He called it a ‘teddy bear’—said it was the only thing that would keep away anything that went bump in the night. I didn’t stop sleeping with a teddy bear when I got home. I feel my stepfather’s grip loosen as he tries to pull down my jeans, and I remember the knife. I can reach it with my free hand. I twist and swing.” Cain shifts slightly, flinching unconsciously as it replays. “He pulls back…makes a kind of gurgling sound. And I don’t know where the knife has gone. And then he falls, and I see that the knife is in his neck and there’s blood everywhere.” “He’s dead?”
