Confessions

Mom & Dad,

I don’t know why I’m in this world. I sometimes wish I wasn't. I’m sure if I disappeared today no one would notice. It’s not as if I’m an important or integral part of this family. I’m sure you wouldn't be sorry if I were never born.

You guys fight all the time, it's not as if you would notice me missing. I’m nearly a ghost now. I’m the good kid. Remember that. David gets into way more trouble than I ever would. I’m the book smart one who rides the straight and narrow, you will be sorry one day, mark my words.

With my intelligence I could have gone far. You never did respect me or encourage me. You did nothing more than berate me. You should really be proud of yourself. I have a hospital record to prove how little you respect me. It has to be at least three inches thick. Are you proud of the broken noses, broken ribs and the broken limbs I had to endure living with you. I certainly could have lived without them and the pain that went along with it.

It is bad when the nurses at County General know more about me than you do, my own parents. That’s not right. I told you I was a ghost. This just proves my theory more and more.

Goodbye!

Sara looked up from the letter. I can’t believe I still have this. Why would I have kept this? As the memories flooded back, she fell to the floor clenching her knees up into the fetal position rocking back and forth. Grissom came to the bedroom almost immediately
to see what had happened.

Since the incident with Catherine and Ecklie, he had been stopping by daily. He enjoyed keeping Sara company. He didn’t want her to spend her week of unpaid leave alone. He figured she could use the companionship and support.

Grissom peeked in the doorway of Sara’s bedroom. There were papers strewn all over the floor. He saw Sara curled up on the floor with her knees tucked into her chest. She was rocking back and forth a crumpled piece of paper by her side. What happened? What did
she find?

“Sara, Honey, are you ok?” He asked the rocking figure on the floor.

No response.

He knelt down beside her and spoke softly. “Sara.”

She looked up at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “I had finally been through enough. The beatings had finally been the last straw. “ She was speaking incoherently. He wasn’t certain as to what she was talking about. She pointed to the paper. “Read it.”

He picked up the crumpled sheet and smoothed it out. As he began to read the letter his heart broke right along with hers. “Sara.” He began. “Let me”“ She pleaded.

He nodded for her to continue.

“He broke my left arm and enough was enough. The hospital knew to expect me and mom at least once, if not twice a week.” She absently wiped the tears from her face.

Grissom reached over and took her hand, squeezing it gently like he had already done before. He didn’t want to overstep and make her uncomfortable, but at the same time he wanted her to know he was there for her.

Sara disengaged from her fetal position and allowed Grissom better access to her hand. He entwined his fingers with hers. “He would come home drunk. He always did. David would be out, as usual. It would leave mom and me alone with him. David was seldom home. He was doing his own thing. I mean he was thirteen or fourteen by then and he had already
discovered drugs and boys.” Sara laughed lightly.

“After nearly ten years of brutal abuse from a drunk you lose your inclination to fight anymore.”

Sara wiped her tears with her free hand. “Some days I wished I had friends I could have confided in or retreat to when I couldn’t stand it anymore. I could have used a shoulder to cry on.” Grissom opened up his arms to offer Sara his broad shoulder to cry on. He hoped it wasn’t being too presumptuous. He knew it wasn’t when she accepted his embrace and he cradled her in his arms. “Having been emotionally and physically abused my whole life, I didn’t make friends easily or at all for that matter.” She shifted herself to look at him. He could see the pain in her eyes. They were a window into her wounded soul. He felt awful about the way she was treated as a child. He resisted the urge to cry with her swallowing the building lump in his throat. He wanted to remain strong for her. He would be no help if he was a blubbering idiot. If he wasn’t already dead I’m sure I would kill him for what he had done to her. To Sara, it just wasn’t fair.

Sara wrapped her arms around him, pulling him tighter and not letting go. It was like she was afraid of being snatched away from him. “I don’t remember ever having friends my whole childhood. I read lots of books and was right into my schoolwork, but no people were ever let in. I shied away from personal contact. I was scared they would learn my dirty secrets.”

“Sara, honey, you don’t have to do this.” He said quietly, caressing her hair in an attempt to comfort her.

“Yes I do, please.” She pleaded. I have had this bottled up for twenty years; I need to let it go.

“Alright, but if you need to stop, Sara, I will understand.”

