This week, I’m sharing the opening chapter from my memoir

to give you a sense of where this story begins—and ends. This scene takes place in January 2002, but the fuse for this explosion was lit five months earlier with a single phone call.

Content warning: This chapter contains references to child sexual abuse and may be triggering for some readers. Please take care of yourself.

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Scene 1: Detonation

January 2002

I sat in a courtroom, but “numb” didn’t capture what I felt. My entire body hummed with a low frequency vibration I couldn’t control. I was certain everyone could see it, but glancing around—nobody seemed to notice.

My stomach lurched periodically, threatening to send me running for the exit. I was clammy—a word I’d never truly understood before. Internally feverish but shivering.

I felt overdressed in my black pantsuit. That morning, getting ready, I’d thought I looked professional, like I was putting on armor. Now I felt like a child in a costume who’d shown up for opening night without memorizing her lines.

Absolute chaos tore through my mind and body, but outwardly I remained calm and stoic. Even at arguably the worst moment of my 29 years, I couldn’t shake the iron-clad rule I’d been raised with: “appearances are everything.”

When you grow up believing you’re always being watched—by family, friends, strangers, God—”all the world’s a stage” resonates like the 11th Commandment.

I alternated between blissful detachment and jarring brutal presence, hyper-aware of every detail. My body felt like a rubber band stretched toward breaking, then suddenly released, dangerously close to collapse.

This is fucking ridiculous. Get it together. Look around. This is a procedure. A formality. There’s no physical danger here. People are counting on you, so SNAP OUT OF IT!

Voices murmured around me. My mind struggled to absorb what was happening as reality shifted and everything I knew crumbled.

Odd details scorched into my memory forever. The courtroom walls were paneled on the lower fourth in dark mahogany—rich and warm. I studied the pattern, my mind leaping to escape reality. I imagined designers huddled together making decisions:

“Should we go with cherry? Maybe blonde oak?”

“No, no. Important decisions will be made here. We want the weight of the gavel to be FELT in the walls.”

“Ah, yes. The walnut then.”

“Too cold. Something with warmth. Think—judgments will be passed down, but also adoptions, maybe marriages?”

“Exactly! The mahogany!”

Or maybe mahogany was just on sale. Probably.

What was taking so long? Sitting here with nothing to occupy my hands, my mind…

Limbo. Purgatory.

I glanced at the sparse family members beside me on the wooden bench. Resentment bubbled in my chest. I come from a very large extended family—gatherings typically involve upwards of 50 people for Easter egg hunts. This small courtroom could have easily been filled with support for my father.

I counted 8 family members.

I felt, acutely, the grip of my mother’s hand on my thigh, pulling strength I knew I didn’t have but gave willingly.

I studied the hunched back of the man sitting in front of me—this man I called “father.” He’d aged, I thought. He looked frail. Periodically he glanced at his lawyer, appearing confused, detached, and resigned.

His lawyer was small and wiry, seeming to hover above his chair, never really settling. His compact body couldn’t contain his impatience. Navy suit, brown shoes shined to impossible gleam. He whispered to my father, face tight and important, words coming in fast staccato. Watching them, I knew Robert had no idea what his high-priced lawyer was saying. I wondered how much each word cost. Was there a discount when the client didn’t understand what the fuck you were talking about?

To my left, my family attempted small talk. Two of my four younger sisters sat with their husbands. One sister couldn’t be bothered to travel four hours from Minneapolis. My youngest sister was home with my five younger brothers—she was only fourteen. It seemed too much to expect someone so young to sit in a courtroom facing her abuser while charges were read.

In this case, it was unnecessary. Her abuser was pleading guilty.

Some family members were making small jokes— not about why we were here, but they were joking at all. It felt surreal. Somehow offensive.

I studied the Assistant District Attorney: an attrac- tive woman about forty with shiny auburn hair cut in a chin-length bob, swept to the side. Her face was a study in sharp angles, her demeanor a sobering reminder of why I sat behind the broken remnants of my father in a county courtroom.

