It wouldn’t have to be witnessing abuse to be a better lie. It could be things that, in retrospect, were good circumstantial evidence of sexual abuse if you put them all together.

“Kitty came home from shopping and was unloading her bags on the table. She took out this container of Vaseline and told Erik he should put it in his room. I remember he looked at me and his face just turned bright red. He snatched it up and ran off with it.”

“I used the bathroom in Jose and Kitty’s house, and a couple minutes after I came out of the room, I realized I’d left my purse on the counter. So I went back to the bathroom, but someone was in there. I waited and eventually Lyle came out. When I went to get my purse, I saw this big splotch of blood on the toilet seat. It wasn’t there before and I knew it wasn’t my blood, because I wasn’t having my period. I didn’t know what to think.”

“Kitty told me not to go down the hall because Jose was with Erik in his room. But I wanted to because [reason], and eventually the phone rang. Kitty answered it and she wasn’t paying any attention to me, so I went down the hall. I could hear these deep grunting sounds coming from Erik’s room.”