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Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy. HarperElement An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published by HarperElement 2018 FIRST EDITION © Zoe Patterson and Jane Smith 2018 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover photograph (posed by a model) © Alexander Vinogradov/Trevillion A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Zoe Patterson and Jane Smith assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at Source ISBN: 9780008148041 Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008157586 Version: 2018-01-30 Contents Care: (1) the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something; (2) serious attention or consideration applied to doing something correctly or to avoid damage or risk. For many years, I believed that what happened to me when I was a little girl was my fault. I suppose if you tell someone almost anything over and over again from a very young age, they’ll grow up with it hardwired into their brain as a ‘fact’. Later, when they’re old enough to think for themselves, and if the fact has an objective or scientific basis, they might be able to disprove it. But that isn’t so easy to do if it’s something more subjective, particularly if it subsequently seems to be confirmed by other people and by apparently unconnected events. The ‘fact’ I was told by my mother throughout my childhood and into adulthood was that I was to blame for all the horrible things that were done to me – many of which she actually did herself. So I was glad, although very scared, when the day came that I was taken into care. Maybe now, I thought, the bad stuff will stop happening, and then one day I’ll be able to live the sort of life I’ve always wanted to live – the sort of life my mum always said I didn’t deserve. As things turned out, however, I was one of the unlucky ones for whom the care part of ‘being taken into care’ didn’t match any dictionary definition. In fact, what happened to me while I was living at Denver House was even worse than anything that had happened to me at home. Which made me think that
