I lay on a mattress at the foot of my parent’s bed. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain in my right foot, specifically in my little pinky toe. I told my dad who came to my aid; he kissed it better, applied some Vicks to it and asked if I wanted to sleep with him and mom that night. ‘Only tonight,’ he reminded as I nodded excitedly. The hurt was forgotten as I slipped into a dream of fairies and unicorns as I slept between my mom and dad.
The next night followed a similar pattern, lying on my mattress with my little pinky throbbing in pain, my father comforting me and me sleeping between the two of them a smile on my face. Many such nights followed until a call to my pediatrician proved me an attention seeker. That night when my father came to my side he did not comfort me; instead he looked down on me with disappointment. ‘Honey, it’s okay, I know your pinky doesn’t hurt. If you want to sleep with mommy and daddy all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to make up stories.’ I couldn’t look at him, I stared at my foot, teary eyed, my pinky twitching in pain. My father had accused me of being a liar.
‘But it really does hurt daddy.’
‘Come on honey, just tell the truth. We are not mad we just want you to tell the truth. You can still come and sleep with us if you want’ I could tell my father’s patience was wearing thin; he was fighting to keep his anger in check.
‘I’m not lying daddy’ I cried. My insistent denial lasted a few more minutes before my father lost it. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. What happened next was a blur, it happened so fast. The next thing I remembered was being on the other side of our backdoor, the scarier side. We lived in the basement; our apartment was connected to the laundry room. It was a cold, dark room that growled and hissed. I was banished to this slice of hell, barefoot, in a flimsy nighty. I must have been out there for less than a minute but those seconds seemed to last forever. Too scared to cry, a warmth slithered down my left leg into a pool of yellow.
The guilt had already enveloped my father and within seconds he had come to my rescue. That moment onwards my father rationalized that it was a tough call but it was necessary to stop me from lying. My never again complaining about an aching pinky helped him overcome his guilt, but that didn’t mean that my pinky stopped hurting.

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