Accused: My Fight for Truth, Justice & the Strength to Forgive

by Tonya Craft

  I did.

  It’s hard enough to deal with one fire at a time. I wish somebody would explain to me why so many of life’s fires always come in twos, or threes, or fours, or more.

  Right at the time this whole situation was unfolding with the Wilsons, my daughter, Ashley, said something to me that caught me completely off guard.

  “You and Mommy Sarah are different,” she said.7

  Sarah is the young bride that Joal had taken after we divorced. She was Tyler and Ashley’s new stepmother—a woman so young that she had actually been one of my students in Sunday school years earlier.

  “How so?” I asked, thinking Ashley would say that Sarah was taller or played basketball better than me.

  “Because she does not have hair down there,” Ashley said.

  To say her words shocked me doesn’t do it justice. I was floored.

  I simply nodded and said, “Oh.” I’d learned enough in all of my training as a teacher not to overreact when a child says something shocking, especially in a realm that involves anything of a sexual nature. You don’t want the child to shut down or stop talking, and you don’t want to put any thoughts into their head that might not be there already. So I did my best not to overtly question her about how she knew this about her stepmother or to make her feel uncomfortable about it no matter how uncomfortable it made me feel. Clearly she wanted to get this off her chest, so I let her talk. And talk she did.

  It turned out that Ashley had been taking baths and showers with her stepmother.8 What on earth is Sarah doing showering with my daughter?

  Keeping calm when your child tells you something like that is not an easy thing to do. I bit my tongue so hard it almost bled, especially when she spontaneously told me that her dad “sat on a stool in the bathroom, outside the shower” when they were in there.

  Ashley was six. I had bathed with her myself until about six months before that moment. I’m her mother. It’s normal. And it’s normal that she would notice the difference between the way her mother looks and the way her stepmother looks. I just didn’t think it was “normal” or at all appropriate that she was showering with this woman.

  I didn’t want to tell her she shouldn’t shower with Sarah. I didn’t want to make Ashley feel bad about doing something that wasn’t her fault. I would never automatically think something improper was happening with my daughter at her father’s house, either. It just made me very uncomfortable.

  So before I made a big deal about it, I asked a few colleagues, rather quietly, what they thought of somebody’s stepmother taking showers with a little girl. Not one of them thought it was appropriate.9 Every one of them made the face I’m sure I did before trying to hide my feelings about the situation from Ashley.

  Approaching the subject with Joal would be tricky. I knew that. I was afraid of his reaction. I was concerned that he would deny it and become angry, and it would cause a huge rift in our relationship as parents.

  As I’ve already mentioned, Ashley and Tyler only stayed with Joal every other weekend, so I took a little time to think about this, and I decided I’d better not bring it up right away. I thanked Ashley for telling me, and I reminded her that she could talk to me about anything. I did that in a general way, not directly tied to what she told me, just as I did with Tyler, and just as I had done with both of them for as long as I could remember. They knew I was there for them. Always.

  Then the subject got a whole lot more complicated. Ashley came home after one weekend at Joal’s and told me that she’d learned how to shave her legs—from Sarah. Ashley had just turned six. There isn’t a six-year-old girl on the planet who needs to know how to shave her legs, I thought.

  “Well, what did she show you?” I asked.

  Ashley talked about soaping the leg all up, and just shaving in one direction, ’cause the razor’s real sharp and you could cut yourself if you moved it side to side, and being careful around the knee—“and then you have to make sure you pull back the skin when you shave around your vagina,” she said.

  I was floored. Ashley knew the word “vagina.” I had always taught my kids appropriate anatomy. But I had to do everything in my power not to show Ashley the horror I was feeling at the thought that Sarah was showing hers off in the shower.

  “Um … tell me more about that,” I said.

  “I helped her.”

  “You helped her? How?”

  “With the razor.”

  Showering was one thing. If she had let my daughter “help” her shave her lady parts, that would set off a whole sea of red flags for me.10 I didn’t want to alarm Ashley, though. “Well … just be real careful that no one gets cut with a razor, okay?” I told her.

  I didn’t know what else to say. I really didn’t.

  I remember telling David that night, “I don’t know what to do. This isn’t right.”

  “Just call Joal up and tell them they need to stop,” he said.

  David still didn’t seem to get it.

  “I can’t confront him like that. He’ll say I’m lying. He’ll say I made it up,” I said. “I swear to you, if he thinks I’m accusing him or Sarah of something, he’ll turn around and accuse me of doing something right back.”

  “Well, then I don’t know. Just hope it doesn’t happen again.”

  David seemed a little nonchalant about it. I didn’t like that.

  “I’ll talk to the school counselor tomorrow. I’ll see if maybe Ashley can talk to somebody. I can’t just go forward without substantiating these allegations or Joal will turn this into a horrible fight and we’ll never hear the end of it. I won’t do that to the kids.”

  The next morning I went to the school counselor, who agreed that I was right to be concerned and also agreed that I should proceed very cautiously before making any allegations based on Ashley’s words alone.11 She had a friend who worked for the Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS), and she actually placed a call over there just to ask whether it was “normal” behavior to be showering and shaving like that with a six-year-old. The DFACS rep said, “That’s inappropriate behavior.”

