Sometimes the Police Knock on the door is a blessing: In divorce and family court, Mothers tasked with protecting our children from child sexual abuse find we are shamed, blamed and called liars by the very family courts we expected would listen and back up up...

Custody in crisis: How family courts nationwide put children in danger

In many cases across the country, family courts ignore evidence of sexual or physical abuse, putting kids in peril

LAURIE UDESKY AND 100REPORTERS

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(Credit: 100 Reporters)

Six years ago, in 2010, an appellate court in Tennessee affirmed a family court ruling that had awarded Darryl Sawyer primary custody of his six-and-a-half-year-old son, Daniel. (All the names of family members involved in custody cases mentioned in this article have been changed to protect the children’s privacy.)

The court ruled in favor of Sawyer despite evidence presented by his ex-wife that alleged he had sexually abused their child. Three years earlier, Daniel returned from a visit with his father with suspicious bruises on his bottom. His mother, Karen Gill, immediately took the three-year-old boy to his pediatrician. “Your instant reaction is that you don’t want it to be what it appears to be,” Gill said, choking back tears at the memory. “You really hope there’s another reason for why he has these marks on him.”

But the doctor, Victoria Rundus, confirmed Gill’s worst fears. Dr. Rundus reported to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services that she found reddish blue bruises on the child’s buttocks that could only occur from an adult “holding his buttocks forcibly open.” Gill thus began a long, arduous battle – that continues to this day – to protect her son.

Gill expected resistance from her ex-husband, but was surprised and shocked to find herself facing an even more formidable obstacle to her son’s safety in family court.

By the time the case was heard by a Tennessee family court judge in 2008, the state’s Department of Children’s Services had already investigated and had determined that Sawyer “‘was indicated’ as the perpetrator of sexual abuse of [their son],” according to court records.

Nevertheless, the family court judge granted primary custody to Sawyer, warning Gill that if she wanted unrestricted visiting rights with her son, she had better quit talking with the boy about the alleged abuse by his father. What’s more, she had to stop taking her son to doctors to be examined for signs of abuse.

Why did the court give the boy to his father despite credible evidence of abuse? It turns out the family court relied heavily on the recommendations of William Bernet, a psychiatrist and court-appointed custody evaluator. He convinced the family court to ignore the medical report, stating that Sawyer was not a pedophile or child molester and should be awarded custody of Daniel.

Other factors played into the court’s decision as well. Gill had earlier tried to restrict Sawyer’s access to the boy based on allegations that the court deemed unfounded. Gill’s suspicions were aroused, she said, because Sawyer had told her of a family history of incest. She feared Sawyer, in turn, would abuse his own children. Other allegations included comments by her ex-husband that “Satan speaks to him,” physical and verbal abuse toward her and threats of suicide. None of this, the court said, could she prove.

Dr. Bernet declined to comment on the case.

Daniel’s case is not unique.

In family courts throughout the country, evidence that one of the parents is sexually or physically abusing a child is routinely rejected. Instead, perpetrators of abuse are often entrusted with unsupervised visits or joint or sole custody of the children they abuse, putting children in danger of serious, often life-threatening harm, according to children’s advocates.

Our two-year investigation – which includes interviews with more than 30 parents and survivors in California, Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Maryland and New Jersey – uncovered stories of children consigned to suffer years of abuse in fear and silence while the parents who sought to protect them were driven to the brink financially and psychologically. These parents have become increasingly stigmatized by a family court system that not only discounts evidence of abuse but accepts dubious theories used to undermine the protective parents’ credibility.

“Protective parents are asking the authorities to step in and protect their children and they’re not,” said Kathleen Russell, executive director of the California-based Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE), a watchdog group that focuses on family courts.

In scores of cases, the consequences have been lethal. News reports alone, while not comprehensive, paint a startling picture. From 2008 to 2016, 58 children were killed by custodial parents after family courts around the country ignored abuse allegations by the protective parent, according to an analysis of news reports conducted by CJE. In all but six cases, protective parents were mothers who had warned family courts that their children were in danger from abusive fathers who later killed them.

“The authorities are blaming the protective parents and pathologizing them, and their kids are ending up dead,” said Russell.

How do family courts get away with these kinds of decisions?

