, you said you and your mother were saving money for that purpose, but you were evasive when I asked how much you’d saved and how long it might take before you could afford afford new ones. I decided to look into obtaining replacements.

I had purchased your glasses from a national chain store which had a branch in Clearwater. They assured me they could obtain the prescription from the Boulder branch and make up a duplicate of the pair you had lost, so I arranged for that to be done.

We began our next evening’s visit by going to get your new glasses. On the way, you explained that you and your mother believed that, since you had lost the first pair, you should take responsibility for replacing them, and that I might be encouraging your carelessness by giving you replacements.

I said I had a different perspective. I told you I didn’t consider you a careless person, and as a parent I would gladly take responsibility for your glasses and any other needs relating to your welfare. I tried to avoid saying this in a way that could be interpreted as accusatory of your mother.

I didn’t say I had recently learned how pathetic her salary as a more than full-time Sea Org staff member was; I could imagine you and she saving for a long time before you could afford new glasses.

We went to Sea World on Saturday; on Sunday, we went to Adventure Island, a water park, where I marveled at how many means the imagination can devise for going downhill on running water. Although some of the rides were a lot of fun, most of the lines were long. Then we discovered the "Lazy River." What fun we had floating on plastic inner tubes, spinning one another about, upsetting one another, relaxing and having fun together!

I was thankful that your Sea Org uniform didn't accompany us during our visit; neither did the cold, hard person you had been on the bottom floor of the Ft. Harrison. In fact, that visit, which represented the failure of your (who else's?) attempt to “disconnect” from me, was easy, fun, and loving, the usual characteristics of our relationship. The fly in the ointment was that the schizophrenia inherent in your trying to bully me one week and being good friends with me the next had to be taking a toll on you.

I remember something else about that visit. On the next-to-last night, we ate in a Thai restaurant in Dunedin; afterward, we had some extra time, so we entered a bookstore. I soon spotted a copy of Undaunted Courage, a book about Lewis and Clark. I told you I'd heard it was good, and I wanted to own a copy, but was waiting for the paperback to come out. You said you didn't know who Lewis and Clark were, so I explained.

I was not able to meet with Ben during that trip, but I did talk with him on the phone, as I was to do periodically for a while. After all, he had disconnected from me, but I hadn’t disconnected from him.

The day after our last visit, Linda and I put Ben's car back into storage and flew home.

From that time on, you phoned me weekly. It was very reassuring to me to maintain our connection, to be able to share news with you, and to learn of some of your concerns and feelings.

Your interest in rafting had been growing, so that spring I bought a new "cataraft," a light, responsive rig that I hoped would facilitate your mastery of white water.

After you arrived for your summer visit, we arranged to run the Upper Colorado River with some friends, using the new boat. You rowed it quite happily for several miles, until we came to Yarmony Rapid. One look into it convinced you to turn the oars over to me.

By then, I had committed to trying to get custody of you; I'd seen more than enough to convince me that your indoctrination in Scientology was inimical to your humanity and to your future. I'd been secretive about it, because I didn't want your mother or anyone else to further interfere with our ability to spend time together. But the cat was about to come out of the bag.

My lawyer had suggested a custody evaluation be undertaken, and had planned to ask for a court order to that effect soon after you arrived. I had to tell you what I was doing before anyone else did.

So, while we were running the Colorado, I told you what I was doing.

Boy, were you angry! You told me I might get your body, but I'd never get your soul!

You wandered off to a hill away from the river soon after we pulled into camp, and you kept your distance from me for the rest of that night.

The next morning you seemed a bit more friendly but, when I began to tell you more about what was going to happen, you cut me off, explaining that you didn't want to ruin our trip by talking about it. I couldn't honor your request.

The problem was that you had to know what to expect of the custody evaluation, because, of the team of two evaluators we were requesting, one was a psychologist, and I knew Scientologists have contempt for, even fear of, "psychs." So I needed to tell you that your interaction with them would include nothing more than conversation and some educational testing; no drugs or treatment of any sort would be involved. You listened, and I resolved to speak with you no more than was necessary about custody issues and procedures.

You, Sarah, and I later met some friends from the Western Slope for a six-day trip through Desolation and Gray Canyons on Green River.

Among our friends was Morgan, a boy about two years older than you, whom you then met for the first time. Apparently, either you or Sarah asked him early in the trip whether he was too old to play, and he said no. That was true; among my fondest memories of that trip is the sound of your laughter echoing from the canyon walls as the three of you floated and played through mile after mile of calm water in your life vests.

Morgan and Sarah became nearly inseparable on that trip, and I became concerned that you were feeling left out. On a couple of occasions, I tried to determine your feelings; you said you were not having a problem. I never decided whether that was true or whether my ability to be your confidant regarding matters of the heart was limited.

Our third and final river trip that summer took place on the Gunnison, a three-day float with Sarah, her mother and her two younger brothers, and Linda.

A few days after we returned home, we were eating supper when Linda asked you how you felt about my custody suit. You said you didn’t want to talk about that; when she pushed you, you blew up and left the house. I had to go to Sarah's house to retrieve you, and we exchanged some very angry words on the way home. I made you sleep in my room that night so you wouldn't run away. That was a hard time; we were not friends for a day or two afterward.

