“Are you having fun?” my uncle asked.
I nodded. I hadn’t even known that there was anything in the world like this.
“You know,” he said. “How would you feel about the idea of coming to stay with us for a while, instead?”
Live somewhere other than with mommy and daddy? I didn’t know what to make of that idea, but my uncle didn’t get time to expound on the thought as daddy approached us and snatched the Gameboy out of my hands. Daddy threw it against the floor.
“I will not have you corrupting my child. Not in my house.”
My uncle looked at his brother-in-law with his mouth gaping open.
“Those aren’t exactly cheap,” my uncle said.
“That’s your problem. You shouldn’t have brought it.”
“Children have always needed to play. This is just a new way of doing it. We weren’t harming Annabelle”
“I. I am the one who decides what happens in my house. Not you.”
Daddy turned to look at me.
“Go to you room. Now!”
I ran off to my bedroom. That wasn’t an order I dared to disobey. But even in my bedroom, I could hear bits and pieces of the heated conversation daddy was having with his brother-in-law. They had moved closer to the front door, and I crept that way to listen in on them, taking care that daddy wouldn’t be able to see me.
“You saw what happened earlier. She keeps pissing herself,” daddy said.
“I did see what happened earlier,” my uncle replied. “I saw a bunch of so-called adults bullying a young girl because of something she isn’t able to control.”
“She should know how to use the toilet properly.”
“Exactly, and if she can’t, she needs to see a doctor.”
“What she needs to do is stop pissing herself on purpose. I’m not paying to take her to some quack who would have her drugged up with who knows what.”
“On purpose? Are you crazy? What kid would want to do that?”
“What the hell do you know about children? You don’t even have any kids.”