“You can take the same amount of evidence to criminal court and a jury will convict beyond a reasonable doubt,” said attorney Richard Ducote, who represents protective parents trying to regain custody of their children. “And the appellate court will uphold the conviction and the sentence.”

But family courts have a different focus, explained Ducote, who also worked as a special assistant district attorney statewide in Louisiana prosecuting termination of parental rights cases. In theory they are supposed to consider first the best interest of the child. But in practice, Ducote said, “They’re concerned with the reduction of conflict [within the family] and getting along, which is good unless there is someone you need to protect the child from.”

Court records are often sealed, a practice intended to protect the privacy of children. As this investigation shows, however, it’s a practice that can put children in greater danger by blocking outside oversight.

Moreover, the high cost of litigation throws up a formidable obstacle for most parents fighting to get their children out of harm’s way. There is little research on court costs, but a preliminary analysis of a national survey of 399 protective parents by Geraldine Stahly, emeritus professor of psychology at California State University, San Bernardino, showed that, for some 27 percent of these parents who ultimately declared bankruptcy, the costs were about $100,000.

No government agency tracks the number of children nationally that family courts turn over to their abusers, and existing academic research is largely regional. Advocates have tried to put a number on it by culling statistics from primary and academic sources. They estimate that at least 58,000 children a year end up in unsupervised visits with or in the custody of an abusive parent. A 2013 analysis in the Journal of Family Psychology cited studies that show that anywhere between 10 and 39 percent of abusers are awarded primary or shared custody of their children.

However difficult it may be to quantify, high-level government officials recognize the breadth of systemic failure. “It’s a terrible situation,” said Lynn Rosenthal, who served as the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women from 2009 to 2015. Before going to the White House, Rosenthal personally saw the extent of the problem while working with many state coalitions on child welfare and domestic violence. “We saw this all over the country,” she said.

How do abusers get custody? A big part of the answer lies in the very experts that courts turn to for help in evaluating the fitness and safety of parents.

In sounding the alarm over her suspected abuse by her ex-husband, Gill ran squarely into an unexpected obstacle. Bernet and his colleague, James Walker, stated in a joint report that they used a battery of tests to evaluate Sawyer. They claimed that Sawyer tested as “low risk” for sexual offenses and was not a pedophile. These tests included a sex offender risk test known as the Static-99, the Minnesota Sex Offender Screening Tool, the Sex Offender Risk Scale and the Abel Exam for Sexual Interest.

But according to Anna Salter, PhD, who has conducted research with sex offenders for two decades, using such tests in family court is meaningless. “They can’t be used to determine if someone is a child molester,” explained Salter, who is the author of “Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders” and a consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Instead, she said, the tests were intended to evaluate people already convicted of child molesting to determine the likelihood of recidivism. The Abel exam, which tests for sexual interest in children, does not yield meaningful results, she said. “It is based on how long you look at the pictures of the children. There are now sites that tell you how to fake it – ‘just look away.’”

Beyond the tests, Bernet also wrote that Gill, not Sawyer, was causing harm to their son. “Since 2003, [Gill] possessed personality traits of parents who make false allegations of sexual abuse,” such as “strongly criticizing” Sawyer. Bernet also ascribed “narcissistic tendencies” to Gill, stating that she “appears to lack insight into the strong feelings and motivations that are driving her current behavior in casting [Sawyer] as a child abuser.”

Among his primary concerns, wrote Bernet, was that if Gill were allowed to continue questioning her son about his father’s actions, she would “induce [Daniel] to share her false beliefs.”

Bernet dismissed Daniel’s claim that his father had “put a stick in my butt,” writing that the child was, rather, making up a fantastical story under prompting by his mother. Similarly, he contended that an interview with Child Protective Services did not show Daniel was “capable of giving a simple, coherent description of a past event.” Of the bruises on the child’s buttocks, Bernet noted that Sawyer said he thought they were from water slides at the two water parks that he and Daniel had visited two days in a row. His acceptance of Sawyer’s explanation at face value appeared to ignore a physician’s description in court records of bruises “shaped like thumbprints” that were “inside [Daniel’s] buttocks.”

Child advocates say they regularly hear of custody battles similar to the Sawyer-Gill case in which an evaluator deflects the court’s focus on potential abuse by alleging that one parent is brainwashing the children to believe that they are being abused. This behavior is known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) by those who embrace it and deemed questionable science by organizations such as the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the American Psychological Association.

