Librería Samer Atenea
Librería Aciertas (Toledo)
Kálamo Books
Librería Perelló (Valencia)
Librería Elías (Asturias)
Donde los libros
Librería Kolima (Madrid)
Librería Proteo (Málaga)
Her name is Diane Jones. Today her presence is calm and warm. I knew her as a quiet, terrified child struggling to grow up, nay, even to stay alive in a large violent matriarchal family. There was no father figure, only a sequence of men. Diane was thirteen years old when I first met her. Through a program in the California Department of Social Services, I had been assigned to be Big Sister to a younger sister of Diane. This younger sister was also badly abused both in maternal violence and in sexual abuse, as was Diane, but to a much lesser degree. I thought of Diane’s mother as a raging bull with massive mood swings from manipulative and charming to a cruel, mean and evil woman. I myself was afraid of her. If I had known what was really going on during the years I worked with the family, I would not have had the power to do anything about it. My only hope and motivation at that time was to give them a view of what life was like from a different perspective and thus help them be kinder to their children. I am always appalled by the fact that Social Services felt it was best to keep children connected to their families no matter how monstrous the evil in the home. Twenty-six years later, we are all wiser.