But overall, I was pretty proud of us that visit, because we soon became able to talk about uncomfortable things without becoming angry with one another.

The custody evaluation was ordered by the court, and it commenced before you left.

One of the evaluators came to our house for a couple of hours to observe interactions among you, Linda, and me. That was very strange. I'm sure the poor guy wanted us to act as though he weren't there, but that was hardly possible. I remember thinking, "I hope the rest of this process isn't as much of a sham as this is!"

Before you returned to Florida, you met with the evaluators a couple of other times, for an interview and to take some tests. In fact, your departure was delayed for a couple of days to accommodate the evaluators; you didn't leave until the end of July.

I was ready for that evaluation. I'd already written an affidavit to the court, explaining why I felt you were not going to thrive in the Sea Org, and I wrote the evaluators a long letter to flesh out the affidavit.

During my first meeting with one of the evaluators, she expressed interest in the events that had transpired during and after your most recent Christmas visit. She also asked me to supply a list of questions she could ask you, Ben, and Suzanne to gain insight into areas of my concern; she did not promise, however, to ask all the questions I supplied, but insisted she had to use her own discretion. Fair enough.

So, I went home and hammered on the keyboard some more. I wrote a long letter describing the events of your Christmas visit, then I composed a list of questions for the evaluators to ask of you, Ben, and Suzanne. I put a lot of time and thought into that project. When I was done with it, I had a series of about two hundred questions that, if answered honestly, would give an investigator a clear picture of the lives you three were living in the Sea Org, particularly regarding work and finances, your practice of Scientology, education, family matters, and your lifestyle and environment. I even showed my list to a couple of ex-Scientologists and incorporated their ideas into the final draft.

Meanwhile, the evaluators were consulting with your mother to arrange a time when they could go to Florida to inspect your situation there. They suggested some dates in early September, but she, pleading a Scientology holiday (where had I heard that before?), put them off. They settled on the last weekend in September.

A couple of days before they were to leave, the evaluators were contacted by a lawyer from Tampa, who said he'd just begun representing Suzanne, and they would would have to delay their trip to allow him time to review her file. Pointing out that they had already cleared their schedules and made reservations for flights, a rental car, and lodging, they refused.

Then, the day before their scheduled departure, Suzanne called to say they shouldn't bother to come, because she would not meet with them.

Subsequent attempts by the evaluators to arrange to travel to Florida were met by stonewalling, first by Suzanne, who ultimately asked that they not attempt to phone her, then by her lawyer in Denver.

In obvious frustration, the evaluators wrote to my lawyer and Suzanne's Denver lawyer to ask what they should do next. Bear in mind that the court's order for a custody evaluation required that all parties cooperate fully with the evaluators.

My father phoned me about the middle of October to say he had received a letter from you, your first to him in many years, and I asked him for a copy. It was mostly “fair roads / good weather”: You were studying hard, having fun with your friends, and were proud of having become an “ordained minister” of Scientology. “This thing with my father will pass soon,” you wrote, “and then I will continue on with other things. I am where I want to live and I am happy here.” I chuckled as I read, “It was my birthday on the 15th of September and Dad got me a CD walkman. But my mom got me those running shoes I really wanted.”

I never understood why you wrote him. Perhaps you thought he was ignorant of my custody suit and would attempt to discourage me if you made him aware of it. If so, you were mistaken; he not only knew of my suit, he encouraged it.

Meanwhile, you and I continued to talk on the phone. We avoided unpleasant subjects, and our conversations were cheerful.

We talked about your next Christmas visit. I was beginning to lay plans for us to travel to Mexico for Christmas, to the little house in the country I had recently purchased there. You, on the other hand, expressed a desire to spend Christmas in Clearwater, because there were some Scientology celebrations that occurred during that season that you had never been able to attend because you had spent all of your recent Christmases with me.

I promised to consider your request, but it put me in a tough spot. Ever since the end of your Christmas visit the preceding year, both you and your mother had repeatedly tried to prevent or delay my spending time with you, and I had no reason to think your most recent request anything but the latest episode in this saga. As much as I wanted you to have what you wanted, I had to admit, sadly, that I didn’t trust you to express your motivation honestly.

Besides, the court order said you were to spend a month “on either side of Christmas” with me. I decided I could be flexible in the choice of dates for your visit if that would allow you to attend a celebration, but I would insist that your visit conform with the court’s order.

In late October, I received a letter from Suzanne that said you would be spending the coming Christmas in Florida. "Oh, boy," I thought, "here we go again!" Back to court, that is.

Of course, the judge affirmed the earlier order. Suzanne didn't even bother to come to Colorado for the hearing. Her lawyer looked pretty silly; he knew he didn't have a case.

In case you’re not counting, that marked the third time I’d gone to court to preserve visitation between us. It was not to be the last.

With that out of the way, I talked further with you; we finally agreed you could remain in Clearwater for a Scientology function that was to take place a few days before Christmas, then you would fly to Monterrey, Mexico, where I would meet you.

As it turned out, Sarah and a couple of our adult friends, Loretta, from Florida, and David, my neighbor, expressed interest in joining us; so I undertook to determine what departure date each of them desired, when each had to return, and what travel arrangements could be made. The resulting plans were complicated but workable.

