wife. "What did you tell him? What could you tell
him? Your daughter never confided anything to the
mother she despised!"
Jillian stood in her lovely suit in unwrinkled
perfection, seeming about to open her mouth and
scream. "Did my mother come to you, Jillian, and tell
you why she had to run? Did she, did she?"
"Go away. Leave me alone."
I persisted. "What made my mother run from
this house? You've never adequately explained. Was it
a five-year-old boy? Or was it your husband? Did my
mother come to you with tales of her stepfather's
sexual advances? Did you pretend you didn't know
what she was talking about?"
Her pale hands pulled at her loosely fitting rings, on and off, on and off. I'd never seen her wear rings before. Mindlessly she dropped three rings into an ashtray. The small clatter of the rings striking crystal caused her eyes to widen. "I don't know what
you're talking about."
"Grandmother . . ." and I said this clearly,
sharply, causing her to shudder as she went dead
white. "Was Tony the reason my mother ran from this
house?"
Her cornflower blue eyes, so like my own, went
wide, stark, bleak, as if I'd snatched the floor from
beneath her feet. Gossamer strands of sanity seemed
to shred before they snapped behind her eyes, and her
hands fluttered helplessly to her face. Her palms
pressed tight on either cheek, so tightly her lips parted
and from them came screams, terrible, silent screams
that tortured her face--and suddenly Tony was there,
yelling at me!
"Don't you say one more word!" He stepped