She was the enemy. Good. I needed an enemy.

Didn’t she know she was tearing my family apart? Didn’t she realize there were actual criminals she

should be prosecuting? This was what was wrong with our justice system—time and money wasted persecuting this man who’d spent his life giving to those in need. This man who slipped once.

ONCE.

An incidental, misinterpreted touch. Inexcusable, sure, of course. But still…it led to this?

Bea had explained it to me five months before. Or maybe Robert had—it was hard to remember.

He’d gone to wake my little sister one morning because she’d slept in. Knocked on her door, no answer. Called to her that it was time to get up. No answer. She was old enough to get herself up and knew better. Knocked again. No answer. Opened her door a crack—she was sound asleep, head under her pillow, on her stomach. He moved to her bedside and tapped her shoulder, startling her, and as she turned over, his hand accidentally brushed her where it shouldn’t have.

My first thought when I heard this?

What the fuck? My entire body rejected these details. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t ask. Inside, I curled into a ball, put my hands over my ears and started rocking while humming as loudly as I could. Outside, I listened calmly and slipped into my role as family fixer. Subtly, I judged the victim. Why hadn’t she set her alarm? She was 13. By that age, I was completely responsible for getting myself up, ready for school, to the breakfast table. I forced away doubts. If that’s really what happened, why would he get arrested? Why would the State pursue a case? Deep inside, a tiny voice tried to tell me something didn’t make sense.

Thank god I’d found an enemy in the courtroom to save me from a much harder truth. At least temporarily.

We all sat here, in COURT, with that woman looking like she was starring in a legal drama—because of that!

I’d watched countless hours of Law & Order, NYPD Blue—you name it. Growing up, I dreamed of becom- ing a lawyer. NBC practically gave me an honorary law degree. I knew the types of cases that wound up in court. This minor incident? This wasn’t it.

I could feel myself trying to find distance from everything, a safe place to view it all as research for a book someday. Oh, the irony.

How did we get here? My mind searched for reasons, answers, clues. Where did everything go wrong? How did this family full of love and laughter end up here today? Nobody saw this coming.

Never have four words haunted someone as relent- lessly as those would haunt me in the months and years to come.

I shifted on the wooden bench, desperately trying

not to make it creak. Avoid drawing attention at all costs. Unforgiving wood shaped deceptively as if to fit the human form in some semblance of comfort. As soon as you lowered yourself to sit gently on the edge, you immediately slipped back into the deepest crux, discovering that gentle curve was designed to tip you back and hold you in. The back leaned forward just enough that you couldn’t lean back and relax. It forced you to sit up, lean in, pay attention.

Welcome to court. You will not be in the audience today to merely observe. Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be “interactive theater.”

Sitting on wooden benches with my family wasn’t new. I’d grown up on benches like this. We called them pews. Hours spent singing and worshiping, praying and learning. Interactive theater at its finest. If this courtroom thought it would catch me off guard with its parlor tricks, it was woefully misguided.

I had decades of performance experience.

Ouch! Shit. The sharp sting of four fingernails digging into my thigh pulled me back to the present. Mom.

Her grip reminded me poignantly of that exact same grip on Sunday mornings. But this time it wasn’t to warn me and my sisters to keep still while the pastor spoke. Those fingernails weren’t being used to control me this time. Or were they?

I still felt the weight of her expectations, but I had no real-life frame of reference for what behavior I was supposed to show. My entire life had been lived trying to exceed spoken and unspoken expectations. But this was uncharted territory.

I knew one thing: I had to be strong. I had to be in control. I absolutely had to be present.

Come on, Maris…focus.

I scanned the faces of two aunts sitting one row back and to my left. Their facial expressions were literally skin deep. Fifteen years later, I would re- member what was missing. Something was bugging me in that moment that I couldn’t put my finger on.

