before,” he said. “Never. It makes me wonder exactly what I did to her in the woods. What did I do that I won’t let myself remember?”
Sylvia lit another cigarette, and when she spoke her voice was gentle. “Jack, what’s the use of killing yourself over it? If you’d done what you think you did, the doctors would have known immediately. There would have been some kind of damage to”—she groped for a word, then decided that he might as well hear it out loud—“her vagina. You didn’t rape her, Jack.”
The word hit him like a physical blow. “I never thought—”
“Yes you did,” Sylvia interrupted him. “That’s exactly what you thought, and it’s exactly what you’ve always thought. And if you want the truth, that’s probably what’s at the root of your worries. Maybe Rose thinks it has to do with money and liquor. I don’t know what she thinks, and frankly, I don’t care. It’s what you think that counts. And you think you raped Sarah. Well, you didn’t, and you can’t keep torturing yourself by thinking you did. It’s over, Jack, and you’ve got to forget it. Maybe if you can forget it, you can stop drinking.”
Jack avoided her eyes, staring instead at the blotter on his desk. He saw the note on the calendar, the note reminding him to go to White Oaks on Thursday afternoon.
“It’s hard to forget it,” he said, “when I have to face Sarah every day.”
Sylvia nodded. “Of course it is. That’s why the doctors suggested that she be institutionalized for a while. It wasn’t just for her, you know. It was for you, too. It’s hard to forget something when you’re faced with reminders every day. Particularly reminders like Sarah.”
“I can’t put her away,” Jack said miserably. “Not after what I did to her.”
Sylvia came around behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. She felt the knots in the muscles, and began working to relax them.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Jack,” she said softly. “Much too hard. Let it go.” But she knew he wouldn’t.
6
Neither of them spoke until Rose turned the car into the gates of the White Oaks School. Before them, an expanse of well-tended lawn rolled gently up a rise dotted with maple trees. A gardener rode back and forth across the leaf-strewn grounds on a midget tractor, his progress marked by exposed strips of lawn. Here and there stood piles of leaves, some of them intact, others already scattered by the group of children moving from one pile to the next, systematically rescattering the leaves. The gardener seemed not to notice but drove patiently onward. Rose smiled at the scene, but it only depressed Jack.
“I love this place,” Rose said. “It’s so beautiful, no matter what season it is.” When she heard no response from her husband, she continued. “I should think it would be good for the children, just being in a place like this.”
“If they even know where they are,” Jack said flatly. “You’d think the gardener would get upset with them, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose they hired him partly because he doesn’t get upset,” Rose replied. “I don’t suppose it’s an easy place to work. I admire the people who can do it.”
“I certainly couldn’t,” Jack said. “I don’t see how any of the people here can stand it Look over there.”
He pointed across the lawn to a spot where a small boy, not more than six or seven, sat under a tree. He had found a stick and was methodically tapping the trank of the tree with it, with the regularity of a metronome. Rose stopped the car, and they watched him. He simply sat there, beating a steady rhythm on the tree trunk.
“The poor child,” Rose whispered, after several silent minutes had passed. “What do you suppose he thinks about? What do you suppose makes him that way?”
“Who knows,” Jack said uncomfortably. He watched the boy for a while, and finally his expression softened. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he said. “I don’t really hate this place. It’s just that it makes me feel so—so helpless. I see all these children, and they all seem to be part of another world, a world I can’t touch. And it tears me apart to think my own daughter is part of this world.”
Rose reached across the front seat and squeezed his hand. She put the car in gear again, and they moved toward the main building. Behind them, the boy still sat beneath the tree, slowly