Portsmouth Herald
By Elizabeth Kenny
ekenny@seacoastonline.com
Eleven-year-old Rachel Dellea climbs the branches of a tree in her family’s Florida yard, and listens to a conversation between her father and their family priest below.
The priest, over a few drinks, tells her father how pretty she is: blue-eyed, red hair. Rachel remembers her father, who had been abusing her since she was age 3, responding with further "sexually explicit things."
The priest rises, walks to his car and removes a six pack of beer, before telling Rachel’s father, "The nuns could use some help in the convent."
From that day forward, for the next five years, the "family priest" would stop by the house each week with a bottle of whiskey or a six pack of beer and Rachel’s father would send her with him to "work" at the church.