It Happened on Maple Street

“Up my backside.”

Calm. Stay calm.

“Did you tell him he could?”

“Of course not! I didn’t even know anything like that was anatomically possible.”

“He raped you.”

Her silence scared him. “Good God, Babe, he didn’t just rape you . . . he sodomized you!”

She was crying, softly.

“When did this happen?”

“In April of 1980.”

“Before I came to see you in July.”

That’s why she’d been so different that day. She hadn’t been in love with another man. She’d been worse than raped.

God damn the fucking bastard to hell.

“We’ll get through this.”

I wanted to believe him. It was 3:00 am and we were lying in bed in Tim’s hotel room. We were naked, and he was holding me with my head on his shoulder. We’d been talking all night.

“When did you say you met James?”

“In April of 1979.”

“A month after I didn’t meet you for lunch.”

“Yeah.”

“If I’d met you . . .”

I put my finger to his lips. “Don’t. The what-ifs will eat us alive if we let them.”

They might eat us alive anyway. We’d had so many near misses. So many times when tragedy could have been prevented. If I’d told Tim how I felt instead of asking for my ring back . . .

“We’re going to get through this.”

“How? You can’t even make love to me without danger of me flipping out on you.”

“So? If we never made love again, I’d still be happy with you. I love sex, Tara, don’t get me wrong, but I love you more.”

“But . . .”

“Besides,” he grinned at her, the old Tim grin, “I have a lot more faith in my abilities than you do. You had no problem the first time today.”

He was right about that. I was still shocked, every time I thought about it. “Because I was eighteen again and . . .”

“Then you’ll be eighteen every time until we get you through this.”

“And what happens when I have another episode like I had this afternoon?”

“Then we stop.”