My 7-year-old Niece Slapped Me In Front Of The Whole Family Because My Brother-in-law Claimed I Was Seducing Him. My Sister Believes His Doctored Photos And Wants To Disown Me. I’m Finally Fighting Back By Inviting Him To A “Private” Meeting Tonight.
The Barbecue Incident
I was grabbing a burger from the grill at my parents’ backyard barbecue when my niece Kelly walked up to me and slapped me across the face so hard my ear started ringing. I stumbled backward and grabbed the edge of the picnic table to keep myself from falling.
Kelly stood there glaring at me and said:
“Mommy says you deserve it because you’re a whore.”
My cousin said:
“What the hell?”
And my mother dropped her glass of lemonade on the patio and it shattered everywhere. Everyone was staring at Kelly and then at me because a seven-year-old had just called me a whore in front of my entire family and I had no idea why.
“Kelly,” I said, my voice shaking, “Why would you say that to me?”
Kelly didn’t answer; she just crossed her little arms over her chest and stared at me with an expression that didn’t belong on a child’s face. My sister Jackie came storming across the yard with her husband Troy right behind her.
The Accusation
Jackie had always been the dramatic one growing up, the one who slammed doors and screamed during arguments while I sat quietly and waited for things to blow over. But I’d never seen her face twisted up with this much hatred before. She looked at me the way you look at something rotting in the garbage.
“Get away from my daughter,” Jackie said, grabbing Kelly and shoving her behind her back.
“Jackie, what is happening right now?” I asked. “What did I do?”
My father stepped forward and said:
“Girls, let’s take this inside and talk about it calmly.”
But Jackie wasn’t listening to anyone; she was focused entirely on destroying me.
“You know exactly what you did,” Jackie screamed. “My birthday party last month, you waited until I was blowing out my candles and then you followed my husband into the kitchen.”
“That’s not true,” I said immediately.
“Shut up!” Jackie yelled. “You pressed yourself against him, you whispered in his ear that you wanted him, you tried to shove your tongue down his throat, and when he pushed you off, you grabbed his belt and told him I would never have to know.”
I heard my mother say:
“Oh my god, Charlotte.”
Behind me, I heard whispers spreading through the crowd of family members who had gathered to watch my life fall apart.
“None of that happened,” I said. “Jackie, I swear to you none of that happened.”
“So my husband is a liar?” Jackie asked. “Is that what you’re saying right now? That Troy just made all of this up for fun?”
Troy’s Performance
Troy stepped forward and put his hand on Jackie’s shoulder.
“Babe, don’t do this to yourself,” he said quietly. “She’s not going to admit it.”
“No,” Jackie said, shaking him off. “I want to hear her say it. I want to hear her stand there and call my husband a liar to his face.”
I looked at Troy standing behind my sister with his jaw clenched and his eyes on the ground. He was shaking his head slowly back and forth. He looked devastated and traumatized; he looked exactly the way a man should look when recounting something that never happened.
“Troy is lying,” I said, and my voice cracked on the words. “Jackie, I would never do that to you. You’re my sister. I’ve never even thought about Troy that way.”
“Don’t you dare say his name!” Jackie screamed. “The texts, Charlotte! The pictures you’ve been sending him for months begging him to meet up with you behind my back! When he kept saying no, you cornered him at my party and tried to force yourself on him. He showed me everything.”
“What texts?” I was crying now because I couldn’t help it. “What pictures? Jackie, there are no texts, there are no pictures. None of this ever happened.”
“I saw them with my own eyes,” Jackie said. “I saw what you wrote to him. I saw what you sent him. So don’t stand there and lie to my face.”
I felt like I was losing my mind; there were no texts, there were no pictures, I had never sent Troy anything in my life.
“Jackie, please,” I said. “Troy is the one who came on to me that night. He followed me into the kitchen and put his hands on my waist. He said you didn’t appreciate him. I shoved him off and told him I would tell you everything and he grabbed my wrist and said, ‘No one would ever believe me.'”
Troy let out this long, exhausted sigh and finally looked up at me with tears in his eyes.
“This is exactly what I was afraid of, babe,” he said to Jackie in a broken voice. “I told you she would flip everything around. I told you she would try to make me the bad guy. I didn’t want to say anything because I knew it would tear your family apart, but I couldn’t keep lying to you anymore.”
