Chapter 9

My mother was scared.  I could just sense it.  But she wasn’t scared for me; she was scared for herself.  She thought I was a liar.  My grandmother thought I was a liar.  I was sitting on the floor of her living room with her and my mother on the couch, scolding me from above, sternly instructing me to tell the truth.  We were going to court that day and I had clearly made a mess of my mother’s life.  I needed to tell the truth and go back home.  My grandmother had always been protective of my mother.  She always treated my mother like a child, which I now believe truly stunted my mother’s emotional growth.  When we arrived at the courthouse, my social worker was there to greet me.  The day was a blur of people and information that I didn’t understand.  My mother and grandmother went into the courtroom, but I stayed in another room with my social worker.  She explained to me what was happening in the other room.  I don’t remember what I felt for myself that day.  I was mostly worried about what would happen to my mom when Phil was sent to the electric chair.  I imagined we would move back in with Grandma and life would slowly get back to what it was before she chose to marry Phil.  They would have to forgive me eventually for causing all this trouble.  I’m sure you realize Phil was not given the death penalty for his crimes against me.  As I’ve said, I’m not going to get too descriptive in this venue, but you can be certain ~ my little body and my mind suffered greatly at the hands of this man.  For these crimes, Phil was handed two years probation.  He and my mother went home.  I went to therapy.