Who knew that “praying” was just Father Cleary’s euphemism for dealing with something else that was hard and long? Not the little kid I was. Not until we were in his office later. Not until he closed the door and started to unzip his pants.

Del was waiting for me outside the church to walk me home. I don’t know if he was psychic, or if it showed all over my face, but he knew right away what had happened. He slapped me hard across the back of the head, just like Mama always did, and told me I was going to pay for this.

I guess he didn’t like to share his toys.

That night when I was asleep he scattered broken glass on the floor beside my bed, like my water glass had fallen over, and when I got out of bed in the morning, I stepped right on it with my bare feet.

Oh, it was a mess, me bawling my head off, blood all over the bottoms of my feet and dripping on the floor. It hurt so bad.

Mama came in and started yelling at me about how could I be so stupid as to not clean up my glass when it broke last night. I saw my younger brothers, Jimmy and Robbie, standing in the doorway, eyes wide. Del was in the hallway behind them, just grinning away and we both knew why.

Mama threw a rag at me.

“Now, you just clean that up, missy,” she told me. “And don’t you go tracking blood all over the floors, neither.”

I was hobbling around for days, my feet wrapped in rags, trying not to cry with every step I had to take as I did my chores. But I learnt my lesson. I didn’t go tell anybody else. And I knew there was no god. Or at least, if there was, I hated him for letting this happen to me.

After that, I expected people to betray me. So I wasn’t surprised when I got abused again in one of the foster homes I was put in after I ran away from home. I wasn’t surprised when my boyfriend Rob—another runaway like me—got me strung out on junk and started me turning tricks.

By the time Lou—who was a patrolman at the time—got me off the streets and into his girlfriend Angel’s recovery program for kids like me, I’d been betrayed so many times I don’t know how I ever learned to trust again.

I guess Lou and Angel started the process with—when I look back on it—their infinite patience.

Sophie and Wendy made it real, befriending me, teaching me what it could mean to have people in your life that you can count on.