Fire in his Eyes

I remember the lump in my throat when I saw my stepmother's car pull up at the bus stop where I was waiting to catch the bus to school. I don't think she even said anything at first, she just opened the car door for me and I slipped in. She kept repeating to me on the way to the police station where Gary had been taken that I should just agree with the nice policemen or he would go to jail. I stifled a sob that came from my core as I tried to imagine what on earth Gary had been arrested for. I dared not ask my stepmother, and when we arrived it seemed that the 'nice policemen' were also making a point of not telling me why Gary was there. I didn't see Gary. We waited in an office for about half an hour, accepting cups of tea and sympathy from a kind policewoman that kept rushing in and out. Then they took me out of the room to interview me while my stepmother helped write a 'statement'. I suppose my stepmother expected the interviewer to ask me specific, charged questions so that when I agreed with the nice policemen I would be incriminating Gary. But they asked me very open questions, so I had no idea that I was supposed to be giving evidence that Gary had sexually abused me. It wasn't true of course, and after speaking to me they knew it. If I could go back into that interview room now, I would tell them everything about my stepmother. How she sliced Gary's arm. How she forced me to drink her beer until I threw up, to show how bad it was for me. How she battered down my bedroom door and hit me when she saw that I had wet myself in terror. But I didn't think of it at the time. I was too shocked when I discovered why I had been brought to the police station.

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