As far back as 1996, a Presidential Task Force found a “lack of data to support” the diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Citing this report, the American Psychological Association in 2008 declined to take a position on the “purported syndrome.”

Bernet, however, is among a faction of family court professionals trying to get PAS accepted as a recognized disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of mental health practitioners. So far, he and other advocates of PAS have not prevailed. Bernet said in an interview that “the actual words are not in the DSM-V [the latest revised version], but the concept is,” pointing to what he describes as three new diagnoses that each have features of PAS.

Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the DSM-V task force, said that the DSM acknowledges that alienation can figure into relationship dynamics. But “we were very careful not to include in there a diagnosis of PAS,” he said, adding that “the international community isn’t buying PAS as a diagnosis either.” With respect to how it’s used in family court to discredit abuse, he said, “If there’s evidence of abuse, then that’s what should drive the courts.”

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges cautions jurists in custody cases “not to accept testimony regarding parental alienation syndrome or PAS,” according to the guidebook Child Safety in Custody Evaluations. It adds, “The theory positing the existence of PAS has been discredited by the scientific community.”

Many courts, however, have paid little attention to these recommendations. “There’s this myth out there that there’s over reporting of abuse when in fact, statistically, there’s an underreporting of abuse,” said retired  Kentucky Judge Jerry Bowles, a co-author of the guidebook.

Judge Bowles, who trains his fellow jurists in domestic and family violence matters, said that it’s common for courts to believe that mothers press for no contact with their ex-spouses for reasons other than safety. He ties this misconception to lack of training and understanding among jurists about violence in families.

A pilot study by Joan Meier, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University Law School, supports Bowles’ observations. In analyzing 240 published rulings in an electronic search for cases involving custody and alienation, she found that more often than not, accusations of abuse did not block access to children in family court settings. In some 36 cases where a mother accused the father of abusing their children, the court nevertheless ruled in the father’s favor 69 percent of the time. The tendency to discount the mother’s accusation was even more pronounced where sexual abuse was alleged: In the 32 such cases Meier identified, the father prevailed 81 percent of the time. She is now working on an expanded study examining the same issues – including intimate partner violence – in some 5,000 cases with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.

Bernet’s characterizations of Sawyer as the good guy and Gill as mentally disturbed are consistent with a troubling pattern that organizations fighting to reform the family courts see in these cases. They include the Center for Judicial Excellence, the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project and The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

“The research shows that the family courts are a perfect place for abusers to get custody,” said former White House advisor Rosenthal. “They can manipulate the evaluator; they can manipulate the [court- appointed] guardian; they can manipulate the judge. They make themselves look good and they make her [the mother] look crazy.”

Cynthia Cheatham, a Nashville-based attorney who represented Gill in her appeals case and whose practice involves helping protective parents fight to regain custody, agreed.

“They have Mom, who looks like she just stuck her finger in a light socket, and the perpetrator, who may have stuck his finger in his kid’s vagina, who looks like a very normal guy.”

Some custody evaluators appear to go to great lengths in their effort to normalize perpetrators’ behaviors. Thomas Hanaway, PhD, also in Tennessee, wrote that a father who had already been substantiated as a perpetrator of sexual abuse by the state’s child protective services “appears to be very fond of his children and even if he were engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior with them, in my opinion, he would be doing it in a kind fashion.” (Emphasis added.) Hanaway did not respond to requests for interviews.

Alina Feldman, 16, of Dallas, Texas, wishes that disclosures of abuse she first made when she was four years old had been taken seriously by the court’s therapist and custody evaluator. Had they done so, it might have spared Alina what she describes as years of severe abuse and misery in her father’s care while separated from the mother she loved.

“He would hold a knife up to my neck and threaten to kill me,” Alina recalled. “He would take a knife and cut my arm. Sometimes he would choke me until I passed out. He would snap my wrists.”

Instead of taking her to a doctor, she said, her father would put her wrist in a brace until it healed. He would also twist her arms in different directions, she said. As she began puberty, he would sit on the toilet seat and watch her while she showered, she said. If she cried about missing her mother, she said, he punished her by withholding food.

Laurie Udesky is an award-winning San Francisco based reporter. An earlier article she wrote for Salon, “No School Nurses Left Behind,” earned an award from the Association of Health Care Journalists.

