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Officer Harris looked over at Bobby sitting alone in the chair.
“Son, you alright?” He asked, “You can leave if you need to. That will be fine.”
Robert added, “Bobby, it really is okay if you don’t want to be here. We understand and I’m sure Mary-Anne understands.”
Mary-Anne looked down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. For a moment she felt the pain Bobby was carrying inside. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him leaving. Yet she knew, she couldn’t ask him to stay.
“I can do it, Dad” Bobby replied, “Mary-Anne needs me and I’m going to stay.”
“Thank you Bobby,” Mary-Anne whispered.
“Ok then let’s continue” Officer Harris sat down.
“Mary-Anne, do you remember your Dad’s girlfriend’s name?”
“Not really. Her first name was Margaret. But I really can’t remember the rest.”
“That’s okay. We can still follow up on it, just makes it harder without a name. But we have the year, so it’ll just be a matter of checking files.”
Mary-Anne looked sharply at him, fear in her eyes, “You check files?”
“Of course we do,” he replied calmly, “Standard procedure. Have to verify everything you are telling me. Might get more of the story when we talk to others who were there at that time.”
“You check files,” Mary-Anne bit her lower lip, “damn.”
“Mary-Anne, as I told you, I don’t trust blindly. The time for games is over. Either you tell me the truth or we end this right now. And if it ends now, we will never speak of this again. That means the Parsons will never know the truth. It also means you’ll probably never be believed again.”
“By anyone,” he added.
Mary-Anne sat silent, wrestling with the demons within. Lisa shred her tissue apart, Robert willed himself to not shake Mary-Anne into telling the truth and Bobby stared at her, trying to sort out the strange girl sitting before him.
“Ok,” she swallowed hard, “the truth is, we never lived in Chetwyn. I mean, we did but not how I was telling you. And he never had a girlfriend named Margaret. But the rest. The stuff about the games. All that is true. And I really did have a nice Playskool teacher.”
“Ok, Mary-Anne, do you want to start at the beginning or just when you met Tracey?”
“From the beginning.”
“Truth this time?” Officer Harris asked.
“I promise it’s the truth this time.”
“Then let’s begin,” Officer Harris stated, “You were 3 years old when your mother committed suicide. Did you really see your father kill her?”
“I don’t know and that’s the truth,” Mary-Anne replied, “I remember my dad yelling at my mum and calling her tons of names. Really mean names. And when I came out of my bedroom, I ran to her and he hit me. Only I think he meant to hit her. Because he was mad that I was hit.”
“Then he said something about teaching bad girls lessons. And that I was bad for telling my mummy’s friend about the games he played with me. And that he had to hurt mummy because I was bad. And then I don’t remember too much.”
“Did you see him put pills in her mouth and force her to drink them down, the way you’ve told Maggie, Bea and even Bobby?” Officer Harris asked.
“I remember daddy hitting mummy over and over and over,” Mary-Anne began to cry, “and mummy kept saying she’d be better off dead.”
“Then daddy left. He went to get some whiskey ‘cause my mummy didn’t get it for him. And then….”
Mary-Anne started to cry harder.
“ I remember she took these pills and said she loved me and she was really sorry and I said no mummy and she said I’m too tired, mummy is too tired, just let mummy sleep and I said, no mummy wake up, mummy wake up!”
Maggie handed Mary-Anne tissue and rubbed her back gently. Mary-Anne wiped her eyes, blew her nose and continued.
“Daddy got home and he made mummy drink this real nasty smelling stuff. He said it should make her throw up. But it didn’t. She wouldn’t wake up. Daddy tried to make her walk but she kept falling down. I kept saying, mummy wake up, wake up! Then daddy hit her in the face and told her to stop fooling around but she wouldn’t wake up. So daddy pushed her on the couch and called the ambulance people and she was dead. She wouldn’t wake up.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mary-Anne” Officer Harris stated, “You were only 3 years old. You couldn’t have changed her mind. You couldn’t have stopped any of it. You were just a kid.”
“Yeah, I was, wasn’t I,” Mary-Anne cried, “And why did she do that? Didn’t she love me enough? Why did she leave me there? I hate her!”
Lisa buried her head in Robert’s shoulder, hiding her tears and pain from Mary-Anne. Robert brushed the tears from his eyes and willed himself to remain strong. Bobby got up. He walked to Mary-Anne. Bobby placed his arms around Mary-Anne and held her tight.
Officer Harris sat quiet. The break through had begun and with patience, he’d finally hear the entire story. There was never an easy way to obtain truth from children, especially ones who had been as severely abused as Mary-Anne was. Their pain and memories ran so deep that often, the truth was never told.
Finally Mary-Anne pulled away from Bobby. Kissing him lightly on the cheek, she patted his face and whispered it was time to tell the rest. Bobby sat back in his chair, curling his feet underneath himself.
“After that, we did move around a lot. And there was a time we lived in Chetywynd and he really did work at the mill. But we didn’t stay long. But things changed when we moved to Falkland. Daddy really did meet up with someone and she did become his girlfriend. Her name was Rosie and she worked in the bar. And I really didn’t like her because they did do drugs together. All the time.”
“Rosie really did find my daddy playing games with me. She came over one night without calling first. And I guess she just walked in. I don’t know. When I said I went into walls when daddy played games, I really did. I just remember being thrown out the house. But she didn’t hit me. She threw tons of stuff at daddy! And she screamed at him and everything. The neighbours, they called the police. But daddy said she was crazy and they took her away! Can you believe that! Isn’t that stupid!”
“Actually Mary-Anne, I can,” Officer Harris replied, “It probably appeared that she came over and started a fight with your dad. And she was probably drunk or stoned, right?”
“Yeah, actually she was really stoned. She just came from work.”
“So they’d come in, find a small girl thrown out of her house by a crazy woman, who, when they arrive is now throwing things at the father and there the father is trying to defend himself and protect his child.”
“Yeah, something like that. I guess that makes sense. Just seemed stupid, they never asked me what happened. So anyhow, they took her away. Dad packed up our stuff. We never had very much and we took off that night.”
“Do you remember where you were going?”
“Yeah, Daddy said it was time to blow BC and move back to Ontario. That I had a grandma there and I could go live with her.”
“So you and your father were heading over to Ontario. Was it during this trip you met Tracey?” Officer Harris asked.
“Yes and it’s a really weird story how it all came to be,” Mary-Anne replied, “Are you really sure I should tell it with everyone here? Because I know you said that my dad’s lies are mixed up in me but I really do remember how I killed her. And that’s really scaring me.”
“Mary-Anne, we made it this far together, we’ll make it all the way,” Officer Harris stated, “But I think it’s time for another break. Maggie go for another short walk with Mary-Anne. Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, go out the back and get some air. Bobby, how about you head out with Maggie and Mary-Anne. And remember, absolutely no talking about this at all.”
Everyone got up and left. Officer Harris took a deep breath, then blew it out. Heading outside, he lit up a cigarette and took a long drag.
“Damn. Some days I really think I should have been a ditch digger.”
© 2001
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