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Amanda,” Jacque said. “Shanda, we will always love you. Whatever you have done, it is not unforgivable. It’s nothing you should be ashamed of. You are only twelve years old. You are just a little girl. Shanda, you’ve got to tell us the truth. Has Amanda ever touched any part of your body in any way that she shouldn’t have touched you?”
    “No, Mom,” Shanda said through her tears. “We’re just friends.”
    “This note leads me to believe that you and Amanda have more than just a friendship.”
    “No, Mom, it’s just that Amanda needed a friend and I wanted to be a good friend.”
    Jacque handed the photograph to Shanda and told her to read the note to her father.
    “That was the hardest thing I ever made her do because it was so degrading for her to read it,” Jacque said later. “You could tell that it just devastated her.”
    When Shanda had finished reading, Jacque said, “Shanda, you told us that she never touched you, but this leads me to believe that she did. Now’s the time to tell the truth.”
    “I don’t know why I wrote it, Mom,” Shanda insisted. “None of it’s true.”
    Jacque tried again and again to draw out the truth, but Shanda would not open up.
    “I held her in my arms and told her that I loved her and that whatever had happened it was nothing to be ashamed of,” Jacque said. “I told her that she was just a little girl, and even though she may think she was all grown up she wasn’t. I told her that the mere fact that she was sitting there in tears and couldn’t talk showed me that she was still a little girl and she didn’t know how to deal with this.”
    For over an hour, Jacque, Steve, and Sharon questioned Shanda about her relationship with Amanda. And for over an hour, Shanda insisted that she and Amanda were just good friends. Finally Jacque took Shanda into the kitchen so they could talk privately. Shanda was still crying and her head was down. Jacque got down on her knees in front of her.
    “Shanda, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done,” Jacque said. “I’m not ashamed of you and I love you and you can tell me whatever you need to tell me. Shanda, don’t you know I love you?”
    Shanda looked in her mother’s eyes and replied, “No.”
    “Shanda, how can you say that?”
    “I’ve been so bad,” Shanda said. “I’ve done so many things I shouldn’t have done. I just don’t believe you love me anymore.”
    Jacque reached up and lifted her daughter’s chin. “Shanda, you are my baby. I will love you forever, no matter what happens. You have to know that I will always love you.”
    Mother and daughter held each other for a few minutes, then walked back into the living room. Steve and Sharon hugged Shanda and told her that they loved her too. After Shanda had gone to bed, the adults decided the first thing they had to do was transfer Shanda out of Hazelwood and into Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Steve said he would increase his child support to help cover the tuition.
    The next day Jacque met with the principal of theCatholic school and, without going into all the details, explained some of the problems Shanda was having at Hazelwood. The principal said that Shanda could start school there the following week.
    “When Shanda realized that we were serious about switching schools she got mad,” Jacque said. “She couldn’t believe we were really going to do it.”
    *  *  *
    When Melinda heard about Shanda being transferred, she felt as if all her wishes had come true. Suddenly all her worries were over and she had Amanda to herself again. A note Melinda wrote to Amanda on November 18, a week after Shanda had left Hazelwood, reveals her happiness.
    Across the top of the page, Melinda had written “Eat at Mel’s.” In the right-hand border were two other notations: “Melinda Loves_____. You fill in the blanks” and “I Love Myself.” The rest of the note, however, indicates that Melinda still harbored a lingering resentment:
Amanda,
Why did