She nodded. “That day I came home from school, nothing was unusual. I started supper like I had been doing every night since I could walk, or so it seemed.”

She paused and took a deep breath. She figured he needed some background on her parents. “My parents were hippies, did I ever tell you that?” She wasn’t actually looking for an answer. “Having been hippies, they weren’t the greatest at keeping themselves employed. Mom ran a Bed and Breakfast, which we lived in. It was seasonal, only operated it in the summers. There wasn’t much of a demand for a B & B in the winter even in Tamales Bay.”

Sara was running on the beach in front of her house. She bent down and picked up some seashells and passed them to her mother. She quickly put them in her pocket. Her mother was snapping pictures of Sara playing in the ocean and sand.

The thoughts flooded into Sara’s mind. “Mom freelanced as a photographer in the winter to pay the
bills. We got by, but not by much.”

“I hate these clothes!” A pony tailed Sara exclaimed.

“Well, honey it”s this or nothing.”

“Can”t I just get something new? I hate these bell bottoms and big sleeves, nobody else has to wear
these.”

“Sara, I would if I could, but you know how it is.”

“Yeah, his beer is more important.”

“Sara.”

“Well, it is true.”

Sara pushed the thought out of her head. She hated those days. “I was always stuck with Mom’s old
hand-me-downs. All I had were those and some clothes from goodwill. It certainly didn’t make it easy for
me. With all the psychedelic patterns and colors, I stood out in a crowd.”

Grissom chuckled softly as he pictured a young Sara in a bright tie-died shirt and bell bottoms.

“Peasant tops and bell bottoms went out of fashion with the seventies. I was stuck wearing them straight
through the eighties. I was so uncool.” Sara cracked a half smile at her comments.

“What could you expect from ex-hippies. It was all my mother owned. She didn’t care what she wore. She
didn’t care about her appearance. I’m sure today she would be no different if given the option. I often
wondered how comfortable she was in those form-fitting prison uniforms. After twenty years, I”m sure she has
adjusted.”

Grissom wondered about her dad. He didn’t want to make things worse. He hesitantly asked her about her
father.

“He was a completely different issue. At one point in his life he was successful. He had a very good job
and bought the B & B for my mom.”

“What happened?” He asked, hoping he wasn’t being pushy.

“The business went under. He began drinking and doing heavier drugs. That’s when the abuse started. I
think I was around four years old.”

“Sara.”

“No. Stop. At first it was just mom. I knew he was doing it. I could hear her screaming. The screams
haunted me for years.”

Grissom then realized why the abuse cases bothered her so badly; she associated them with her mother. She
didn’t just have empathy, she had battle wounds.

“Cliff. Stop, please.” Laura pleaded.

“You damn whore, you like this, don”t lie to me, Bitch.”

“No. Cliff, No. You are hurting me.”

Slap!!

Screams.

Silence.

“He must have tired of mom. I was his next choice. I prayed he would find a job that would take him away
for weeks at a time and give us a break. He never did. He couldn’t hold a job for more than a few days.
It's funny, nobody wanted to hire a hippy with an obvious drinking problem. Imagine that.”

Sara recalled her father. He was a burley man with long stringy hair he was very unkempt. He didn’t
care about his appearance. Sara couldn’t recall a time when he wasn’t high or didn't have a beer in his
hand.

“With me it started as verbal abuse. He would beat mom bloody in front of me and then call me names.”

His fist was loud on impact to her jaw. Sara could hear the bones cracking in Laura’s face. It sent her
flying across the room. She whimpered in the corner not able to say too much because the searing pain and blood.

He approached Sara. “Whore, see what happens when you don’t listen? You are going to be a little slut just like her.”

He looked over at Laura cowering in the corner and back to Sara. “Bitch, get me another fucking beer.”

“I started to think that “whore” and “slut” were terms of endearment. It was the only affection he ever gave me.” Grissom caressed her face trying to brush away some of her pain.

“Sara, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” She hoped he knew she appreciated his sentiment.

“This went on for a few years. I can remember the day it changed. It was my tenth birthday. I never had
parties. I had no friends. Mom had bought me a new outfit, I was so excited. I lost my virginity to my
drunken father. Happy Birthday Sara.” She was choking on her words.

