I honestly don’t remember much about what happened that day.
Mommy screamed some bad words at Daddy, and then Daddy got out his gun, and I was scared.  I hid under a blanket.  I heard Mommy scream as Daddy hit her with the gun.  When she stopped, Daddy went away.  I crawled over to her still body.
“Mommy, are you dead?” I whispered, putting one of my hands over hers, which was bloody with nails torn.
“Sarah, you have to do something about your Daddy,” she said, without answering my question.  “Do something.  Don’t let him hurt you.”
Then she seemed to fall asleep.  Then I heard Daddy coming back.
The gun had been put down near Mommy’s legs after Daddy finished with her, and without really thinking I picked it up.  On TV, I had seen some big, scary men being afraid of other men who had guns so I thought maybe that Daddy wouldn’t hurt me if I had the gun.
He saw me on my knees, my blankie no longer covering me, holding the gun.
“Sarah,” he said, acting very nervous, “Put the gun down.”
I thought that Mommy wouldn’t want me to, so I didn’t do it.  I held it like they did on TV.  Daddy kept walking closer, slowly, and so I fired the gun, again, just like on TV.
He fell down and I put the gun down.
“You’re a real little bitch,” he whispered to me when I went over to him.  “Just like your mother.”
Then he fell asleep too, except he wasn’t breathing.  Neither was Mommy.
I didn’t know what do to.  I wrapped up in my blankie and looked at Mommy.
Then I remembered that when something bad happened, I was supposed to call 911.
Then police officers and doctors came into the room and they asked me what happened.  I don’t know why everyone kept asking me that.  I told the lady on the phone, I told a bunch of police officers, and I told doctors that, too.
“Daddy hit Mommy and she fell asleep.  I shot Daddy and he fell asleep.  They aren’t breathing.”
The police officers were nice and let me keep my blankie on the way to the police station.  I was a little scared but they said that I was going to be okay.  At the police station, they gave me some donuts as they asked me silly questions, like my name and birthday.   I didn’t know why they needed to know that.  They also wanted to know about my aunts and uncles and grandparents.  I never had any relatives.  Mommy and Daddy were “only children” and all of my grandparents were dead.
Then one of them looked me straight in the eye and told me that I had to be arrested for murder.
“Isn’t murder bad?”
“Yes, it’s very bad.”
“So I did something bad?  I’m a bad girl?”
“Well, Sarah, you did do something bad, but you’re a good girl.”
I didn’t understand how I could do something bad but still be a good girl.