  As we all know, kids get confused. Kids tell stories. Kids say things out of context. Even our own kids, whom we think we know so well, sometimes say things that their little imaginations have made up all on their own. Any child psychologist with a credential to his name knows that, and most people who work with kids realize it, too. So I wanted to get some more objective advice about this and get someone qualified in this area to ask Ashley about it.

  I called the Walker County sheriff for advice. I knew his wife from church, and he had his child investigator call me back. I was told that Ashley would have to repeat her story on the record before any charges could be made. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put Ashley in that situation. I wasn’t sure if there were any “charges” that needed to be filed. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid. I wasn’t looking to hurt Joal or Sarah with any of this. I just wanted to make sure my baby was okay.

  I spoke to Ashley’s teacher about it. I spoke to some friends who had experience with abuse, including a therapist friend who works with adult victims of child abuse. She recommended that I should talk to an attorney and that I should think about hiring someone nonbiased to interview Ashley. I wanted to make sure I did everything right, and although it seemed to be taking an excruciatingly long time, I took a one-step-at-a-time approach to getting to the bottom of it before accusing anybody of anything.

  I prayed about it, and I kept going back to that promise I made never to fight with Joal in front of the kids. The whole thing ate me up inside. I wasn’t sleeping well. I drove poor David nuts with all my wavering back and forth about what the next step ought to be, but he also wasn’t being as caring as I thought he ought to be.

  Amidst the tension of everything that was happening with Ashley and trying to get to the bottom of it, the tension of everything that was going on at school, and the pressure I felt from the new principal to conform, on top of juggling t
he kids, and baseball, and tumbling—I was stressed. And sometimes when I’m all stressed out I can be a bit of a pain in the tush. I realize this. I don’t think David fully realized it because he had never lived with it before, but he sure realized it then.

  Ashley started having severe stomachaches and other odd symptoms when she came back from her visits with Joal. That worried me. I hated seeing my baby sick and in pain—but what if it was a sign of something more? I wound up paying all sorts of extra attention to Ashley that spring. When her stomach was hurting, I’d lie with her in bed and sometimes fall asleep at her side. It got to a point where David started complaining that I wasn’t spending enough time with him. He said that he felt I was “neglecting” him.

  One night when he was particularly whiny about it, I said to him, “I’m your wife, not your momma. If you need a momma, there’s the door!”

  I know that wasn’t the nicest thing to say, but I had a lot on my mind. I just assumed that David would stand by me and we’d get through all of this together. We were married. He was the love of my life. I knew he loved me back. What more was there to talk about?

  Chapter 15

  I was out in the garage, running on the treadmill, when I learned that my husband had left me. It was Friday, April 11, 2008.

  “When are you coming home?” I asked David over the phone.

  “I’m not,” David said.

  I jumped my feet off to the sides with the belt still whizzing by beneath me. “What do you mean?”

  My friend Tammy was standing right there. She had just come over to pick up Hunter. She saw the look on my face and quickly went back inside the house.

  “I’m not coming home. I’m done, Tonya.”

  His words shattered me.

  “The kids are here,” I said. “Tyler’s got a ball game. What do you mean?”

  “I’m just done,” David said.

  Tammy came back out and looked at me with this look of despair. I was so hurt I simply hung up the phone without saying anything.

  “His closet is completely empty,” Tammy said.

  My husband’s closet is empty?

  There was no note. He hadn’t called first or left a message. Nothing.

  I can’t explain how I got through the rest of that day. It’s all a blur. I had things to do. I took Tyler to his game. I made dinner. I just did what I had to do and didn’t breathe a word about that phone call to the kids or to anyone else. Tammy was the only one who knew.

  The next morning, I called David again. “Can we talk about this?”

  “There’s nothing much to talk about,” he said.

  How could there be nothing to talk about?

  “What should I tell the kids?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He was so distant I almost didn’t recognize the sound of his voice. It was like he had already disconnected from our lives. He seemed emotionally dead.

  “We need to sit and tell the kids together,” I said, “don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  Maybe I was so caught up in my own life, and Ashley, and school, that I just didn’t see it. I didn’t see how he had progressed from the loving husband and father figure to this distant, cold person on the phone who’d left me without a word of warning. How could I have missed the wall he was building up, when clearly that wall was gigantic?

  When the phone call ended, I decided not to tell the kids anything. I prayed that he’d come back, for their sake if not mine. I painted a smile on my face and went on with my days. When the kids asked where David was, I told them that he had to go away on a business trip and he wasn’t sure how long he’d be gone. That was actually true. The trip didn’t start until a few days after this, but David had to go all the way to Israel for a client. So I didn’t have to lie to my children. I just had to hide some of the facts from them, and that alone broke my heart. I spent the whole weekend in a fog of confusion and heartache. The kids had made cards for David’s birthday that Sunday, and I just kept up a happy face and stuck to my excuses. I told them we’d celebrate when he came back.

  David and I had met just after his birthday a year earlier. We’d only been married for ten months. We should be celebrating, I thought.

