In the Shadow of the Valley: A Memoir

by Bobi Conn

But after fourteen years of speaking and being punished, there was a dark lesson taking shape within my mind. I realized that the people who were supposed to love me, who were supposed to protect me, would actually sacrifice me and send me to a witness chair to be cross-examined by a man who didn’t know me and whose job was to reveal me as a liar. The people I loved sent me to that courtroom with my father—my mother didn’t come, my stepmother didn’t come. Before I got to that courtroom, I knew they no longer cared what had happened—they didn’t doubt it had happened but were sure I had wanted whatever he had done, no matter what I said. And if my own family felt that way, I knew everyone else would, too. I knew that the truth no longer mattered, especially my truth. That there was more risk in speaking than in keeping it secret.