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Then Offerman testifies. Emily, she says, described her father's fondling as a game. "She talked about it as if she were going to a birthday party," says Offerman. "She had no sense of taboo around this." Offerman relates that when the father was told Emily was being removed from his home, he retorted, "You ask Tracy. She'll say nothing happened."
Finally Emily herself sits down on a wooden chair pulled up at the end of a long table to the side of the master's raised desk. "Do you remember talking to Miss Betsy?" asks Emily's lawyer, pointing to Offerman. The distraught child says nothing but fingers a piece of chalk she has carried from an interview room. "Was what you told her the truth?" the lawyer asks. Emily shakes her head no, then buries it in her elbow.
A few minutes later, social-services lawyer Donna Purnell tries to cut past Emily's reluctance to admit what she believes happened. "Are you scared that if you tell, you won't go home?" she asks? Emily nods yes. "If you said something to Betsy, would you be scared to say it now?" Emily nods her head yes again. "Does Daddy ever tickle you?" "On my feet. On my leg." Just 15 ft. away, her father leans forward, rests his elbows on the bench in front of him and stares right at Emily.
The final witness is Tracy, a chubby girl who smacks on chewing gum until Master Walker makes her remove it. In short order, the girl denies her father ever touched Emily and says Emily never told her of any abuse. She also claims she is not afraid of her father.
"Is there a reason why you wouldn't tell the truth if your father did touch you?" asks Purnell, trying to unmask the apparent cover-up. Tracy says no. Suddenly, Master Walker's loud voice booms across the courtroom. "She's giving more signals than a third-base coach for the Boston Red Sox," Walker says, gesturing toward the girl's mother. He has been watching her coach Tracy from the bench nearby.
Afternoon has slipped into evening. Emily's mother yawns. When closing arguments end, Walker, a kindly 20-year veteran of the bench who writes haiku and dabbles in abstract painting, rules that sexual abuse did, in fact, occur. After listening to two hours of testimony, Walker is convinced that Emily has been sexually abused by her father and wants to protect her from having it happen again. He orders Emily to remain in foster care and asks social services to evaluate the suitability of placing her in a relative's home.
Doll in hand, Emily leaves the courtroom. In the empty corridor, her siblings hug her and say goodbye. A few minutes later, Emily walks with her caseworker out of the building and back to her foster home, perhaps separated from her parents forever. The court has done what it can.
Timothy and Tommy