All Your Firsts Without Me

by L.M. Terry

I continued to sit with her when one of the female officers in our unit questioned her. Any time I tried to leave the room, she would shut down and say nothing. Her name is April Declan, and her father locked her in the dark room in the basement when she was twelve, the same age as my son. April is now sixteen. For four years she had been locked down there. She told the social worker that her mother and sisters brought meals to her once a day. They also brought buckets filled with water so she could clean herself, though she made it sound like it didn’t happen often. She was allowed to read and was given one candlestick per day. Her father also assigned homework that her mother would collect daily. The only time she ever saw him in person was when he came to preach (her word, not mine) about how sinful she was. Do you want to know what her sin was? Kissing a boy. That’s it. She kissed a boy. On the lips, behind the barn, one time. Her father cut her hair and paraded her through the compound naked so the whole community could ridicule her. Then he locked her in the hidden room in the basement. What happened to the boy you ask? Nothing. When he turned sixteen, he was given her younger sister to take as his first bride. The whole thing makes me sick. Just sick. The problem with April is that she has since refused to speak to anyone when I’m not around. It seems I’m the key to unlocking her voice. She was so far behind other kids her age, the judge presiding over the case sent...