the Laura Ingalls Wilder books again, for solace, for the company of old friends. When the good dog Jack was left behind, across the swelling Missouri River, I threw myself under my blanket and sobbed. I knew I was crying out of proportion to the dog’s bad fortune and ill treatment and yet I couldn’t stop. The tears kept coming even as I beat my fists on my mat. I was still hitting the mat when I realized I was asking a question: It had nothing to do with the dog, not at all. It was Howard; it was about Howard. Why hadn’t he come after me at Lizzy’s funeral? I hadn’t ever wondered before, and I had to sit up with the asking. Why hadn’t he tripped through the crowds and tried to help me? It had seemed, in the aftermath of the funeral, noble of him to remain and cover for my inexcusable blunder. It was a difficult job, a terrible position to be in, but he had risen to the occasion admirably. I had mortified Howard. I was far too much for him, like a daily dose of strong medicine that makes a person sputter and gag. He had had to stand in line at church, shamed, while everyone stared at him. How like him to take the blows without batting an eyelash. But if he had come after me—if he had caught up with me, and if we had climbed into the woods and lain in the dry earth together, disregarding the community that was set to pillory us; if he had been able to apologize for the thousands of times he had unthinkingly belittled me, made me feel that he knew best, that I was just off center, just enough to the left to be—and he never would have said, but he had thought it—unreliable: How different the summer would have been! He had thought I was one way when we first met, and I had gone and surprised him by being someone altogether different. He had luck on his side, however, because by the merest chance I turned out to be exactly what he wanted, someone who would show him his own strength and honor that strength. I was increasingly sure, as I sat and clutched my pillow, that the rest of our lives would have been transformed if we’d held each other and wept, if he’d been able to make some sort of offering, some token, a chink from his armor, a word, a shoring up. He was so methodical and even-tempered and in his shadow anyone would have been erratic and moody. There was nothing for me to do in his presence but sit and yap at the moon, go mad periodically, run around with a sock in my mouth, jump on him, naughty, knowing better, but feeling it was worth it if I could once or twice actually lick his face. He had been betraying me all those years, in small insidious ways, leeching from me what was my strength.
“Do you think I should call him?” I didn’t have to look to know it was Debbie, back from her self-esteem class. She was oblivious to the fact that I was under my blanket. “Officer Stephans says we have to take responsibility for our actions. Does that mean I should call him instead of waiting? Jesse said he didn’t want to hear from me again, but if I don’t call I’m not taking responsibility for my own feelings.”
“It means you’re alone,” I said without moving. “It means you go on without Jesse.” It was the harshest thing I’d say to her.
“Oh God,” she cried. “Don’t. Don’t tell me that.”
“It just means that it can’t be different,” I said. “It means that until you’re forgiven the trouble is yours. It means you have to hope for exact justice, which is probably the most merciful.”
“Stop,” she moaned. “Don’t talk to me!”
I hardly knew what I had said, or if it was true. I was confused and enlivened with the kind of pure rage Emma showered upon us on a daily basis. Howard could never have come after me at the funeral; it wasn’t in his constitution. He had had to make excuses for me ever since we’d met, and standing in line, representing the family, was no different from any other day. He seemed never to have forgiven me for myself; he had led me to believe that I was unforgivable, that there was no hope for change. I had thought all along that it wasn’t in his nature to judge, and yet in his silence he was judging continuously, always