My lawyer and I had decided to seek an order of contempt of court for your mother's lack of cooperation with the custody evaluators. Such a process requires that papers be served on the defendant, so I arranged for that to happen in Florida, making sure service occurred after you boarded the plane that was to take you to Mexico, because I was already apprehensive about the possibility of your not coming, and I didn't want anything done that might further risk your visit.

Sarah and I had decided to drive to Mexico together, while Linda was to follow us a couple of days later in her truck. I had arranged for you and Loretta to fly into Monterrey on the same plane; David would arrive there a couple of hours later. We chose Monterrey because it was the only destination either close to my casita or on the route to it into which flights could be reserved at that late date; that city is not a tourist destination. Those of us who were driving would be in Monterrey to meet you who were flying, then we'd drive together to the casita, about ten hours distant.

As it turned out, Sarah and I had a wonderful trip. We drove first to a town outside Taos, where we spent part of a day with some mutual friends, then we went to Santa Fe and stayed with one of my long-time friends. We put in some miles when we left Santa Fe, because it was cold, but once we'd gotten to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, it was much warmer, so we slowed down and saw the sights.

We stopped at a couple of steep arroyos that intersected the highway and did some fossil collecting. We paid a visit to the Judge Roy Bean Museum in Langtry and learned of the history of that bizarre character. And, we took a walking tour of a cave and canyon that had been a long-time home to a prehistoric Indian civilization. We met Linda in a motel in Del Rio.

After crossing the border and driving another day, the three of us got to the Monterrey airport a bit early.

As I mentioned earlier, I was apprehensive about your arrival, because you and your mother had been so relentlessly trying to interfere with visitation. I couldn't meet you at the gate, because you had first to pass through Customs. Peering through dirty windows at the queue of recently arrived people, about 100 feet away, I could make out Loretta, but I didn't recognize you. When you finally came out, I realized why: You'd shortened your hair, and your posture had deteriorated.

As you and I shared our news, you told me the Scientology celebration that had been planned for the night before, the one you had planned to attend, had been postponed for a day. So, despite my having enabled you to remain in Clearwater by arranging for you to take an expensive flight into Mexico, you had missed the party. I felt sorry for both of us.

David arrived later, as planned. With everyone secure, we left the airport; we arrived at the casita the following evening.

A few days after our arrival, I learned, via the grapevine that went from you to Sarah to Linda to me, that you and Suzanne had hatched a plan for you to marry!

I asked Sarah whether she would tell me what she knew, and she agreed. She told me your "intended's" name was Flaco (Spanish for "skinny"); he was a 23 year old Chilean. He'd given you a ring, but to lessen the risk of my discovering the scheme, you hadn't brought it. She said your mother knew about, and approved of, your plans. The wedding was to take place during the coming February. If I learned of your plans, Sarah said, you would admit to them, but would pretend you were going to wait a few years.

At first, all I could do was to try to stifle my outrage. At 15, you were hardly ready to become someone's wife. I silently cursed Suzanne's perfidy. To think she considered herself an ethical person! To think of the outrageous behavior she was modeling for you! It was almost more than I could bear.

When I calmed down, I was able to feel some relief, because Suzanne’s having stonewalled the custody evaluators was a clear indication that she didn’t intend to meet the custody issue head-on. At least I now knew how she intended to side-step that issue.

In truth, Linda and I had already realized she might come up with such a ploy, and, having done my homework, I knew her scheme would be difficult to pull off in Florida, a state that requires notification to both parents of the intention of a minor to marry.

But you had told Sarah you and your intended would travel to another state to marry if that were necessary. I decided to contact my lawyer.

I sent him a fax, and was able to arrange a time to talk with him by phone, which required a couple of trips to the nearest town, because there was not then, nor is there yet, phone service in the area of my casita.

When I was finally able to talk with him, the lawyer suggested we ask the court to prohibit your marriage after you and I arrived in Colorado, which we'd planned to do a couple of weeks later. That sounded reasonable to me.

Being little practiced in the arts of espionage, I left the document I'd faxed to the lawyer in a place where you could find it, so I was pretty sure you knew I was aware of the scheme.

The subterfuge that characterized that visit certainly had an impact, but we managed to enjoy our time in Mexico despite that.

I recall that you and Sarah particularly enjoyed Christmas shopping in nearby San Miguel and were pleased at the purchasing power of your dollars in the shops.

We spent a day in Guanajuato, a beautiful city a little over an hour's drive from the casita. In the ornate glass and wrought iron market building there, I introduced you girls to licuados, the delicious smoothies made from fresh fruit that are so common in Mexico. We thoroughly enjoyed ordering different fruit combinations, and eagerly passed each new example among ourselves for sampling.

We attended a bullfight in San Miguel, after reading aloud and discussing an article on the sport in, I think, Atlantic Monthly. There was one matador, dressed in pink and yellow, who was quite a showman. I recall one occasion when he turned his back to the bull and knelt on the ground for several seconds. When he killed his bull, I saw Sarah was weeping. I think you also felt somewhat sorry for the bull.

Our neighbor Emilia invited you and Sarah to accompany her for a night of dancing at San Miguel's discos. Emilia had to explain to me that discos in Mexico, unlike those in the U.S., are appropriate places for teen-aged girls. Trusting her judgment, I gave you two my blessings. What a time you had! You stayed out pretty late, as I recall, and you enjoyed the attention two lovely young women might expect in such circumstances.