MORE LAURIE UDESKY.

Custody in crisis: How family courts nationwide put children in danger

Trust - what's that? (ideas on child safety and romance)

Could there be a more complicated thing than trust? I find love much easier. I can love many more people than I can trust. I can love people without fully trusting them. I can forgive many trespassers in my life, but it is likely I will never trust them again. To me, that's just logical.

But you have to give some trust to some people, especially when you have kids. The hardest person to trust is the one you don't know. But then, the most dangerous person is likely the one you think you really know - the one who you already trust. Anyone who has a close connection to a sex offender has experienced this phenomenon.

It is natural for us to have trust issues. All my trust issues are centered around my children. I can get very paranoid about the people I leave them with or allow them to have contact with. I'm not just worried about sexual abuse, I'm worried about any caregiver in any way not cultivating a healthy environment for my kids, whether it may be physically, emotionally, or socially. I have spent many hours in the middle of the night fretting and crying over these things. Here's the thing, though, I don't think I'm wrong in worrying about these things. I don't think I'm crazy, even though I feel crazy sometimes. What I do think is that we live in a society of people wearing rose-colored glasses, giving trust away undeserved, because, well, it's easier that way. I think I know better than most people that I SHOULD worry about how our flawed society is affecting our children, especially in sexual ways.

Let me back up, though, to shortly after Jake was first arrested. My emotions were torn apart and my sensibilities about the world were confused. Everything I had known seemed false and my whole self felt like a raw wound. Everyone I looked at, from family to social worker, I considered as a possible sexual predator. How could I know? Momentarily, I even had doubts about my own family. I reassured myself many times that if my parents and my brother didn't sexually abuse me as a child - and they didn't - then I didn't need to worry. But the sad truth is that sex offenders might pick one child and not another, one generation and not another. You never know. Not knowing had me paralyzed as a parent for a long time. I didn't feel like there was anyone other than myself that I could trust with my kids. I was a prisoner of distrust.

A strange thing started me on the road out of that funk. I was asked by my social worker, Umbridge, to go to her office and watch an educational video. Grooooaan. She tried to make if more comfortable for me by inviting a bunch of her coworkers to watch it as a training exercise. That actually made it worse because they all treated me like the leper of the group. The video, however, was very helpful. It was called Darkness to Light and discussed steps to prevent sexual abuse. It was good to learn the statistics on child sexual abuse and it was good to be given some guidelines for prevention. There was something more though, something about it that gave me a sense of empowerment. It planted ideas that worked on me slowly. How it changed me was so subtle, that it's hard to describe. I started putting a context and structure to my fears, which was important because then I could decide what was within the realm of my control. Guess what? A lot of things are in my control as a parent. Those are my kids, damn it. Mine. I get to say who takes care of them. I get to pick the conditions. If I don't like it, then I get to point that out and ask for a change. If that caregiver can't change, then I get to pick another caregiver. That video helped me realize that I had been giving so much of my parenting control away because I thought that was how things worked - you know, like saying okay to a dentist that won't let parents into the exam room because the parents' anxiety might upset the kid - but I woke up to the knowledge that I can keep my parenting control. It's mine, after all. And I can be vocal about it without being rude or obnoxious. I won't lie, it has led me into a few uncomfortable moments I wished I could have avoided, but better my discomfort than my kids being led into abuse, right? Mostly though, I am respected for being an advocate of my children's safety. I get positive responses when I make my expectations clear. A good childcare provider who has had the right training will be happy to show that they know how to create a safe environment and cultivate healthy attitudes.

Of course, a sexual predator will hide behind the same things that we trust and give us false reassurance. I believe in choosing environments that have open layouts and multiple adults to minimize the chances of anything being hidden. I also believe in surprise visits. You should always be able to drop-in on the place where your child is being kept - I don't care if it is grandma's house, your best friend's house, or the babysitter's. But really, the most powerful thing is communication with your child. You have to wait until your child is three-years-old or more before you can ask them about their day, but it is such a great tool once you get there.

