“Suicide?” Sara asked. “No, she wouldn’t do that to her precious son.”
Kate took a breath.Did she dare ask about the Great Secret?“Cal stayed in Lachlan and you left.”
Sara took her time before answering. “Our plan was to leave town the week after we graduated from high school. Cal had a college football scholarship and I had student loans. But the day after the graduation ceremony, there was an accident. His father was under a car, working on it, and the jack fell. It crushed his legs and he was paralyzed. In one second the support of them all was dumped on Cal’s very young shoulders.”
“But you left town anyway,” Kate said.
“Yes, but not because of that.”
“Then why?”
Sara went to the big window and put her hand on the glass. “On that same day, the man my best friend, Tayla, was planning to marry, Walter Kirkwood, raped me. Violently raped me.”
“No,” Kate whispered.
“Someone had told Walter that I was trying to force Tayla not to marry him. He was in a rage. He found me alone and...” Sara waved her hand. “The horrible details don’t matter. It was a very long time ago. Afterward, I was trying to walk home. I was bruised and bloody and my clothes were ripped, and I saw Tayla. I told her what Walter had done to me.” Sara paused. “She didn’t believe me. She said I was a liar, and she left me there, bleeding and torn.” It took Sara a few moments to calm herself. “When I got home, I cleaned up as best I could. I had a lot of bruises and deep scratches, and I...”
“Did you tell your mother?”
“Of course not!” Sara said. “I think Randal saw me when I came in, but I’m not sure. I went next door to Cal. I’d never seen him like he was on that day. He was glassy-eyed, traumatized, bent over, his head in his hands. Walter had said he was going to tell Cal that I’d wanted it, that I’d been eager for it. You see, back then, rape wasalwaysthe girl’s fault. If she’d worn a low-cut top four years before, then it was said that a man couldn’t be blamed for his actions.” Sara paused. “I assumed that’s what Cal had been told. He began saying that his life was over, that he could never leave town. In my stupidity, in myvanity, I thoughtIwas the cause of it.”
“Because of the...the purity thing?”
“Yes. Girls didn’t bed-hop then.Reputationwas the number one word in my generation of women. Keeping our reputation clean was the most important thing in our lives. I assumed Cal no longer wanted me. I was soiled. Unclean. It was exactly how I felt. Dirty.” Sara stopped, her chest heaving.
“What did you do?”
“I had some money hidden so packed a suitcase and left Lachlan. I had no idea where I was going. I just got on a bus and went. It was the lowest point in my life.”
“Cal was too upset to hear you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. I didn’t know it, but he’d just come back from the hospital. He’d been told that his father would forever be in a wheelchair, and Cal knew his life was over. He wasn’t the kind of person to run away to play sports and leave behind a crippled father and a stepmother without financial support. Cal knew he’d have to turn down his scholarship and stay in town to run his father’s auto shop.”
“When Cal realized you were gone, he had no way to contact you, did he?”
“None at all. I was impressively clever in disappearing without a trace. I had good grades so it was easy to get into another university in another state. I got a job and—” She waved her hand. “It was over a year before I heard what happened. By then, Cal had impregnated Donna, and of course he’d done the honorable thing and married her.”
“But you did see him again,” Kate said. “I’ve pieced that much together. So why didn’t youstaywith him?”
“About three years after I left, I sent my parents my contact information. I knew they’d give it to Cal. He called and we met. Not here but upstate, and we talked.”
“Did you tell him what Walter did to you?”
“No! I still thought of that with shame. Besides, my mother had told Cal I left town because I’d heard that his father had been hurt. Since Cal wouldn’t leave town, she said I’d dumped him. I went with that story. I said I had to get out of Lachlan and see the world.”
“Did he believe you?”
Sara gave a small smile. “No, but he didn’t say so. What he did say was that he’d get a divorce and we could live together anywhere in the world that I wanted.” She looked at Kate. “But that would have meant leaving his son or taking the child away from his mother.”
When Sara paused, Kate silently waited. She felt her aunt had more to tell.
“You see, there was something else. Something I’ve told no one until now.” She took a long breath. “After what Walter did to me, I knew I was injured, but I didn’t go to a doctor. I had too much guilt. Did I ask for it? Had I caused it? It wasn’t until about two years later that I went for a pap smear. The doctor sat down on his little stool, and said, ‘Who did this to you?’”
Sara paused for a moment. “I had to have some repair surgery, but in spite of that, I was told that I’d never have children.”
Kate’s voice was soft. “You would never take the child from his mother and you knew you couldn’t give Cal any children.”
“Right. And I knew Cal would hate himself if he left them all—his father, stepmother, wife, and son. I couldn’t do that to him.”
