She paused, rubbing her temples again.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.

"So long ago. Why does the memory still hurt so much?"

"I don't mean to upset you. If you need to rest for a while, I can come back when-"

"I never spoke about this to anyone. Ever. Maybe I should have. Maybe it wouldn't keep torturing me if I'd told someone, if I'd tried to explain."

"Do you want to explain it to me?"

She looked at me in anguish for the longest while, searching my eyes. "To a stranger. Yes. Someone whose judgments I'll never have to face again."

"I don't make judgments, Mrs. Garner. All I want is to get my wife and son back. Do you know anything that can help me do that?"

She struggled with her thoughts. "One night, he kissed me on the cheek. Another night, after one of his nightmares, after I held him and calmed him, he pecked my cheek again. Or tried to. He grazed my lips, as if he'd aimed for my cheek and missed. It was an awkward moment. I stood as soon as I got him settled in bed. I felt uncomfortable, but I kept telling myself that I was imagining things, that the boy hadn't meant anything."

"Mrs. Garner, you don't need to-"

"I have to. Somehow I have to get it out of me. I wanted to take care of the boy so much that I was in denial. Each intimacy seemed innocent. Like when I tried to teach him to read and write. That's what I used to be: a teacher at the high school. This happened at the end of summer. School hadn't started yet. I had time to try to teach him. I used the Bible, since he already knew the words. We sat together at the kitchen table. Our chairs were close. There was nothing wrong. We were just a teacher and a student sitting at a table working on a school problem, arid yet, in retrospect, I realize that he sat closer than he needed to. When he helped me make dinner, our hands would touch briefly. I didn't think anything of it. One of the reasons I haven't told anybody about this is that I'm afraid it'll seem as if I took some kind of"- she had trouble saying the word-"enjoyment… That's the furthest thing from the truth. I know that there are a lot of twisted people in this world, Mr. Denning. But I'm a churchgoing, Godfearing woman, and I assure you that I am not capable of enjoying the touch of a teenager whom I considered to be like a son."

An uncomfortable silence gathered. I made myself nod, encouraging her to continue.

"But it's because I wanted so desperately to take care of him that everything happened. One night, after another of his nightmares, when I held him, he grazed my…" Self-conscious, she looked down at the front of her dress. "It seemed accidental, yet I finally admitted that too many accidental gestures like that had happened, and I told him that certain kinds of touching weren't appropriate. I told him that I wanted the two of us to be close but that there were different kinds of closeness. He said that he didn't know what I meant but that if I wanted him to keep a distance, he would."

"The next night…" She couldn't get the words out. Her eyes glistened, close to weeping. "May I see the photograph of your wife and son again, please?"

Puzzled, I took out my wallet.

She studied it even longer than the first time. "Such a wonderful-looking family. What are their names?"

"Kate and Jason."

"Are you happily married?"

"Very." Now I was the one who had trouble speaking.

"Is your son a good boy?"

"The best." My voice became hoarse.

"How will this help you find them?" Moisture filled her eyes.

If Kate and Jason are still alive, I thought. What I'd learned from Reverend Benedict filled me with despair.

"I'm betting that he has habits." I struggled to hide my discouragement. "If I can understand him, I might be able to follow his trail."

"A trail that started nineteen years ago?"

"I don't know where else to go."

"He raped me."

The porch became deathly silent, except for her sobs as tears trickled down her cheeks.

I felt paralyzed, trying to get over my shock. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to talk about it."

"Don't talk about it?" Her tears made scald marks on her cheeks. "God help me, I've been holding it inside all these years. That's the torture. My husband was the principal of the school where I taught. Around dark, the janitor called about a water pipe that had burst. My husband hurried down to learn how serious the damage was. I got ready for bed. The boy… The rotten son of a bitch bastard-"

The torrent of what for Mrs. Garner were the crudest of obscenities shocked me.

"He came into my bedroom while I was undressing, threw me on the floor, and… I couldn't believe how strong he was. He was so frail-looking, and yet he overpowered me as if he had the force of the Devil. He kept calling me Eunice, but he knew very well that my first name is Agnes. I tried to fight him off. I scratched. I kicked. Then I saw his fist coming at me. Twice. Three times. I almost choked on my blood, lying there half-unconscious while he…"

Her voice faltered. She pulled a handkerchief from her dress, raising it to her cheeks.

"Afterward…" Some of her tears dripped from her chin. "After I vomited… After I found the strength to stand, I saw drawers open and realized that he'd stolen anything of value that he could stuff into his pockets. But that was the last thing on my mind. I staggered to the phone to call the police and get an ambulance, and all at once, I realized that I couldn't do that. I thought of the congregation and the town and the high school where my husband and I worked, and I imagined everybody staring at me. Oh, sure, they'd be sympathetic. But that wouldn't stop them from telling everybody they knew about what had happened to Agnes Garner. Being sympathetic wouldn't stop them from staring, and it wouldn't stop word from getting around to the students, who would stare even more than their parents. Rape. Rape. "I wavered in front of the phone. I remember telling myself that I had to call for help, that I was close to passing out. Instead, I forced myself into the bathroom. I used all my strength to get in the tub and wash myself where he'd…" She wiped more tears from her face. "Then I got dressed. Then I called the police. And no doctor ever had a chance to examine any part of me except my smashed lips and my bruised cheeks. I told everybody that I'd come into the bedroom and found him stealing money and jewelry. Not that I had much jewelry. I'm not that kind of a woman. All told, he took about three hundred dollars, which could be replaced, but a simple necklace that my grandmother had given me could never be replaced.

"My husband got home just after the police car arrived. The police searched for the boy but never found him. Maybe he slept in the woods. Maybe he hitchhiked and got a ride out of the area. The next day, Reverend Benedict arrived from Brockton. I learned that the boy's name was Lester Dant. I learned about the fire that had killed his parents. But I never told Reverend Benedict or Reverend Hanley what had really happened in my bedroom. I never told my husband. I never told anyone. When word got around, people stared, yes, but it was a kind of staring that I could tolerate. We'd taken a boy into our home. He'd repaid us by beating me and stealing from us. I was the kind of victim that the town could deal with."

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," I said.

"Eunice." She sounded anguished. "Why on earth did he call me Eunice?"

I didn't answer.

"You know about the underground room where his parents kept him prisoner. What else do you know? Have you any idea why he called me Eunice?"

Her tone was so beseeching that I found myself saying, "Yes."

"Tell me."

"Are you sure you want the answer?"

"The same as you need answers."