I will never forget the day when my mother got the phone call that would change our lives forever. I remember her standing in the kitchen with tears in her eyes, and a smile on her face. “It’s over,” she said once she had hung-up. She crept over to me, and held me tightly in her trembling arms for what felt like an eternity. “We won,” she whispered.
It started out when I was around the age of ten, my aunt and uncle had just bought a new house and my father had to live with them until he bought a house of his own. Every weekend we would stay at their house to spend time with my dad. We didn’t have our own rooms so my sisters and I would sleep in the living room, while my father and brother would sleep in my father’s room. After a year or so of going over and staying the whole weekend at my aunt’s house, something began to happen.
My uncle would stalk silently downstairs when everyone was sleeping and go into the living room. At first I couldn’t tell what he was doing, he just seemed like he was making sure we had enough blankets, or he was making sure that we were warm enough; at least that’s what he said if we woke up. What was really going on was far worse; he was touching my sister, and I.
At first I didn’t know if he was touching my little sister, but one day I was helping her clean her room back at my mother’s house when she shut the door and whispered in my ear, “I need to tell you what uncle is doing.” She told me everything, and for how long he had been doing it. I was horrified! How can someone so close to you, who you grew up loving and caring for, do something so monstrous that you hate them in a matter of minutes? I told my little sister that she should tell mother right away, but I didn’t tell her that the same thing was happening to me. How could I? I was scared. It turns out she never did tell my mother anything.
After a couple of months of this going on, I stopped going to my aunt’s house. It hurt me that I had to make other plans and stop seeing my dad, but I couldn’t stand going through that for one more day. I would try to make plans with my friends every weekend, but if that didn’t work, I asked my mom if I could stay at her house for the weekend because sleeping on the couch or the floor hurt my back. My father started to think that I didn’t want to spend time with him and tried to bribe me to spend the weekend with him because we would go do something fun, but it killed me to say yes to him. As much as I loved him, I couldn't tell him that my uncle was doing that to me.
I was in my older sister’s room one day watching T.V. with her when suddenly she turned on the mute button. “Has uncle done anything weird lately?” she asked me. I couldn’t stand hiding a huge issue like this from her any longer, and I told her everything that has ever happened to me and my little sister in a period of about an hour. “We need to tell mom,” she said in a solemn voice. My mother was at work at the time, but when she heard the urgency in our voices, she came home right away. I remember crying with her that night.
The next morning my father came to my house and him and my mother were in her room talking very quietly; I don’t think that they wanted anyone to see them so upset, and they didn’t want my brother to know about it. After a couple of hours, and a couple of phone calls, they came out. My mother’s eyes were red and puffy, and my father’s face was like a rock. “Can I please leave?” I asked them. “Where do you expect to go?” They asked me. “I don’t know, but I have to get out of here,” I said in reply to them. I ended up going to the mall with Bri and Keane for a couple of hours. I don’t know what happened when I was gone, but I went straight down to my room and didn’t come out. My older sister came in and said that everything was reported to the police and my aunt knew what was happening; but my aunt didn’t believe what we said.
I think the most suspenseful part in this whole experience was the waiting. We waited for about a month until we had to go get interviewed by people of the state, who recorded everything we said to them. We had to tell them the everything that happened one-by-one. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life. After that was over, we waited about another month. Days were agonizing, and the thought that I wouldn’t be able to see my aunt or my four -year-old cousin hurt. Somewhere in the midst of the waiting it became to much; I stopped being happy, and stopped talking to people. My mother had hired me a therapist, but she was old and creepy so I didn’t listen to her, or didn’t even comprehend what she was saying to me.
We finally got to see our attorneys and talk about what was going to happen when we went to court. They told us that we would have to testify and went over some of the questions my uncle’s attorney might ask us. They told us that my uncle’s attorney had a heavy accent and we might not understand what he was trying to say sometime. That was a very helpful thing to tell us.

Court was the worst. We had to wait in a room for about an hour, and nobody was talking; for we all knew the extremity of this situation. When our attorney came in, she told me that I would be first. I love my family, and I wanted to stay strong for my little sister; which meant no crying, or she would be scared. I walked out of that room with confidence, but not to return the same.

I slowly walked into the court room with a heavy heart, and angst. I went to the stand that stood right across from the jury. To my left was my uncle and his attorney; I have never felt as much hatred for someone until that very moment. To my right was the judge with her blond, puffy hair. I looked down at my hands which were crossed in my lap. Looking up slightly, I saw a plastic cup, a brown jug filled with water, and a box of tissue. The judge hit her gable to the table; the trial had begun.

It took about two hours of being questioned, and reminded over again of every parents worst nightmare. The whole time I had refrained from crying, even though my uncle’s attorney was making me frustrated. It was when I was assisted out of the court room when my attorney whispered in my ear, “You are a very strong girl, you did very good,” that made me burst out with feelings of sadness, and the happiness at the same time. Once out of both of the doors that lead out of the court room, I fell to my knees and started crying. What I didn’t want to happen, happened; and to top it off, my little sister met my eyes at the same time.
After the day was over, weights were lifted off everyone’s chests, but the feeling that our family would never be exactly the same as it was still remained. It was a couple months later when my mother got the phone call. “Ten years in prison,” she told me. I walked down to my room after conversing with my mother a little bit, and just sat on my bed and felt that I had done the right thing; even though our family would never be the same again, and my cousin would grow up to learn what his father had done.
To this day I hoped that I would’ve told people what was happening earlier than what I did. Everyone’s lives are much better now. Not two weeks ago I learned that my aunt was going to divorce my uncle. We still haven’t talked to each other since that day, but I hope to see her at Christmas.
Don’t ever be afraid of telling people what is going on in your life, because a better life is always waiting for you around the corner.