Chapter 10
The interview room didn't look like a place where you were supposed to tell the truth. It looked like a living room someone had tried too hard to make soft. There were two low chairs with gray fabric and a rug that was too clean, and a small table with a box of tissues and a pitcher of water that nobody touched. A camera sat in the corner near the ceiling, its red light off. I stared at it until Mara squeezed my hand.
Mara was the advocate who'd met us after the clinic. She wasn't in scrubs. She wore a cardigan with the sleeves pushed up and she sat slightly behind me, not beside me, so I could see the interviewer without turning around.
The interviewer was a woman named Ms. Delaney. She didn't have a clipboard. She had a notebook but she didn't open it right away. She smiled and it didn't pull tight.
"I'm going to ask you some questions today," she said. "If you don't know something, you can say you don't know. If you don't remember, you can say that too. Is that okay?"
I nodded. My throat was dry. She asked if I wanted water and I shook my head.
She started with easy things. What school I went to. What grade. What my room looked like. She asked me to promise to tell what really happened, not what I thought someone wanted to hear. I said I promised. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
Then she said, "Tell me why you came here today."
I didn't know where to start, so I looked at my hands. There was still a faint line of dirt under my nails that the nurse hadn't scrubbed out.
"I took the key," I said. "It was on his dresser."
Ms. Delaney waited. She didn't jump in to fill the silence. Mara had told me she would do that, let the quiet sit there. My breathing got loud.
"I wanted my backpack," I said. "He locked it in the utility closet in the hallway. With my stuff. My drawings and my mom's picture. He said I couldn't have it until I stopped being disrespectful. So I took the brass key when he was in the kitchen."
I remembered the weight of it. Cold and heavier than it looked. I held it tight in my fist so it wouldn't jingle.
"He saw me," I said. "In the hall. I was by the closet door. He came up fast and grabbed my arm. He pulled me back from the door and his hand slipped." I touched my left cheek without thinking. The scratches had scabbed over now but they still stung when I moved my face. "That's how I got scratched. His nails. I fell against the floor near the closet. That's why my shirt got dirty. I wasn't playing outside."
Ms. Delaney nodded, just small. "Thank you for telling me that. Can you tell me more about the floor?"
"It was dusty," I said. "The closet floor. Gray wood and dust in the corner. When he pulled me I went down on my side. My shoulder hit the frame. My shirt rubbed on it." I looked down at the pink t-shirt I was still wearing, the same one from yesterday. The collar was still smudged. "Mara said not to wash it. For pictures."
"You did exactly right," Ms. Delaney said. Her voice stayed even. "What happened after you were on the floor?"
"He took the key back at first. Then I got it again. I hid it in my hand all the way to the clinic. I was scared to let go." My eyes filled up and I tried to blink it away. "At the clinic I thought the light would hurt. The penlight. She had the bright light right on my face and I couldn't move. I thought if I told about the key he'd be mad right there. So I didn't say anything. I just cried."
Ms. Delaney let me breathe. She asked, "Did the doctor touch you in a way that felt okay or not okay?"
"She didn't touch the scratches hard," I said. "She used gloves. She was careful. And then she had the small pinchers with the key and she showed me. I thought she was going to give it back to him. But she didn't. She kept it on the tray."
Mara shifted a little behind me and I felt steadier.
Ms. Delaney asked me to go through it one more time, from taking the key to the exam table, and this time I could do it without stopping as much. The words came out in order. Dresser, hallway, closet, grabbed, floor, dirt, clinic, light, key on the tray. When I finished, my hands weren't shaking as much.
She looked toward the camera then. "Is it okay if we turn on our camera now to keep what you said? You've been doing really well."
I nodded. She reached over and pressed something on the wall and the red light in the corner blinked on. It didn't make a sound. She said the date and time and my first name and that Mara was present, and then she asked me the same open questions again, shorter this time, and I answered again. It was easier the second time because the story stayed the same.
When the light blinked off she closed her notebook.
"What you told me matches what the nurse wrote down," she said. "And the pictures of your cheek and your shirt. And the way the key fit the closet. That all goes together. You don't have to make anyone believe you all by yourself. The evidence helps do that."
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. It sounded shaky.
May you like
Mara stood and put her hand lightly on my shoulder. "We're done for today. You did a hard thing really well."
I stood up. The room was still soft and too clean, but it didn't feel as strange anymore. I had said it out loud, from beginning to end, and someone had recorded it, and they believed me without me having to yell or convince my dad to admit it.
