Mondays Are Yellow, Sundays Are Grey: A Mother's Fight to Save Her Children from the Nightmare of Sexual Abuse

Pauline Carey is the author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

This is a horrifying real-life story of a mother’s gradual discovery
of the sexual abuse of her two daughters by their father, and her
struggle to end it. In 1982, Ellen Prescott’s husband was living apart
from the family, but four-year-old Carolina visited him regularly.
Initially her mother ignored the signs of sexual abuse. When she finally
did seek professional help, doctors and social workers told her she was
overreacting to these signs; her lawyer informed her that she was
unlikely to win a custody battle, since by that time she was both
jobless and homeless. Even when a medical examination of Carolina proved
abuse, the men in Ellen’s life refused to believe that the father was
guilty. Ellen never laid charges. The father is now out of the picture.
Ellen and her daughters have slowly put their lives back together, but,
as Ellen confides in a therapy session, “I won’t ever stop feeling
guilty.”