Katherine Will

There once was a little African-American girl named Marguerite who, at the age of four, was put on a train in Los Angeles with her little brother to travel by themselves to Arkansas to live with their strong and pious grandmother. Four years later, their mother, a charming if rather shady woman whom they had never really known, came to claim the children and bring them to live in St. Louis. There, eight-year-old Marguerite was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend. Marguerite told her brother, even though the man threatened her with death if she told. The man was convicted of rape, but then murdered by her uncles. After this, Marguerite would not speak. Traumatized by the rape and terrified that she had caused a man's death, she retreated into silence and refused to utter a word to anyone except her beloved brother for a very long time.