Nothing Sacred

“She’s lucky she has you.”

Martha smiled tiredly, thanking him for that trite little statement. Because it didn’t feel little at all.

Silence settled over the kitchen. Martha wasn’t ready for it. But knew that it had to come anyway. Activity was over for now.

“I don’t think this was an ordinary incident—if there is such a thing.”

His words fell into the quiet of the night, inciting an anger that had been usurped by exhaustion.

“I’ll agree with you there,” she said, some of the rage infiltrating her tone. “Nothing ordinary about having your daughter attacked.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the lateness of the hour showing in the slump of his shoulders, the redness of his eyes.

Tapping her knee with one finger, he said, “I mean the attack itself,” he said quietly. “It’s suspicious.”

She couldn’t take any more tonight. Ellen had been raped. Couldn’t it just be an ordinary rape? Couldn’t they leave it at that? Martha was too worn out to consider anything more.

“How so?”

She should offer him something to go with the coffee. Toast. Eggs. A good stiff drink.

Except that he was a minister who taught the benefits of moderation.

Did that mean someone who went to his church couldn’t drink in front of him?

Not that she had anything in the house. She’d thrown all the stuff away the day Todd left. Afraid her kids might get into it.

Or that she might.

David Marks was still sitting there staring at the floor, wrinkled shirt untucked from his jeans, not looking like any preacher she’d ever known. He seemed to be choosing his words with care.

“When Ellen didn’t play rough, he stopped being rough on her, as though he only wanted to do that if she did.”

Yup, Martha had been right. Her mind couldn’t take this in, couldn’t analyze, couldn’t even consider what he seemed to be saying.

“Generally speaking, rapists are cowards,” he said next.

And she’d always thought cowards were harmless.

“They pick on victims weaker than them, which gives them a feeling of strength.” He spoke slowly, softly, lulling Martha’s exhausted mind into listening.

“They use that strength to keep their sense of power alive. It feeds on itself. If there’s a break in the adrenaline rush, fear can just as easily take over and feed them, too. That’s why they tell women in self-defense classes to be firm and unafraid. Their show of confidence will often serve to disconnect the attacker from his strength, giving the victim a chance to escape. Sometimes it’s even enough to make the rapist turn tail and run.”

Great, so he was saying that Ellen only needed to yell at the guy instead of getting scared and she’d have been spared the atrocities that had changed her life forever? If Martha had taught her daughter self-defense, then Ellen would still be young at heart and innocent and relatively carefree?

God, Martha didn’t even know if her daughter had been a virgin. She hadn’t been able to bear asking.

“In the same vein, being rough keeps the adrenaline going, gives them courage.”

He wasn’t done yet?

This was far more than she needed to know. Did preachers take some course in Rapist 101? Or maybe Criminal 101? “So what’s your point, Preacher?”

“Ellen’s attacker treated her gently when she quit fighting him.”

Oh. Well, leave it to him to find something to be thankful for. She’d feel irritated with the whole idea—except that she was thankful.

It wasn’t much. But it was something.