As our time in Mexico ended, we put Sarah, Loretta, and David on a bus to return to Monterrey, thence to their homes, and you, Linda, and I prepared for our long drive to Colorado.

Once again, Linda drove her truck, while you rode with me.

Of course, we talked a lot during our long drive. I asked about your friends in Clearwater, and whether there was a special boy in your life; you told me there had been, and named someone I recalled your having mentioned earlier. You and he had broken up, you said, and some problems had resulted from that, but they'd been cleared up. No, you said, there was not then anyone special, nor were you eager to find someone. You asked me what my hurry was, and I assured you I was not in a hurry, nor could I think of any reason why you should be.

A day or two later, we discussed relationships and marriage. You said you were very fond of February and would like to marry during that month. Not the coming February, you assured me, but, perhaps, in the year 2000, as your anniversary would be easy to remember.

Soon after we arrived at my home, I met with my lawyer; we agreed he would draft an order prohibiting your mom from consenting to your marriage and present it to the judge for her signature. He told me she would probably sign it "on the spot."

A few days after we arrived, a letter arrived for you from Florida. I steamed open the envelope and read it. It was clearly from your intended and, though it was circumspect in its references to your plans, made it clear that February 28 was to be your wedding day. It also said the Scientology party you had missed had been a bust. I made a copy and placed the original back in its envelope.

You may wonder how I could have brought myself to open your mail. The truth is, I didn't have to think very hard about it. As you have probably observed, I am a very honest person; ordinarily, I conduct my life in such a way that it easily bears inspection by anyone, for whatever purpose. However, I had long since realized I was dealing with a lack of scruples, certainly on your mother's part, likely on the part of whatever Scientologists were advising her, and, sad though it is to say, on your part as well. Dealing with unscrupulous people while trying to keep my own behavior above reproach would have put me at a serious disadvantage. That I was unwilling to accept. I opened and read the letter.

When I handed you the letter, you went off by yourself and read it; a bit later, I saw you put it in the wood stove to burn it.

A couple of days later, I confronted you about your wedding plans. Yes, you said, it was true, but you were going to wait a few years. I didn't ask you to reconcile this information with your having told me you didn't have a boy-friend.

The next event in this bizarre saga occurred when your mother phoned me to explain she had recently spoken with Flaco and he'd told her of your plans. She said she'd "handled" him by getting him to agree to wait for a few years, and she wanted to let me know what was going on, to assure me she would never permit such a thing to happen, and to make sure I wouldn't do anything to facilitate the scheme!

That call, of course, was a lame attempt at damage control, so I said very little. However, I did ask how old Flaco was; she said she didn't know, but he was "a little older" than you.

Meanwhile, the judge had refused to sign the order to prohibit Suzanne from agreeing to your marriage; she'd taken the matter "under advisement."

Time passed, the date of your return to Florida was approaching, and I'd heard nothing from the court. I was thus facing a situation in which I knew what was being planned, but had no means of preventing it.

So, in desperation, I showed up in court the next Friday, the day the court considers emergencies. The judge refused to see me, but she did write me a note explaining she would not consider acting without Suzanne's input. To say I was profoundly frustrated would be an understatement.

My lawyer immediately petitioned the court for an emergency hearing on this matter. The judge granted the request and the hearing was set for Friday, January 24. My only remaining problem was that you had a reservation to fly back to Florida on January 22.

So I called the airline from which your ticket had been purchased and exchanged your reservation for one on a flight about a week later.

You and I had planned a trip to the Museum of Natural History in Denver with Sarah and one of her friends. Before we left, I told you about the change in flight reservations and explained why I'd done that. On the way to Denver, I stopped at a pay phone and called Suzanne with a similar explanation. As I'd anticipated, she was furious, but I refused to relent.

How I managed to think about the situation on the way to the museum, with rock and roll blaring in the car, I can't recall, but by the time we arrived, I knew how to resolve it.

It took more than an hour to connect with your mother on the phone. When I was finally successful, I explained that all she had to do was to sign an agreement, to be entered as a court order, that prohibited her from approving your marriage. I would then arrange for you to fly home on the originally-arranged flight. She spluttered a lot, but she agreed.

The two lawyers hammered out an agreement, it was signed, and I undid the change in your airline reservation.

The situation as it stood then was hardly one in which I could find comfort. Your mother had continued to ignore the custody evaluators, so it seemed unlikely she was going to allow my custody suit to be heard in court; indeed, the wedding plan supported that theory. Now that she'd been thwarted, what would she do next? Would you be whisked out of the country? Would you somehow be made to disappear, as L. Ron Hubbard had during his later years, to avoid legal action? I could only guess.

Whatever she was scheming next, she'd have to do it soon. This was late January, 1997, and the custody hearing had been set for the coming March.

You had obtained a passport in order to travel to Mexico. As the situation stood, I could hardly sent you back to Florida with it, since that would facilitate your leaving the country. I stole and hid it.