Fifteen years later, I would identify the missing el- ement as shock. There was a blasé acceptance settled in the lines and wrinkles of their faces like high-end foundation—perfectly formulated and matched to be imperceptible to the naked eye. So expertly applied. Maybe she’s born with it…maybe it’s denial. Maybe everybody knew something I didn’t?

Why am I the only one feeling shocked? I thought. It is shocking, right? I’m not the crazy one?

It’s shocking to see your father—the man you worshiped—sitting in the chair of the accused beside a lawyer whose job is to broker a deal. It’s stunning to listen to charges being read by a judge seeking to ensure your father fully understands what he’s pleading guilty to.

Where was the outrage? Why did I feel like I was overreacting?

There was some small comfort in knowing the lawyers had all been here before. Robert’s lawyer clearly had a plan. He appeared competent and in control.

Good. Okay, that’s my guy.

I blocked out the inane conversations around me, the fingernails digging into my thigh, the brutal resolve of the DA. I focused on the man who would sort this all out and rescue my family from what was clearly some fatal flaw in the justice system.

Breathe, Maris. You’re holding your breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Calm down. Pray and breathe.

I called up all the scriptures Christians use when life is shit and unfair:

“All things work together for good, for those that love the Lord.”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you…”

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

Movement. Court officers. “All rise…”

A door opened at the front of the courtroom. A very serious-looking man in a black robe entered.

Here we go.

As we sat down, one thought screamed through my head: “There’s no turning back. It’s too late to run.” It had been too late to run since I was two years old, but that truth was hidden deep inside a dark place.

That truth doesn’t happen until Act 2. The curtain had just come up on Act 1.

I sat silent as deep, unsettling stillness descended on the courtroom. The judge began reading the charges.

They were much worse than the stories revealed in conversation had ever been. Much, much worse. They were graphic. They were vile.

This wasn’t the brief, quickly rushed sentence I’d been given in a phone call that changed my world months earlier. These were paragraphs full of brutal, hideous, nausea-inducing words.

Words have power. Words ARE power.

The judge’s words decimated everything I’d ever known. They obliterated the fabric of so many lives like flame touched to magician’s flash paper. That day, the judge opened the refrigerator of our lives, opened the very bottom drawer. A foul and rotten odor began to permeate every corner of the room.

In the bottom of the drawer, under all the shiny fruit, he unearthed and exposed something wholly and undeniably rotten.

The thinly veiled excuses I’d clung to as possible justification shattered as the official charges were

read.

Wait! Stop. This is not what I was told.

The judge was reading a description of events that far exceeded anything revealed before. I didn’t understand. Desperately, I turned to my mother and whispered through clenched teeth, “Aren’t you going to say something? That’s not what happened! Say something! Tell them!”

The hand gripping my thigh hardened. I was once again “shushed” the way she cut me off in church on Sundays when my questions about the sermon annoyed her.

“No, Maris. That’s what happened. That’s what he did. Now be quiet.” Her voice was ice.

The short phrases stunned me, delivered in a crisp, no-nonsense tone. Final. I was silenced. Loud buzzing filled my brain, temporarily drowning out everything around me. I felt the edges begin to close in. White-hot heat coiled in my belly and rushed up through my chest, spreading to my face. Not warm— blazing hot. The buzzing turned into a rushing sound, blissfully drowning out his vile, disgusting words. Inky blackness crept in on the edges of my vision, closing in until I couldn’t see. I welcomed it, grasped for it.

Close the curtain! Shut it down!

The sting of her nails again. I forced myself back into focus, desperately searching for someone, something to lock onto—some anchor point to ground me.

And then I looked at him.

The man I called “father.” His tear-filled eyes looked right back at me.

There was a small commotion. I realized I’d missed something. Wait, what? What happened? What did I miss?

