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but I wasn’t completely naïve, either. Obviously, Mom was doing something she shouldn’t be doing with this “Uncle Bill” or she wouldn’t have snapped the way she did and hidden my present where Dale Richard couldn’t find it. But what could I do? I had been warned, and I didn’t want to get beaten, so I knew I would just keep my mouth shut.
    Later that evening, the whole family was sitting at the dinner table eating a delicious meal of pork chops, corn on the cob, and salad. Mom kept glaring  across the table at me between bites. Then a strange, whirring sound came from the cabinet in which Mom had hidden the word processor.
    “What the hell is that noise, Mary Nancy ?” Dale Richard asked.
    To my surprise, Rachel Emily piped up and said, “That’s Sarah’s present from Uncle Bill!”
    “Who the fuck is Uncle Bill?” Dale Richard demanded, slamming his fork down and getting up to see my present for himself.
    I looked up and had to fight to keep a grin from forming on my face. Finally, Mom was going to get caught. She was going to be in trouble, and Dale Richard was going to yell at her for a change. I sat back in my chair and waited to see what Mom would do.
    Mom didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, you know, Bill, the delivery man from FS Oil. He dropped that off today with the oil delivery because his daughter didn’t use it anymore. I thought Sarah might get some use out of it!”
    “Oh, come on!” I thought to myself. Uncle Bill wasn’t an oil delivery guy; he had left the farmhouse earlier that day in a ratty old blue pickup truck.
    Dale Richard opened the cabinet and took out the word processor. “This is an awfully nice thing to be giving away, don’t you think?” he asked Mom.
    “I know, I couldn’t believe it either!” she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.
    Mom shot me another dirty look over the table. “Did you see that Sarah gave the horses bad hay? Buddy has had a cough for two days now. I’m going to have to call the vet.”
    I looked at my mother in shock. How in the world did this go from Mom getting presents from some weird guy to a complete lie about Buddy being sick?
    Dale Richard immediately turned on me. “You think money grows on trees, bitch? Do you have the money to pay the vet because you were too damn lazy to notice that you were giving the horses moldy hay?”
    “Dad, I didn’t give the horses moldy hay! I haven’t noticed Buddy coughing.”
    “Are you calling me a liar?” Mom screamed over the table at me.
    SMACK! Dale Richard had come up behind me and whacked me in the back of the head with such force that I smacked my face against the top of the kitchen table. Rachel Emily started crying, and Mom quickly ushered her out of the room. Dale Richard pulled my short hair and yanked my head back. “Lie to me, will you? Mary Nancy , it’s time for Sarah to write tonight!”
    Writing as punishment meant staying up until the wee hours of the morning—sometimes in my room, sometimes at a tray table in the bathroom—with a pencil and a piece of paper, writing I will not lie over and over and over until Mom was satisfied.
    Tears streamed down my face, and I wiped my nose. Then I noticed that my hand was covered in blood.
    “Jesus Christ … MARY NANCY !” Dale Richard bellowed. Mom came storming into the kitchen.
    “Clean her up, will you?” Dale Richard left the room, and Mom threw a stack of napkins at me.
    “Wipe your fucking nose,” Mom said, “and you’d better get started on your chores because you have a lot of writing to do.”
    I rushed outside, stuffing napkins up my nose to stop the bleeding. I ran down to the horse barn and sat in the corner, sobbing and screaming into my hand. “Buddy isn’t sick! I didn’t give him bad hay!” I kept saying over and over.
    Buddy came into the stall where I was sitting and crying. He looked at me with his big brown eyes. I pleaded, “You aren’t sick, are you, Buddy? I didn’t make you sick, did I?” Buddy just