I immediately phoned Kerri, and sobbing, told her what had happened. This just had an essence of unreality to it, and I was so frightened. She sighed and said she had sort of expected this. Mike’s actions had been spiraling down into an almost non-responsiveness, and at this point there was nothing in him that was anything parent-like. Not that she’d known, if the charges were true, that Mike was abusing Ashley, but not setting consequences for, and in fact rewarding, her misbehavior was a classic maneuver of sexual abusers. She was so sorry she’d failed to catch on beforehand, but Mike had managed to pull the wool over a lot of people’s eyes. She acknowledged it was very easy to look back on his behavior and see the patterns, not so easy to anticipate them.

Marilyn called as I hung up. She was checking in with Ashley and me, anxious to learn how our day had gone. I sadly sketched a nuts and bolts rendition, and she asked a lot of questions about CPS. I almost felt as if this was not news to her, and a quick thought went through my mind that maybe Marilyn had something to do with the investigation.

The children were full of questions which I didn’t have answers for, and when Ryan returned from school he was just as puzzled. Margret had visited him there, and he said he’d told her that the family arguments bothered him. He was angry with us over the embarrassment of being called out of class to talk to a caseworker. Like it was my fault that Mike and Ashley were acting so bizarrely. As far as he was concerned, his sister had the right idea in trying to get out of the family, and if he was in her place, he’d do the same.

I don’t really know how I got through the rest of the day. I was worried about Mike and Ashley, and suspicions just swirled through my mind. What were they doing that would take all afternoon and evening? Had Ashley told Mike about the workers’ allegations, and were they hatching a plot to leave the area together? Or had it made Mike even more suicidal? His cellphone was turned off, and I had no idea of how to find them. How could all of this be happening to our family?

Ashley called at nine p.m. She asked what was going on, and I minimized the social worker visit, hoping to allay fears. I simply reiterated that CPS had responded to her cry of rape the night before which shouldn’t be surprising. Blithely she informed me that she and Mike would be home the next day, but she refused to allow me to speak to my own husband. She also wouldn’t divulge whether she’d told him about the CPS intervention. Her tone of voice was cold, and it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. I left a message on Margret’s phone about the call.

All sorts of visions and pieces of dialogue from the past couple of months flew through my mind, and even with Mike’s mental condition, it took a lot to even consider he might have molested Ashley. Molest meant touching and acting out sexually towards and child. He’d always been so moral and family-oriented. Straight-laced to the point of stodgy. The Mike I knew, the man I’d married would not do anything like this to his daughter. He just would not.

So, besides having a child with a big mouth and a tendency to exaggerate, had this happened? Ashley liked being the center of attention, but making up stories about sexual abuse seemed a bit overboard. Was it possible that someone like Marilyn had taken a couple of fishy behaviors and woven them together into a subterfuge of abuse? Maybe it was just the evidence of a couple of weird photos and Ashley smoking, combined with accidentally seeing the models on his computer and wishing he’d treat her more like an adult and give her beer. Mike loved Ashley and would do anything for her. Certainly, not anything to her.

But what if…? What if there was a kernel of truth in the allegations? Why would Margret and Dena have come out if there wasn’t? The Mike of today was not the man I’d married. He had become so secretive and over-possessive of Ashley. Shouting at me every time I tried to get involved in her life. Making me feel guilty for my curiosity and concern. Why was this? Was this just a father who had tricked himself into believing I was out to harm the child he loved and felt he needed to protect her from me? Or was something going on behind my back between Mike and Ashley that I didn’t know about? One thing I knew for sure, and it was that I was so angry at whatever he’d done to put us in this position. I hated it- I hated it all. I cried myself to sleep, if you could call it sleep.