  Once the kids were in bed that night, I pretty much cried myself to sleep. Then I woke up Monday morning, alone, knowing I somehow had to find the strength to go battle the world by myself.

  We had another meeting with the Wilsons to discuss Lauren’s progress on Monday, April 14—“we” being the principal, the school counselor, the paraprofessional who worked in my classroom, and me. I was a bit of an emotional wreck going into that meeting. DeWayne and Sherri were highly upset. While we laid out a solid educational transition plan for their daughter, I teared up—not because I was afraid of them or upset about the situation with Lauren but because I was thinking about David and Ashley. All of a sudden DeWayne Wilson stood up, grabbed a book, and flung it forcibly across the table. It nearly hit me in the chest.

  “Somebody dropped the ball!” he shouted. “Somebody’s gonna pay! And we all know who that is!”12

  He scared me. I left the meeting really shaken up. I must’ve looked weak in their eyes to be crying like that. But I still didn’t budge when it came to recommending the correct course of action for Lauren. If I relented just because I’d made someone angry rather than staying focused on what was best for the child, I thought, I might as well retire right then and there.

  After school on that very same day, I finally went to see a local attorney to discuss the showering situation with Ashley. It had taken me a while to get the appointment, so I couldn’t cancel no matter how awful I felt. It was too important.

  I sat down with him, one-on-one, for the very first time at his office in Catoosa County, and we discussed everything Ashley had told me. I didn’t know much about that attorney at that point, other than the fact that David and I had paid him a lot of money to help my friend Tammy get through her divorce. He looked like a lawyer should look, with his lawyerly suit and tie. He agreed that I shouldn’t proceed with filing any kind of a complaint until I had more to substantiate Ashley’s claim. He also wanted me to make sure there wasn’t anything more to the story. I had suffered that thought too many times to count, so to hear it from another human being made me sick to my stomach.

  The attorney also clarified for me that I wouldn’t be able to file any kind of a complaint about this in Georgia. Joal and Sarah lived in Tennessee. The abuse, if that’s what this was, took place at their home. Therefore, I would have to file in a court up there if the time came.

  He recommended an attorney up in Tennessee, a woman, and I told him I’d call her. I did. Of course, it would take a couple of weeks for me to get in to see her, too. Everything just kept stalling on me that spring.

  The Wilsons refused to meet with me after the last meeting. Any other meetings that were held to discuss Lauren’s future were held without me—even though I was her teacher.

  This is also when word started to get back to me about the things Sherri Wilson and Sandra Lamb were saying about me around town.13 I began to be very concerned that my job might be in jeopardy. I kept thinking about my former principal’s warning about living in Chickamauga. Are these die-hard Chickamaugans going to get me fired?

  Everything had been going so well for me at school until then. I could hardly believe how fast it all seemed to unravel. I kept asking myself, How did this happen?

  The tension from the whole thing was bad enough that I started quietly looking around to see what teaching jobs might be opening up in surrounding towns. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. I felt like I ought to prepare myself for the worst.

  I felt that way about the situation with Ashley, too. I finally got in to see the attorney up in Tennessee at the beginning of May, and we decided on a course of action, which was to have Ashley sit for an interview with a qualified forensic psychologist to see if we could really get to the bottom of what was going on at her dad
’s house. Finding someone qualified to do that kind of an interview with a child turned out to be quite a task. I made a ton of phone calls and researched online for hours and hours. I wasn’t going to let just anyone interview my daughter about something so personal and potentially disturbing. This was just as big a deal to me as finding the right surgeon or specialist for my child if she had something physically wrong with her.

  In fact, during that period just after David left, she actually did have something physically wrong with her: Ashley started suffering awful stomachaches and diarrhea. It got so bad that she developed a rash all over her bottom and under her privates. It irritated her so much that she couldn’t sleep, so I put a little udder balm on that rash one night—it’s an old-fashioned medicinal balm that is actually used on cow’s udders, but it works wonders on rashes and skin irritations. It’s one of those things a Southern grandmother would recommend, and it works like a charm. I tried to get Ashley to apply it herself, since she was old enough to do that sort of thing on her own, but she couldn’t do it, so I finally told her, “Bend over,” and I did it for her. I had used it for diaper rash plenty of times when the kids were little, and I hoped it would work just as well on Ashley at that age. I had a feeling it would.14

  I was worried that her health could be a reflection of what she told me about those showering incidents, which was another reason I wanted to get her interviewed as quickly as possible by someone whose reputation was beyond reproach. This was serious stuff. I needed Ashley to speak to a qualified expert who could get to the absolute truth.

  I had also managed to make it through almost an entire month without telling the kids that David was gone for good. He and I had been talking on the phone, and I kept holding out hope that he’d come around, so I kept putting it off. It was Mother’s Day when Tyler finally started crying about it. “He’s not ever coming back, is he?” Tyler asked through tears. I guess he knew, instinctively, that David never would have missed Mother’s Day unless something was wrong. I told Tyler the truth, and then I told Ashley the truth, too. Both kids cried something awful, and so did I.