Did you know that a report of child abuse occurs every 10 seconds in the United States alone? According to Statista Research Department, there were 618,399 victims of child abuse in the United States in 2020. Of those, 136,000 victims were under one year of age and 150,673 between the ages of two and five.
In keeping with those numbers, Fictitious Truths recaps Lucy’s story, one beginning when she was five years old, as she watched violent fighting between her parents. She cried out for her mother when she walked out the door, never to look back and leaving her daughter with Glitch, her father.
Lucy’s story takes a turn for the worse when she and her father move into a one-room apartment. Her father is an alcoholic and Lucy tries to survive the bitter cold winter in a filthy apartment with little heat, no warm clothes, no food and only cold water running from the faucets.
Meantime, Glitch, needing beer and cigarettes, decides to rob the neighborhood market. The clerk, Charlie, shoots Glitch in self-defense. Yet, Charlie is a kind and gentle man who feels awful that he had shot someone. He visits Glitch in the hospital and agrees to drop charges, as long as Glitch attends AA meetings, church on Sundays and works in the market for his room and board.
Glitch isn’t even aware that Lucy had run away to a big blue trash ben where she could hide and search the trash for food. Luckily, before she froze to death, she was found by an elderly woman who brought her home and cares for her. The problem? The elderly woman decides Lucy is the perfect candidate to replace her dead child, Bess and so she doesn’t report Lucy to the authorities.
Lucy is too young to understand what is occurring and learns to love Em (the elderly lady) and her puppy, Riley. Months pass before Glitch, Lucy’s father, realizes that he doesn’t even know where Lucy is. With Charlie’s help, he files a missing child report.
Shortly, Em’s scheme is discovered by a neighbor and Lucy is removed to an emergency shelter. Em is placed on house arrest for kidnapping while Lucy grieves the loss of Em and the puppy. She doesn’t understand why she can’t return to live with Em.
Within days, Lucy is placed in an emergency foster home where the foster mom, Mrs. Garrison, becomes captivated by the little girl. She applies to foster Lucy for an extended period of time, rather than a short emergency stay, and little by little she wins the small girl over as their relationship deepens.
Lucy refers to Mrs. Garrison as Mrs. G and begins to feel safe in her presence, until she learns that the court has ordered her to visit with her father, Glitch. Remaining ever fearful of her father, Lucy must now face her deepest fear and go with her social worker for a supervised visit with the father she ran away from. We pick up Lucy’s story the morning of her visit with her father.