The other thing I decided to do was to initiate a visitation cycle with you in Florida soon after you returned. I reasoned that I could at least see you, and verify your continuing presence there, or I would learn of it soon if you were to disappear. I sent your mother a note informing her of my intention to have a series of visits with you. That was the situation on the eve of your departure when your mother phoned. You went into the garage so you and she could talk in private; then you asked me to talk with her. She asked me to take you to her lawyer's office in Denver, instead of taking you to the airport as we had planned. I reminded her of the approaching visitation cycle I intended to begin with you in Florida, and she said that wouldn't be possible, because she didn't know where you'd be on the day I had chosen to begin the visit. In that case, I said, all bets were off: I wasn't taking you anywhere.

You were very upset by my decision. You really wanted to return to Florida, you said, and you were angry with me because I wasn't allowing you to do so. I tried to explain why I was keeping you with me, but nothing I said caused you to feel less angry.

Of course, I called my lawyer right away. He said I was in violation of a court order by keeping you with me beyond the agreed date. There was nothing he could do to keep me out of jail.

I must admit, I would do things differently if I had them to do over. It might have been wiser to allow Suzanne to violate a court order by interfering with the visitation in Florida for which I'd already given notice. But the truth was I didn't know whether I'd ever see you again if I allowed you to return. What limits could I ascribe to Suzanne's behavior after learning she'd been complicit in the plot to have you marry in order to head off my custody action?

Since the weekend was approaching and I didn't want to spend it in jail, I began planning an excursion to Glenwood Springs for you, Linda, and me.

A couple of days after you were to have returned to Florida, I picked up the phone and overheard a snippet of conversation between you and your mother. "Be sure to call me at 4 o'clock," she said.

4 o'clock that afternoon passed with no attempt on your part to use the phone, so I surmised she'd meant 4:00 AM. I knew what to expect.

You had been sleeping upstairs in my room for most of that visit; that night, you complained of being unable to sleep, and you asked whether you could sleep on the couch in the downstairs living room. I agreed, but I stayed nearby, in a place where I could watch both you and the driveway and do a little reading. At about 3:00 AM, you said you still couldn't sleep, and asked to go into the heated garage to continue some writing you'd begun earlier; I agreed to that as well.

A few minutes later, I peered into the garage; as I'd expected, you were gone.

Late January at 7800 feet in the Rockies can be pretty cold. You had left your coat in the closet.

I got into my car and began to search for you. It took about 20 minutes before I found you on the paved road, about a half-mile away. I told you to get into the car; you refused. "Get in the car before you freeze to death!" I said, and you did. After we'd returned to the house, I looked at the thermometer. It said 17 degrees, and it was windy.

As soon as we arrived home, you phoned your mother. As I sat beside you, I heard you saying, "I went out to the road. There was nobody there." And, "But where on the road? I couldn't find it." You asked me to get on the phone, but I refused.

You phoned her again a few minutes later. I overheard, "That's because she's in the wrong place!" Then you gave directions to our house.

I had already inspected and loaded a small caliber rifle in anticipation of a visit by Scientologists. Although I found it hard to imagine circumstances in which I would actually fire it, I intended to use the rifle to make one point perfectly clear: I was unwilling to negotiate with my uninvited visitors about anything.

So, when headlights appeared in the driveway about 20 minutes later, I walked outside, carrying the rifle and keeping it pointed toward the ground, to greet the approaching car which, as it turned out, contained only one woman, a Scientologist and friend of your mother whom I immediately recognized. I told her to leave, and she did so.

I went back inside, poured myself a drink, and warmed some leftovers. You went upstairs and lay down.

Half an hour later, the phone rang. "This is the Boulder County Sheriff's Department. Please come outside with your hands in the air." That's what I did.

They had me walk about 50 feet from the door, then they handcuffed me. One of the three or four cops made a call on his radio; a couple of cruisers soon came down the drive. They put me in the front seat of one of them, and a couple of cops went to the door. Linda let them in.

It took them about an hour to settle the matter. I spent much of that time talking with the cop with whom I was sharing a seat. I told him about dangerous cults, how they lure and hold onto people. He had a five-year-old child, he said. I explained how important it is to cult-proof one's child, how, as much as the child's sense of wonder and infinite possibilities has to be nurtured, he must be made to understand there are people and groups who will deliberately prey on him and deprive him of his very freedom to make decisions in his own best interests in order to profit from his psychological slavery.

But, cops don't necessarily listen to reason. They enforce the law. And there was law in our case: the court had ordered specific time periods during which you would be in Colorado. I was, they rightly determined, in violation of that order.

Meanwhile, the cops had phoned your mother; she'd asked that they turn you over to the woman I had so recently run off. You collected a few of your possessions and, in the wee morning hours of Saturday, January 25, 1997, you and I hugged, and you walked away, to be delivered into the hands of the cult.

As nerve-wracking as those hours had been, and as awful the outcome had been, I supposed I had one thing for which I could be thankful: I hadn't been arrested.

You stayed in Boulder with the woman in whose company you had left my home for about a week. Ultimately, your mother came to Boulder to fetch you. Before the time came for the two of you to fly back to Florida, I asked your mom whether I could drive the two of you to the airport, so you and I could visit during the hour that trip requires. She agreed, and by the time we reached the airport, I felt you and I had begun mending our fences.

