Rape (15 page)

Last you heard was years ago. Before even your mother married her friend DeWitt. Ex-navy man she'd met at the Christian Fellowship Tabernacle where a woman friend from AA had taken her.

A long time ago. After Fritz Haaber. After the surviving rapists plea-bargained degrees of guilt, accepted prison sentences and agreed to no trial.

No trial. Teena burst into tears, so grateful.

You have to concede, by now Dromoor would be middle-aged. Hard to imagine that man other than he'd been but in fact it's possible you wouldn't recognize him.

“Beth? Is something wrong?”

Your husband is touching your arm. Sometimes he's annoyed by these sudden fugues of yours on the street, sometimes he's concerned. He never seems to see who, or what, has captivated your attention so that you stand transfixed, staring. And then, waking from the trance, you feel a wave of heat rising into your face as if you've been slapped. You stammer, “Why—why do you ask?”

“You looked so lonely, suddenly. As if you'd forgotten I'm here.”