Finally Starting Life

I will always remember the day my life truly began ― a couple of months before I turned 15. It was Friday, March 20, 1998.

I was a freshman in high school, and I was sitting in my last class of the day next to Tracy. This was the first year since elementary school that we had EVERY class together. The last class also was one of our favorites. It was science and we thought the teacher was funny and engaging. The teacher had presented some stuff, and we were all working quietly on our school work when Mr. Squier, the school counselor, came to the door and asked to remove Tracy from class. Everyone immediately started making sounds and saying things like, “Oooh, someone’s in trouble.” Tracy packed up her stuff and walked out with Mr. Squier.

Meanwhile, I was sitting at the table we were sharing as our desk space and freaking out! The minute he showed up at the door, I knew what it was for and got butterflies in my stomach and a heat enveloped my whole body. I was relieved, still sweaty and nervous, but relieved to still be in class. That was short-lived. A few minutes later Mr. Squier was back and asked to pull me from class as well. All the rumblings from everyone started up again while I felt my heart plummet. 

The school counselor’s office was on the second floor, and my class was on the first floor, basically as far from the office as possible. It felt like it took at least 20 minutes to walk to the office, but in reality it was only about three minutes. As we were walking up the stairs, Mr. Squier asked me if I knew what this was all about. I was terrified to speak and just kept looking at my feet as I walked, but I managed to squeak out that I thought I knew what was happening. 

I had told my brother, Fred, a couple of days before about something that was happening to me in our home. 

I knew this was something serious, but I didn’t realize just how serious until I walked into the office and saw Tracy sitting in a chair, gazing at her feet, while two police officers, a man and a woman, sat across from her. This scene made me even more nervous! There were cops!? All of a sudden my confession to Fred seemed so serious and scary and a big part of me wished I had never said anything. 

Lucky for me, I wasn’t required to speak. I sat in the chair next to Tracy, staring at my feet the whole time the cops asked questions and Tracy answered. I would speak up to confirm what was said but never added any more details or information.

I have no idea how long this whole process took, it felt like a lifetime. I do know that by the time we were done talking, we had missed our bus home. Before we left the office, the police officers gave Tracy and I a sucker for being able to share this information with them. Then we came out and saw that Fred was there waiting for us. At that time, Mr. Squier and the cops came to let us know that they had called our mom and she was on her way to the school. Our whole future depended on her reaction and whether or not she believed us.

You see, for the past several years, Tracy and I were being sexually abused by our step-father. He had recently threatened to kill our family dog, which made me, so I told Fred that I had something on him that could probably get him sent to prison for a long time. Once I told Fred some of the details, I clammed up and didn’t want to say any more. Fred said he had to do something. So, he found a number in the back of a phone book that looked helpful. He called and they told him this was serious and that he would need to tell a trusted adult what was happening. All of us agreed immediately NOT to tell our mom. We didn’t know how she would react, but we didn’t think she would do anything to help us. Once we ruled her out, I started to panic and told Fred it would be best not to tell anyone. We could continue living like we had been and it would be fine. However, we all really liked Mr. Squier and had a great relationship with him, so it didn’t shock me that Fred confided in him a couple days after we said we wouldn’t tell anyone.
So now we wait. 

Once the cops could talk to our mom, they could determine the best plan of action to move forward with this case. If our mom showed any signs of not believing us or didn’t seem to care about our well-being, we would be placed in foster care—foster care! This is something we had heard about, but could this really be happening to us?! 

Mom finally arrived at the school and was confused seeing us sitting there with the two police officers. All the adults went into the same room Tracy and I had recently vacated so the cops could fill her in on what we had told them. Mom came out and was visibly shaken, she believed us. The cops asked her if she had a safe place where she could take us, and she said we could go up to her parents house. There were no cell phones then, so she called them from the school phone and asked if it would be okay for us to come up for the weekend. It was a last minute trip that none of us expected. 

Before we could leave, the cops had to go back to our house to confront our step-dad and to make sure it would be a safe space for us to go to pack up some things for the weekend. The cops left, confronted him, and when they came back, they stated that he never once denied any of it. They said that is a sure sign that he is, indeed, guilty of what we were saying. So, they said we needed to get out of that living situation.
All three of us kids and mom piled into her van to go back home to pack for the weekend. The cops followed us there and told us we had 15 minutes to gather what we needed and then we would need to leave. We packed quickly, grabbing whatever we thought we might need and headed “up north” to our grandparents house. They lived about two hours away. 

Once we arrived, mom made us kids sit in the van while she went into the house to tell them more details on what was happening. We would end up staying there for the weekend before returning to school Monday morning, but for the moment we were safe. We had a fresh start, and that is the day my whole world changed and I started to truly live.