Legal wrangling between Suzanne and me escalated in the early months of 1997. She had asked the court to appoint a Guardian ad Litem (a lawyer who represents the best interests of the child) on your behalf. I, in turn, had talked with a California lawyer who had made a reputation as a successful litigant against Scientology, and I asked the court to allow him to represent me alongside my Colorado lawyer. Each of us had opposed the other's desires, but the court granted both.

The extra time I’d detained you in Colorado at the end of our Christmas visit had messed up the schedule for my proposed visits with you in Florida. However, still feeling uneasy about your future, I continued to believe it would be wise for me to keep an eye on you.

That sounds easier than it actually is. During earlier visits to Clearwater, I had learned that Sea Org members can conduct their lives out of public view if they so choose. "The Hacienda," the apartment complex where you then resided, was owned by Scientology, and there were security guards there and at the Ft. Harrison, the downtown headquarters of the Sea Org, where most members worked and studied. Members traveled between the two places in large white Sea Org buses.

On the other hand, your mother had a car, a ratty old Toyota with a bad exhaust system, and I knew you and she often used it when you traveled between home and headquarters. If I didn't see it coming, I would hear it.

I sent your mother advance notice of my intention to begin a visitation cycle on February 17, 1997. Being by then well acquainted with her deviousness, I actually notified her by four different means: I sent her a letter via U.S. Mail, I sent her another via Federal Express, I sent a third one to her Colorado lawyer via U.S. Mail, and I placed a personal ad in a newspaper that serves Clearwater, the St. Petersburg Times.

It took me a few days to arrange to be absent from home, but I flew to Tampa about five days before our visits were to commence. I took a cab from the airport to the storage lot where Ben's car was parked.

It looked so decrepit! It had remained under a tree for many months, and it was covered with dead leaves, twigs, and other detritus. Its battery was dead, of course. With the help of a kind employee of the storage yard, I got it started and, spurning his offer to buy it, I drove to a discount parts store and bought and installed a new battery. After running it through a car wash, I had wheels.

I studied a map of the city and realized Drew St. was the only sensible route for the majority of your three-mile commute between your apartment and the Ft. Harrison, so I walked it a number of times, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I also prowled around the Ft. Harrison and spent some time in the vicinity of your apartment, though the complex which included it was huge, and I didn't know which apartment was yours.

How well I remember what a beehive of activity the 7-11 near The Hacienda was about midnight, as swarms of Sea Org members descended on it for their after work junk food fixes!

For all my searching, I didn't see you or your mother's car.

I had arranged to spend the weekend with Loretta, the same friend who had spent the last Christmas with us in Mexico, who lives a couple of hours' drive from Clearwater, so I drove to her house late Friday afternoon. I arrived in time to phone my lawyer's office in Colorado. His paralegal told me you and your mother had left Clearwater and were driving to Los Angeles, which was to be your new home!

I didn't know whether to believe this information or not. So, on Sunday morning, I called the number of your mother's office in the Ft. Harrison. The person who answered told me she was unavailable because she had left "on a mission," and wouldn't return for "some time." So it was true! You'd gone to Los Angeles!

I passed a fun, relaxing weekend with Loretta and returned to Clearwater on Monday. Luckily, one of the major airlines had just settled a strike, so I was able to book an inexpensive return flight for that evening. I put Ben's car back into storage and flew home.

The next night, you phoned me collect, as you had every Tuesday night since I'd obtained court orders that ended your de facto disconnection the previous May. You were cold and evasive. You said you and your mom were on your way to California, but you refused to say where in that state you were going or to tell me from where you were calling. You claimed you and your mother had left the "church" and you were sure I was upset because that meant I could no longer attack it. There was nothing pleasant about our conversation.

After the call, I reflected on how twisted your perceptions had become. Once again, you had manifested beliefs and behavior that underlined the word "dangerous" in the phrase "dangerous cult."

At least, I now knew what new strategy had been cooked up by Suzanne and her "church.": You were going to Los Angeles to adopt the trappings of a more conventional life-style in order to pull the wool over the custody evaluators' eyes. They were about to get a first-hand look at the deceit about which I'd been warning them since early in their intermittent evaluation.

I found it interesting that Scientologists, well known as they are for being able to dress up a situation when examination by authorities couldn't be avoided, didn't think your situation in the Sea Org could be made to appear sufficiently appropriate to pass muster with the evaluators.

In subsequent phone conversations between us, you were warmer and more open with me. You expressed apprehension about having to make new friends, having to attend a new school; indeed, having to make a new life for yourself. You even said you were afraid you'd have too much free time! I tried to reassure you. You were young and resilient, I said; though it might be difficult for a while, you would do fine.

Once again, I recall wondering at the apparent schizophrenia which characterized your communications with me. You would be cold and hostile on occasion, but warm and open on others. This was not just a symptom of teenager-hood, I decided; it was a symptom of a disease called "Scientology."

I suggested to my lawyer that Suzanne's having spirited you away from Florida at the very time I had tried to initiate a visitation cycle with you, a cycle for which I'd given the notice required by court order, might be cause for initiating another action against her for contempt of court.

He disagreed. Particularly in family court, he said, there was such a thing as overdoing it, and the judge might look unfavorably on yet another attempt on my part to punish Suzanne.