Even then, talking to your child can be tricky. Establishing the conversation early helps. My 4-year-old, Elise, and I talk every couple weeks about body parts, privacy versus secrets, respect, and anything else I can think of that will introduce safe ways to navigate life. It's valuable. Today Elise told me that some boys at preschool were talking about "private things". My stomach turned, but at least I knew she would be able to answer my next questions: What private things? Were they talking about private body parts? Were they keeping secrets? Her answers were clear: Pee and poop, no body parts, and no secrets. Whew. It sounds simple, but if I hadn't given her the knowledge of body parts or privacy how could she answer? If I hadn't explained that some secrets can be dangerous then she might not tell me if someone asks her to keep one. I don't know if this works with every kid, but I feel pretty confidant that it works with her. Hopefully the conversations can grow with her so she'll always feel safe to come to me. Trust between myself and my kids is probably the trust I care about most.

My anonymous commenter who turned me onto the subject of trust was probably thinking more about men - the ones we might be romantically interested in. Alas, I have no words of wisdom, only empathy. I find it extraordinarily more difficult to trust  men than women. I feel this is unfair and discriminatory of me, and yet, it is how I am now. I could not leave my kids at a daddy daycare or let a man babysit, other than my father or brother. When we were still dating, my ex-boyfriend asked me why I acted weird whenever he volunteered to babysit. I explained to him that after each time I leave my kids with someone I ask my kids questions to make sure nothing inappropriate happened and I didn't want to have to do that with him. It really upset him. He thought I was doubting his character without reason. I wouldn't say I was doubting it, but I was playing it safe for the sake of my kids. And isn't that my job? I can trust a man again with my heart, but I'm not sure I can trust one with my kids. Maybe in the future we should all discuss methods of dating for single parents because right now I feel like the safest method is to wait until both kids are 18!

By the way, anonymous, I would love to read more about your story and thoughts. I would love to read anyone's stories about their relationships and dealings with sex offenders, even if they feel and act differently from myself. I think we need a community. I think we need to learn from each other and have each others' support. The more vocal we are, the better recovery will be. And if someone outside of our situation reads it, the better they will sympathize. We also have an opportunity to make our society a safer place for kids through our unique perspective. But first we have to start talking out loud. I hope to hear more from you. 

P.S. I was working on this while my girls were in the tub. I was just about to hit publish when Elise dropped the bar of soap and it slipped between Sabrina's legs. Elise reached to get it and it made Sabrina giggle. Elise didn't find the soap, but she reached between Sabrina's legs again to make her giggle again. I had to pull her out of the tub and have a talk - again - about private body parts and respecting other people's bodies (even when they giggle). Obviously, it is an ongoing conversation. Sigh!

I'd rather be the paranoid mom

This was a very interesting comment I just received and it hits at the center of many of my struggles right now, so I thought my reply was worth a whole post:

Not that this is an excuse for what happened, but as a child (probably around 9)I played a game with my neighbors called "the rape game." The game basically had each of the girls take turns and pretend to be sleeping. One of the boys would pretend to break into our room and pretend to take our clothes off. I don't think much happened beyond that.
I remember thinking that the game was naughty but knew that it was also safe. In fact, I had forgotten about it entirely until I was in my 20's and thought, ohhh my...I used to play "the rape game."
I think kids have to find their own way to explain complicated adult situations. It's possible these girls have see their parents shower together, so a group "pretend" shower might just be their way of understanding or just thinking that this is very normal behavior.
I think it's definitely something to keep an eye on but I'd be curious to see how many other adults have had similar playtime experiences."\

You know, I was bothered the daycare staff trying to reassure me by saying "It was all probably just innocent playing." I actually agree with the innocent part. As long as the kids don't know why the game is bad then they are still innocent. I remember kids showing each other their private parts when I was a kid in daycare and it was all innocent. However, even innocent play can cause problems for children in the long run.

Of my concerns, the mildest one (but a very real one) would be that my daughter would start to take lessons from these games as to how relationships work. Basically, she may think that sex has to be a part of every meaningful relationship or that it has to be the foundation of a meaningful relationship. That disturbs me greatly. On the same thought  line I would be concerned that the "rape game" would have taught some of the players that boys are aggressors who "take" sex and girls are helpless victims. That lesson can be instilled without any clothes being removed. Besides the inequality of genders in that situation, there is the added ingredient of violence that I never would want my kids to associate with sex.

Another problem comes with prolonged game playing in which the children start finding excitement and escapism in these games that lead to more mature forms of sexual escapism and addiction as adults.

