My six-year-old daughter said to her teacher that \u2018it hurts to sit\u2019 and drew a picture that made her call 911. Her uncle quickly became the prime suspect, , and I was convinced my family was falling apart\u2014until police analyzed a stain on her backpack. The lead officer looked at me and said, \u2018Ma\u2019am, the suspect isn\u2019t human.\u201cMommy, it hurts to sit.\u201dThose words, spoken in a trembling whisper by my daughter Emily, 6, to her first-grade teacher, detonated through my life like a bomb.That morning, I packed Emily\u2019s lunch, tied her sneakers, kissed her forehead, and watched her climb onto the yellow school bus with her sketchpad tucked under one arm. When the lunch time came, my phone was buzzing with a number I didn\u2019t recognize\u2014then the police were calling, then the school principal, then everything blurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mrs. Harrington, Emily\u2019s teacher, had noticed Emily shifting uncomfortably in her chair. As she gently asked what was wrong, Emily murmured that sitting hurt. After than, she drew a picture. I still haven\u2019t seen the drawing, but Mrs. Harrington later described it to me: crude, childlike lines that showed a stick figure girl bent over, with what looked like an older male figure standing behind her. The teacherimmediately dialed 911.As I arrived at the school office, I was met not just by the principal but also two uniformed officers.My knees nearly gave way. My family had already been fragile. My husband, Mark, and I were separated, and y daughter Emily had been spending time with my brother Daniel, who often babysat as I worked late shifts at the hospital. I saw the officers exchanging glances when they asked about Emily\u2019s uncle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My six-year-old daughter said to her teacher that \u2018it hurts to sit\u2019 and drew a picture that made her call 911. Her uncle quickly became the prime… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":680,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33486,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33484\/revisions\/33486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}