So she got away with that one. She was able to violate a court order by making you unavailable for visitation, and I wasted a trip to Florida. I began to wonder whether this lawyer was sufficiently aggressive to pursue a Scientologist.

One of the custody evaluators asked my lawyer whether I'd be willing to waive the requirement that their final report be delivered at least 30 days before the custody hearing. Since the hearing was set for the last week in March, they were running out of time, and they wanted to go to Los Angeles to investigate your new situation. The lawyer advised me to agree, so I did.

I have often wondered since whether that was a wise decision. Presumably, if I had not agreed, they would have had to write their report before witnessing whatever dog and pony show Suzanne was planning for them in Los Angeles. Perhaps Suzanne's blatant obstruction of their attempts to conduct an investigation in Florida would then have had more impact on their report. But surely, I reasoned, these evaluators could hardly be oblivious to the farce that was being perpetrated for their benefit. How wrong I was!

In late February, they made the trip. You and Suzanne were then staying in the apartment of a friend, awaiting the opportunity to move into a place of your own. Though you had not yet begun attending, it had been decided that you would go to Delphi Academy, a Scientology school.

Also in late February, I met your Guardian ad Litem for the first time. She had read the many documents that had resulted from all our legal wrangling, and she'd done a little independent research. The Sea Org was "scary," she admitted. I replied that Scientology in general was scary. That meeting began yet another attempt on my part to educate a professional person on the evils perpetrated on members and others by Scientology in the name of religion.

I had a problem with the court: The hearing for my custody suit had been set for “the week of March 31, 1997.” Since I had to arrange for witnesses and a lawyer from outside Colorado to attend, the lack of a specific date was inconvenient and potentially costly. I had my lawyer write the court to ask for a more specific date.

There was a court hearing on March 7. The issues to be decided were two: whether I would be allowed to visit you wherever you lived (the original order having been carelessly worded so that I was permitted to visit you only in Florida); and whether I would be denied any right to visitation, as Suzanne had requested. I went fully prepared to explain to the judge that I was, for the fourth time, having to go to court to preserve access to you.

In the courtroom lobby, I was served with papers requiring that I account for having kept you in my home beyond the date our last visit was to have ended or face charges for contempt of court. So our hearing had been expanded: Now, both Suzanne and I faced contempt charges.

Suzanne offered me a deal. I could visit with you in Los Angeles once before the custody hearing if I would agree not to pursue the present hearing. If I insisted on going through with the present hearing and I prevailed, she said, you would refuse to see me, even though she would encourage you to do as the court required. ("Fat chance!", I thought.) The visit was to be supervised, that is, someone of her choosing would accompany us, presumably to guard against my kidnaping you. Ben, she suggested, might be available to supervise (he had disconnected from me, you'll recall, more than a year earlier).

I was in a tough spot. On the one hand, I really wanted to tell the judge what I knew about the marriage plan and why I had detained you in January; after all, I had long thought that making public my knowledge about the underhanded tricks of Suzanne and her cronies was a powerful tool for loosening their grip on you, and I had yet to put any damaging information before a court.

On the other hand, I really wanted to see you, particularly since I was sure you still felt bad about my having recently detained you. I was also influenced by the possibility that I might see Ben, though I knew that was a long shot.

It was obvious I was being manipulated. It worked. I agreed to forego the hearing in return for the promise that I could spend time with you. To this day, I don't know whether I made the right decision, but I can still feel the agony I felt then.

The judge decided Suzanne was not guilty of contempt, since she'd recently become compliant with the custody evaluators' desires. He decided to drop contempt charges against me providing I didn't violate other court orders for a while. He agreed to make an order of the agreement she and I had made.

I arranged to meet you in Los Angeles on March 23.

A week after that court event, I received the report from the custody evaluators.

You should remain, it said, in the sole custody of your mother.

I was devastated. How could those two people, supposedly professionals, have been so blind to what was going on? I have agonized over that question ever since.

I will not here go into the countless speculations with which I have tried to answer that question since I first read the report. I can offer two observations: 1.) Custody evaluation is a short-cut that allows the courts to rely on the observations of experts in order to free themselves from having to hear all the evidence in the many cases they try. Unfortunately, that can mean, as it did in our case, that there may be no semblance of judicial process, no method by which allegations and accusations can be put to a fair test. In their investigation, the evaluators had simply ignored evidence they’d found hard to believe. 2.) The evaluators told me I was suing for custody at the worst possible time, in terms of your development, because you had not yet "individuated" from your mother. They could not see any connection between your membership in an organization that, by its very nature, discourages individuation from itself, from its beliefs and its practices, and your having failed to begin the process with your mother.

I had undertaken my custody suit in the belief that nothing could be worse than being committed to an organization that mentally enslaves its members, but the evaluators had either failed to perceive the realities of Scientology or had disagreed with my premise. Of course, the decision the lawyer and I made, early in our mutual effort, not to attack Scientology head-on, but to focus on the specifics of neglect and abuse in your life had left my case vulnerable to just the sort of sleight-of-hand Suzanne had perpetrated by moving to California.

What she'd done, in effect, was to admit your situation in Florida had been a poor one, and to pretend, now that you'd moved to California, everything was fine.

