Black Eye

He is ten years old and he climbs out of the window. Not to die. To live.

Danny grows up in a house that isn’t safe. His mother dies when he is four. What follows is a stepmother who dominates every room and turns physical, a father who stays silent and hits, and a table where eating and being afraid happen at the same time. He learns to listen for footsteps in the hallway. He learns that knocking doesn’t help. And he learns to run, night after night, looking for a door that actually opens.

Black Eye is the true story of that boy, and of the people who finally took him in. It follows him from a childhood in Veghel, the Netherlands, to an adult life of work, travel and a family of his own, and to what he learned along the way about safety, trust and what a child needs.

Honest, raw, and without making it prettier than it was. For anyone who has lived through something similar, and for anyone who works with children and wants to know what it feels like on the inside.