The ADA had offered a deal. Something different about sentencing. My father was crying and shaking his head. The judge and his lawyer asked if he understood what was being said and the implications. Again, he shook his head and began to collapse into his chair.

The lawyer asked the judge for a few minutes to confer with his client. My mother stood and gripped my arm, her sharp nails digging into my skin. (How does she file them like that?) She pulled me up as well.

“Mar Marie,” she whispered, “come with.”

When I was little and in trouble, “Mar Marie” was how I knew I’d crossed a line. Shortened first name and middle name. That meant shit was about to go down.

The room is spinning. I need a freaking minute. Noth- ing is making sense and I’m trying not to throw up be- cause the phrase “child molester” is lodged in my throat and making me gag. And somehow, somewhere—I

screwed up and I’m in trouble?

What in the actual fuck is going on?

My father, mother, and their lawyer began to exit toward a small side room. Once again blissfully numb, I followed.

What am I doing here? I screamed inside my head. The lawyer turned to me and said, “Clearly this is difficult for everyone. I’m not convinced your mom or dad truly understand the plea agreement and the ramifications. They’ve requested that you stay and

help them decide.”

Looking back now, I don’t know how I didn’t burst out laughing. Inappropriate laughter and sarcasm are finely honed coping mechanisms for me, though maybe they’re something I developed over time in the years since the phone call.

Buddy, you really think bringing ME back into this tidy little conference room is going to help? I’m one more revelation away from running screaming out of this building straight to a Target where they sell denial- scented candles and fluffy blankets.

“I don’t understand. Is this even legal?” I finally found my voice and attempted to make sense of the mess.

The lawyer assured me I was simply there to help my parents understand what was happening and what their options were.

It sounded so simple. Just help them understand their options—options that would determine the future of an entire family. Ten children. Nine grand- children. I was desperately trying to understand it myself.

Options? What options? Does it matter?

He didn’t “accidentally and incidentally touch” my little sister. That’s not what the charges said. It was deliberate. It happened multiple times. It was planned. He sought the contact. He manipulated his victim.

As the lawyer explained the various terms possible for sentencing, my mind raced to absorb the weight of the hideous things my father had just admitted to doing. And suddenly, everything was catastrophi- cally crystal clear.

My father—the man whose approval I lived and breathed for—was a child molester.

There was nowhere to hide from it in the small room behind the closed door. I scanned for another exit, any other way out. I do this in every room I enter now—it’s a habit ingrained from that single searing moment. I do this in every life decision. I always, ALWAYS have an escape plan now. Never again will I allow myself to be trapped. Not literally, not figuratively. So many things will never be the same.

There was only one door—the door that led back into the courtroom. This too is true in life. Often, the

only way out is through.

As the truth thundered inside me, I looked around the room, fully expecting the noise of the revelation to have the same effect on those around me. Once again, I realized I was the only one experiencing shock.

There are many kinds of loneliness. Being alone with the ugliest truth you’ve ever heard is a gut punch I’ve never figured out how to recover from. It creates a distance between you and family that crosses a bridge, blows it up, incinerates all the remaining pieces, and refuses to be rebuilt.

Enough, I thought. He needs me. He is broken. This is destroying him. I don’t have to understand it right now, but this is my father, and he needs me.

The small internal pep talk cleared the fog. I could listen and once again do what was always, always expected of me. I took control.

I spoke to the attorney. Together we explained to my parents what each option meant in this moment and for the future. Together we reached a consensus. Fully in control, I led them from the room. Everyone resumed their places in the courtroom.

Did you catch that? I led them.

Gross. To this day, I wish I’d had the strength to simply walk out and leave them to their fate.

Their fate. Something else happened in those moments. His crime became her choice. When she stabbed my thigh with those nails and reprimanded me, telling me in no uncertain terms that she had known walking into that courtroom exactly how awful the truth was, she linked her fate to his.

Permanently.