It had worked. She had successfully pulled the wool over the evaluators' eyes. And no one bothered to ask why she had so blatantly failed to make the central decisions about your lives with your well-being in mind until her custody of you was threatened.

In fact, no one had bothered to ask about a lot of things. Of my carefully composed list of perhaps two hundred questions for the evaluators to ask of you, Ben, and your mother, their report indicated they had asked fewer than five. When Suzanne had answered their (my) question about “security checks”* by admitting their use, she re-named them “confessionals” and went on to describe how they can be used to better one’s life. Apparently, that explanation satisfied the evaluators, despite my having provided them with copies of two “sec checks.”

[*security check: a list of questions designed to uncover one’s innermost secrets, asked of a Scientologist while he is hooked up to Scientology’s version of a lie detector. From “Children’s Security Check, Ages 6-12” (99 questions): “What has someone told you not to tell?” “Have you ever failed to keep another child’s secret?” From “Johannesburg Confessional List” (96 questions): “Have you ever had intercourse with a member of your family?” “Have you ever done anything you are afraid the police may find out?”
I was told by several former Scientologists that you and Ben were almost certainly sujected to these invasive routines every time you returned from a visit with me.]

My lawyer had told me that courts only rarely decide custody cases contrary to evaluators' recommendations. While I was eager to fly in experts and have a full-blown custody hearing, he said it would be expensive and, most likely, futile. My situation was made more difficult by the court’s having ignored my lawyer’s letter asking for a specific date for the hearing. At least I had a little time in which to consider my options.

Linda and I flew to Los Angeles on March 22. That afternoon, she and I spent about two hours at Delphi Academy, about which the custody evaluators had reported favorably, and which you had by then begun attending. We were shown around by the school's Director of Admissions, who told us how wonderful the school was, and that its program followed the teaching methods of (Scientology founder) L. Ron Hubbard. She told us the school had a low student-to-teacher ratio, and students learned "at their own pace." She said the emphasis was on self-generated study, and she gave us some descriptive materials about requirements for passing from one "form" (numbered from one to eight, and corresponding to kindergarten through twelfth grades) to the next, and requirements for graduation. We saw you there, but you were busy, so we didn't chat for long.

Then, we were able to examine the exhibits and talk with the exhibitors at the annual, school-wide Science Fair. In fact, we spent over an hour there.

The exhibitors were disciplined and enthusiastic; they firmly believed they were getting the best possible educations, because that's what they were continually being told. But their exhibits belied that notion.

In general, the exhibits were not demonstrative of real science. And, particularly among the older students, awareness of science at a high school level was not in evidence.

"They're all dressed up with no place to go," Linda observed.

There could be but one explanation: The students suffered from a lack of real science teachers. When we left Delphi, I felt sad for those kids.

I had arranged to meet with your older half-sister, Aimee, the next day, so she could participate in our visit. Although you and she lived in the same metropolis, you had not seen her in many years, despite your having been good friends in prior years.

So there were five of us who met that morning: you, Aimee, Linda, me, and the woman with whom you'd gone at the end of our episode with the cops, whom your mother had chosen to supervise the visit. Suzanne's choice of that woman reflected poor taste, I thought.

We had some fun that day. We went to a Salvation Army outlet, where you entertained the rest of us by hamming it up, modeling some of the bizarre clothing to be found in a Los Angeles thrift store. You made a few purchases, and were proud of the bargains you'd found.

Then, we went to Griffith Park, where we rented horses and went for a ride. Those horses were pretty tired old plugs, but they were docile, the weather was fine, and the ride was scenic.

We then went to an up-scale pizza parlor for lunch; we finished the day with some clothes shopping for you in the Glendale Mall.

Certainly, some ill feelings remained from our difficult Christmas visit and its disastrous ending, but we were still able to be friends. Healing began to look like a possibility.

As Linda and I returned to Colorado, I was beginning to face reality. I was about to lose my custody suit, and my only hope lay in trying to cut the best possible deal for you with your mother.

Of course, there remained the question of exactly what it was that I'd lost. I had certainly lost the opportunity to force you, angry with me and vigorously opposed to my beliefs, to live with me. That didn't seem such a great loss.

What I had really lost was the opportunity to cut short the damage I could see being done to you by Scientology, to help you to start on the path of recovery from the manipulative, misanthropic organization that had been so central to your life. I had lost the opportunity to be a part of your salvaging your freedom, your very life, at a relatively young age.

What I was going to lose was my relationship with you. I had known, before I undertook the custody battle, that you could not continue to remain in communication with me after I had come out of the closet as a critic of Scientology; the policies of the "church" simply would not allow that. I assumed you would disconnect from me, as your brother had, when you turned eighteen. I was wrong about that.

The truth is that I had committed more than two years and many thousands of dollars to providing you with the opportunity to have a future, and I had lost. That hurt a lot. It hurts still.

I could take some consolation in the fact that you had moved away from that awful scene I'd witnessed in Florida, that you now led a life that seemed much more appropriate for a teen-ager. After all, you now shared an apartment with your mom; she not only cooked for you, she also had time to spend with you just for fun. You had a lot of free time to develop a social life, to go to movies, to do with as you wished. I was sure you had lacked such free time in Florida. Though I knew you missed some friends in Florida, I was sure you were much, much better off in Los Angeles.