“Are you going to be ok?” He asked softly. He knew this was hard on her. So that’s why she hates
birthdays and why she refuses to celebrate them.

Sara nodded. “I have to do this. HE beat me bloody like he did my mother and then he decided I was old
enough to rape”“ Her words trailed off.

“This went on for nearly three years. I programmed myself to think this was how families worked. It was
all I knew. Mom worked. HE drank. When she got home she would get her lickings and he would have sex with
her, but she screamed through the whole process, it wasn’t consensual. It was rape. After he was finished with her he would move on to me.

Hearing the front door open Sara knew Laura had just got home. Supper was in the oven. Sara had already prepared it like she always did. She sat in her room waiting with her knees tucked into her chest. Once the screaming stopped, it was her turn. The shrieking ended and she heard the footsteps approaching her room.

“I started resisting the beatings and they got worse. They were bad enough that they required trips to the Emergency Room. For me “acting up” mom got punished too. It was her fault for raising a bitch like me.”

“Ooh, Sara.” He couldn’t hide his sadness.

“The law knew our house. The neighbors constantly called the cops about the noise and the screams; they
never did anything about it. Dad covered for himself well. I’m sure the hospital had its suspicions too.
Their hands were tied with red tape. They couldn’t do anything for mom or me. We were scared to death of
him.”

Sara took a deep breath. “I think that’s what fuelled mom in the end. She wanted an out, to be free from
him. I guess life in prison was better than submitting to the pain he caused us.”

“Is that why she stabbed him?” He was stating the obvious.

“I would assume so. I haven’t talked to her in twenty years.”

“What was the letter I read earlier?”

“My suicide note.” She said frankly.

His facial expression switched to one of shock. “Your what?”

“I was planning on killing myself. I figured it was better than living like I was. I didn’t have a life.
It was an existence, nothing more.”

“What changed?” He asked with concern.

“Everything. He broke my arm and dislocated my shoulder. I was so upset I made up my mind to kill
myself, it was better than this. I wrote that letter with my good hand and I planned on going to school and
not coming home.

Sitting on her bed she was scrawling mad on the paper in front of her. Her bad arm was tucked against her
chest. She made up her mind. She needed out.

“Half way through school that day I got a phone call to go home. I ran there right away. If they were
calling me at school, I knew it wasn’t good.”

“He was dead?”

“Yes. She snapped and stabbed him to death. Ten times. There was blood everywhere. The house was so
silent and the smell of iron was overpowering. There was a children’s services worker waiting for me. I
packed my few things and left. I saw them put my mom into the police car. She was handcuffed. I knew
exactly what had happened.”

The cops walked behind her. Her hands were restrained behind her back with metal cuffs. They opened the car door and put her inside. She looked away and I waved until she was out of sight.

“You should have never had to see that.” He comforted her.

“There is a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have had to see and do.” She dislodged from his embrace and stood up.
“Want something to drink?”

He nodded getting himself up and he followed her to the kitchen.

He broke the silence as he sipped on his ice tea. “What stopped you from committing suicide?” He asked
hesitantly not knowing what to expect.

“Foster care really, it wasn’t all that bad. I realized that the way I had been living wasn’t normal.
I was swimming in a sea of abnormalities searching for one bit of normalcy. I had always been bright, so
I excelled in school. It was my escape. I had no friends but my studies.”

He was sad for her. He could feel the pain in her voice. He wanted to hold her again, but he didn’t
want to be too pushy.

Sara reached across the table and took his hands. “I went through a lot of foster homes. I was detached
and they found me difficult because of it. I was so happy when I got accepted to Harvard and I got to move
to Boston.”

“I’m happy you moved to Boston too.” He smiled.

She walked around the table and wrapped her arms around his neck. He turned to face her. “I’m happy
I met you. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For teaching seminars. For getting me interested in Forensics. For everything.”

“No need to thank me, if anything I should be thanking you.”

She looked at him with mock surprise. “Why?”

“For helping me to understand you better. You didn’t have to do that you know.”

“I know. I wanted to. I feel much better now.”

She leaned in and kissed him hard on the lips. Her hands went to his hair. His hands went to her waist.
He pulled her into his chest without breaking the kiss.

“I love you, Griss.”

“I love you too, Sara.”

He led her to the bedroom and they cuddled until they both fell asleep.