Twenty-four years later, I can’t remember what happened next. I’m faintly amused to recollect a family trip to Burger King after the proceedings were finished. I cannot remember if Robert was there or if he went directly to jail. I think maybe he was released and given a date to report to serve his sentence, but I’m not sure.

There are many blank spaces in the days and weeks that followed.

I could probably reach out to some family members and work through it with them, but there is nobody willing to remember with me. The memories are my burden alone.

I know he pled guilty. I know he was convicted. In the next several months, he would serve an astound- ing sixty days in jail for molesting my adopted little sister. I recall now, with self-disgust, how worried I was about him. I worried he would be abused in jail. I worried he might be killed. It broke my heart to know my daddy was locked up and miserable. I remember hearing from Bea that another prisoner had thrown a coffee mug at him and it hit him in the

face. I sobbed over this. Sobbed. Clearly the other inmates had found out what he was in for. Pedophiles are the lowest of the low. If only I could explain to them all, he wasn’t THAT kind of pedophile! They didn’t understand!

He was the man I most admired and looked up to, the man who could solve all my problems. The man I turned to even after I left home, married, and had four children of my own to help me reason things out. He was a loving, doting grandfather to my four oldest children.

Nothing felt real. I lost count of the times I tried to will myself to wake up to a different reality.

Slowly the mind adapts, because it has to. As I visited him in jail, my mind adapted.

As I looked around and realized nobody was com- ing to rescue me, I adapted.

As I realized that in this huge, extended family, so proud of its Mennonite heritage and faith—nobody was coming—I adapted.

My youngest daughter was born two weeks after I found out about my father’s arrest and before the case went before a judge. He was only allowed to visit once while I was in the hospital after she was born. I remember his strange reluctance to hold his newest granddaughter. In my misplaced love and trust, I was insistent. I needed him to know that I still loved him and trusted him.

To do this, I would place my youngest daughter in the arms of the devil I knew.

I didn’t know then of the abuse he had already committed against my older daughter when she was only six weeks old. That conversation would come later in another phone call, while I was standing in my kitchen. One of many phone calls I would answer from the man I used to call “dad.” One of countless truths he would unburden himself of, dump on me, and devastate me again and again.

Truths that I alone would carry for years. Truths I spared everyone from.

Because I have found the truth does not always set you free. Not right away. Sometimes, the truth isn’t given to you with pure intent. When the truth is given to you because it is a grenade and the pin has been pulled, it’s thrown at you in a desperate attempt at self-preservation with absolutely zero regard for the damage it’s about to do.

Why would I throw that grenade over to someone else? No. I would curl my body around it as tightly as I could and allow it to explode, hoping I could absorb the damage myself and spare everyone I loved.

In effect, I would become the secret keeper. How very noble of me.

Looking back, it sickens me. Everything is differ- ent in the light of truth. The life I had lived was a lie. The family I loved was a lie. The church that was

my refuge became a source of pain and a haven for accusations. The faith that had sustained me became an unbearable burden. The God who had scooped me up and saved me, placed me in a loving Christian home, became either a powerless cardboard cutout or a cruel puppet master (more on that later). Looking back now, I know. But in the aftermath of the first explosion, I knew only what the secrets allowed me to know. The explosion in the courtroom exposed some- thing dark and rotting at the core of everything I believed. But the fuse was lit five months before that day in late January of 2002. For me, it all started with the sound of a ringing phone.

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This is where my story truly begins—in a courtroom where ugly truths were spoken aloud and everything I thought I knew about my family was destroyed in a single afternoon.

If you want to know how I got to that courtroom, what those charges really said, and how we all survived the explosion that followed, “The Secret Keeper” is available now on Amazon.

To fellow survivors reading this: I see you. Your story matters. You are not alone.

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Get “The Secret Keeper” on Amazon → The Secret Keeper

Resources for survivors:

• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

Next week: Why I chose to break my silence after 29 years of secret keeping