Then, of course, there is my largest concern that my child might be coerced into sexual acts by someone older. The mother of the child who is starting this game should be asking herself this same question. There is a chance that her daughter just created this game to explore her curiosity about body parts OR she could have created it because someone has been coercing her into sexual behavior. 

I think the shower game up to this point was very innocent. However, I'm terrified to think that any caregiver would lean on this idea of "innocent curiosity" to avoid having to take any more action.

Back to the rape game, it sounds like you came out of that situation unscathed, so I'm glad. But it leaves me wondering, where were the adults who were in charge of those children? Nine-year-olds don't need constant supervision, but there should have been someone checking in often enough to interrupt a game like that. Someone should have noticed and stopped it with gentle guidance for all of you. Just because you didn't take any harmful lessons from it doesn't mean that one of the others didn't.

The consequences of sex play, even when it doesn't involve true abuse, can be serious. I don't want to be that mom who is always paranoid about this stuff . . . but I'd rather lean that direction then be the mom who blows it off as innocent while her child is learning the wrong things about sex and relationships.

Out on Bail

No joke. Jake is going to be out on bail any minute now.

Frankly, I'm a little blown away. The judge lowered the bail from $250,000 to $100,000 considering Jake's cooperation and previous good behavior on probation. That is not the part that shocked me though. I figured it didn't matter what the bail was because none of us could afford it. But after the hearing, his parents were having serious discussions about contacting a bondsman. I asked how they were going to pay for it and Big Rev said, "Grandma's paying for it." Jake's Grandma could probably pay the whole bail amount upfront in one check, but I never thought she would. Well, I guess people never cease to amaze.

Jake will have to follow all the restrictions that were a part of his probation terms when he was sentenced last year. He will have very limited places he can go, mainly his family's farm, and will have an ankle monitor. He will be allowed to go to treatment weekly.

I am unsure how I feel about this. I'm a little dismayed. I keep thinking I have a grip on my reality and then it shifts again. I haven't quite learned to embrace the change, I guess. I was getting comfortable with him being in jail. I was in control of everything. I had built-in boundaries that even I couldn't screw up.

I'm trying to remind myself that he will now be able to take back many of the responsibilities that I don't want. He can manage his own bills and business. I can stop wasting my time shoveling his shit, as my mother once said. I should be relieved.

Also, which I maybe should have mentioned first, his accuser was in court today and gave a statement. It hurt to see her. It hurt when she made eye contact with me. I felt like she was seeking some sort of approval from me. I felt like I was supporting the wrong side of the law. Her statement was simple. She just told the judge that she would always struggle with what Jake had done to her and she wants to protect others from the same thing, including me and my children. Honestly, I feel a little disgusted by her bringing my children up - I'm their mother, let me protect them. Mostly though, I felt guilty for supporting the man who hurt her.

After court, in one of the weirdest moments of my life, I drove over to the Social Services office and asked to see Umbridge. I detest this woman, but I didn't know who else to talk to. I told her that I wanted Jake's accuser to know that I'm not against her. I want her to know that she is doing what I would want my daughter or sister or friend to do in her position. I also made it clear to Umbridge that I DO NOT want to communicate or have any kind of relationship with this woman.

Umbridge said, "You want her to know that you're okay with this, right?"

"No, I'm not okay with this. I wish none of it was happening. Just let her know that this isn't her fault and she's not doing anything wrong."

I'm still not sure why I did that. Will I regret it later? 

February 16, 2011 (Part One)

I remember quite clearly the moment my husband called to tell me that his boss, the principal at the high school, had sent him home because a student had reported him. Recalling that moment is so clear that I can feel the blood draining from my cheeks now just as it did on that day. 

It was a lovely day in February. I was still running on a birth-high since I had Sabrina just three weeks earlier. Sabrina was so perfect, so calm and content. Elise, my first daughter, was happily playing. She was content, too. It was a good day until he called. 

I had a visitor at that time. She worked with a local non-profit that provided developmental information for parents. I was enjoying her visit. But her presence made the situation so strange. I answered the phone, knowing from the caller ID that it was Jake. It was odd that he was calling in the middle of the school day. He said he was coming home and his voice sounded strained. I can't recall the exact words he said. He was babbling a little. His words were muffled, soggy. Was he crying?

