I don't know where she found the guts, but she set up an appointment with Dr. To her enormous credit, Susan made the call. Then I returned to my office, shut the door, and started to sob. Get out of my sight." Trying hard to stay composed, I handed her the doctor's number. "Alex would never, ever do anything like this. "David must have made it up!" she hissed. Not surprisingly, Susan reacted with indignant denial. If I didn't, how many other kids might Alex go on to abuse? I'd been coached: Repeat, word for word, what David had told us, then ask Susan to call Dr. I dreaded the conversation, but it would have been irresponsible not to have it. Green also told me he wanted to meet with Alex, saying that the boy needed treatment "while there's still time to get him back on track." And the doctor insisted that I tell Susan what her child had done to mine. David, though, would need continuing attention through play therapy.ĭr. Green quickly established that Charlie hadn't been around when the actual sexual abuse occurred further sessions with him wouldn't be necessary. Green, who specialized in treating very young, barely verbal patients. Her calm manner comforted me when I told her what had happened, and she agreed to limit my contact with Susan as much as possible.īy the following day, my boss had found the name of a clinical psychologist, whom I'll call Dr. She was not just a sympathetic soul - a mom with two young children - but the wife of a doctor at a prominent hospital. ![]() My first instinct was to talk to my boss. But I knew I had to find a doctor for David - and possibly for all of us - immediately. It never crossed my mind to call the police. Still, he did allow that Alex seemed "weird." Our babysitter apparently preferred to hang out with David in the boys' bedroom while Charlie watched TV in the downstairs den. "Did anything like that happen to you?"Ĭharlie's first reaction was to be completely grossed out then, in the way kids have of shutting down just when you want them to talk, he suddenly had nothing to say. He'd been drilled by his teachers and by us about "inappropriate behavior." We told him what his brother had said. "What do you mean, strange?" he said, not looking me in the eye.Ĭharlie was in third grade. "Did anything, uh, strange happen when Alex took care of you?" I asked. "Did anything else happen?" my husband said.īarely breathing, Chris and I put David to bed. ![]() Perhaps David had simply barged in on Alex while he was peeing. "When did you see Alex's penis?" I asked, trying to sound casual. I quickly put a fresh diaper on him and raced out of the bathroom to find my husband. I looked at my innocent toddler - the kind of beautiful child absolutely everyone wanted to cuddle and hug. "It gets little and big just like Alex's." "Everything's OK." But it wasn't.Ī few weeks later, I was trying to encourage David to use his potty-chair. "Don't be silly," I said in what I am sure was a dismissive tone. What was she implying? That I didn't know what kind of babysitter to hire? That I wasn't a good mommy? That I'd invited a pervert into our home? You hear such terrible stuff these days about what goes on." He said he was giving them massages and seemed startled to see us. "Honey," she said, "when we got here, the kids were in the bedroom with that boy, and all three of them had their shirts off. When Chris and I got back later that evening, my mother took me aside. We'd all planned to go to a movie afterward, but at the last minute, my mom and dad begged off and returned to our house. One night when my parents were visiting, we went out to dinner while the kids stayed home with Alex. And knowing about Alex's difficult life at home - his mother, Susan, had shared stories about her ongoing train wreck of a divorce from Alex's father - made us feel even better about hiring him. Pizza, TV, a cool guy who'll let us stay up late! Chris and I always chatted with Alex and were impressed by how polite and well-spoken he was. It became a ritual for Alex to come over on Saturday night. And a male babysitter, I figured, could handle the high-octane energy of Charlie, then eight, and David, two and a half. As soon as he walked through the door, my husband, Chris, and I took to him. The 16-year-old son of a woman I worked with, he looked like a stunt double for Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise. ![]() Hiring Alex* to babysit my two little boys seemed like a brilliant idea.
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