I was just staring at my visitor while I was still on the phone. Normally, I'm a bit over-dramatic when things get stressful, but not that day. Some part of me that I had never met before said, Act normal, Evie, and send her away. This is not something you want to share with outsiders. This is something you protect and bury as fast as possible.

           
Before that moment, I thought I'd be the type of person who would turn my own mother into the police if she stepped out of line. I'm such a believer in rules. And yet, when the moment came, I instantly put up the shield of protection - at least for the moment.

        
I told Jake that we'd talk when he got home and hung up. With smiles and apologies, I sent the visitor away. I turned on the television to distract Elise from the serious conversation that I anticipated.

Jake arrived home with a red, tear-streaked face. I hugged him. I wanted so much to take away whatever bad situation had just occurred. I wanted to protect him. I know that seems ridiculous because he is the one who broke the law, the one who was in a position of responsibility - he was to be blamed, not pitied. And yet, he was the one I knew and the one I loved and he was in distress.

           
He was babbling still, through a runny nose and tears. He seemed so much like a confused child. I tried to listen to what he was saying. He said the girl had told him that she had a crush on him. She had tried to kiss him, but he had stopped her. He told her that he couldn't risk his family and career. She had gone to the principal to report him.

        
 It was so hard to understand him. This was not the man I was used to. Jake usually took pride in being calm in any stressful situation. He never let his cool down. It would have been a relief to see him so sincerely emotional, except that it meant a whole world of hurt was coming down on him.

           
I told him to take a moment to calm himself and we would talk after. For just a minute, he sat at the dining table. Then he got up and went to his office, saying that he had to do some things. I was perplexed that there was anything he needed to do that would come to mind in such an awful situation. But then, stress always drives him to work hard and keep busy. I just comforted myself that he would come to me when he was ready.

           
I was worried, but it was easy to find things to distract myself with. For God's sake, I had a three-week-old baby and a two-year-old! The next thing I knew, Jake was sitting on the sofa with his business laptop in front of him and the television turned to one of his favorite channels. It was like it was any normal day of the week.

        
I sat down with him and asked what he was doing.

        
"Scrubbing the hard drives." That answer challenged my not-so-technical brain a little. I took a second look at the laptop. I noticed, as I looked closer, that it was hooked-up to a portable hard drive that he used as a back-up sometimes. I realized he was erasing it and that made me a little uncomfortable.

But then, I thought about how he liked to look at porn on the internet sometimes. He's just scared and trying to make himself look better in case the school investigates him, I thought. I felt a sense of relief as I convinced myself that he was overreacting. [Now I look back at this moment and think I'm an idiot. A very trusting, lovable idiot].

I said, "Don't you think that will make you look guilty?" He just shrugged.

As the day wore on, I convinced myself that this was all just a misunderstanding. A teenage girl had misplaced emotions for her teacher. The school Superintendent would see that, right? They would clear it all up and he would be back at work the next day.

Later, he had a meeting to go to. It was a community business development group that he had recently joined. He was unsure if he should go or not. I encouraged him to go, live life as normal. "Nothing is likely to happen tonight, right?" So he went.

It wasn't a half hour later that I received a call asking for Jake. The caller, a woman, didn't identify herself, so I was a little on guard. I told her to call back in a few hours. Ten minutes later she called again and identified herself as our Chief of Police. She said it was really important that she talk to him. I told her where he was and his cell phone number.

As luck would have it, Jake's cell phone had a technical issue where it would regularly shut itself off, so he never knew that the police were calling him. As he left the meeting, he called me and I told him to just drive to the police station. As I mentioned before, I am a rule follower. I was so good at "obeying" that fascist dictators would have loved me. I just had a lot of faith in the system and law enforcement. I still do to a degree, but I won't jump so quickly to cooperate anymore.

I didn't here from Jake for hours. I paced aimlessly around the house, holding Sabrina in my arms, trying to keep my mind busy. I called the police department a few times, but they would only tell me that he was there and nothing more. I called Kay, his mom, to see if she knew anything different, but she didn't. At one point, I was so anxious that I begged her to go to the police station, but she said that he didn't need his mother watching over him. In hindsight, she was right, he needed a lawyer to tell him to be quiet.

The police talked to him about the girl. He was open with them. He told them more about the incident than he told his wife. He admitted that he had been talking with her for a while (weeks, I think, but maybe longer). He admitted to friending her on Facebook. He even explained to them how he had run his hand down the front of her chest on the outside of her clothes when she had tried to kiss him (he conveniently left that part out when he told me). They had him write a letter of apology to the student. When I heard about the letter months later, I really wondered at the intelligence of this man - did he not see that this was just a ploy to get a written confession?! Maybe I have watched too many cop shows.

They asked him for permission to view his computers. He agreed and called to forewarn me that they were coming. Just thinking about what comes next raises my pulse and my temper . . . But that will be Part Two of the worst day of my life.          

The Dreaded V-day

Seven years ago today, I received flowers from a man that I had only talked to on the phone for a few weeks. It seemed like a good love, formed from a real friendship.

One year ago, that same man was enjoying a moment of sexual tension with one of his teenage students in his classroom. I was at home with our newborn baby and two year old child. I didn't mind that he didn't bring me any flowers or gifts. I was just content to have a kiss. He seemed restless that night. We both had some insomnia, during which he said to me, "A student told me that she has a crush on me."

"Hmm, well, just stay away from her, okay? Don't give her any ideas that you share her feelings." I had no clue what was really happening. I was purely worried that he would give the girl the wrong impression by being nice to her. Jake was the kind of teacher that teenagers liked and sometimes he seemed to forget he wasn't a teenager himself.

Someday I'll tell you about things that Jake had said to me that will make you wonder if I'm the world's biggest idiot. I had more than enough evidence in front of me to know that Jake had at least one inappropriate relationship with a student before I married him. And yet, the facts seemed fuzzy and the Jake I knew seemed so trustworthy that I honestly missed the boat completely. In hindsight it seems so silly to say that I didn't see this coming . . . but I didn't. I remember falling asleep that night feeling thankful to have my strong husband by my side. He was the husband who was so honest with his wife that he told her uncomfortable things, such as a student with a misplaced crush. I was truly happy that night.

Today turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. I finished filling out Elise's first set of valentine cards for her friends at daycare as we hurried to get ready this morning. I made myself a double-sized mug of coffee because I missed some sleep last night. I bought some chocolate and ate it during my therapy appointment. I cried a little. I went back home and searched online for jobs to apply to (dismal pickings). Then I picked the girls up from daycare. I stopped at the florist, thinking it would be nice to treat ourselves to some flowers, but when I saw the prices I almost cried again. Elise was disappointed that we didn't get something, so it was lucky that the grocery store had mini roses and balloons on sale. I'm going to finish off my chocolates and go to bed. No more worrying about the man who ruined V-day.

Haunted

Sometime today, there will be an advisement on the charges for Jake's most recent arrest. At the moment, we have no idea what he was arrested for.

I sit here at the computer in the mornings with Sabrina on my lap, trying to wake her up a little. I can't take a shower until she is awake enough to sit on the bathroom floor and play. Such is the life of a single mom. (By the way, any moms who have steady partners that don't help them do things, like take a shower. That's a red flag. Just remember, you hold the baby every time he showers, right?)

So while I gently wake my baby, I go through emails and catch up on stuff. Well, this morning I was going through old gardening pictures. I came across some family pictures I scanned for Jake's parents two Christmas's ago. And there was Clyde. Clyde was the farm hand that molested and sexually abused Jake and his sisters. I had three pictures of him being goofy with bananas and a lamp shade. (Another red flag. When a grown person makes a fool of themselves to win over your children, be damned sure you are always aware of when they are with your children and what they are doing.)

I thought I had actually deleted those pictures long ago because Jake told me that Clyde had possibly hurt his oldest sister (I don't know if he just didn't remember his own abuse at that time or he just didn't want to tell me). But there were the pictures of Clyde smiling at me.

"This is your fault," I said, thoroughly knowing that I was talking to a computer screen. I deleted the pictures. No one needs Clyde in their lives.

Really, I can't blame Clyde for everything. He molested all of Jake's siblings, and yet Jake is the only one to follow in his footsteps. Jake has made his own choices. I just wish the cycle of sexual sickness would end. How many of Jake's victims are continuing in his footsteps?

Better question: How many victims does Jake have? We might find out today.