her mother, I grabbed her by her arm and pulled her into my study and locked the door behind me. I planned only to frighten her a little bit and make her realize she couldn't play a girl's game with a man. I was still just twenty years old, thwarted and angry, disgusted with myself for falling so witlessly into the trap Jill had set. Before we married, Jill had her lawyer draw up papers that would put half my gross worth into her hands if ever I sued her for divorce. And that would mean I could never divorce her and hope to salvage anything for Troy. And so when I slammed and locked that door, I was punishing Jill for cheating me, and punishing Leigh for making me so
aware of my stupid mistakes."
"You raped my mother . . . my thirteen-year-old
mother?" I asked in a low, hoarse whisper. "You, with
your background and your education, acted like some
scumbag hillbilly?"
"You don't understand," he said in a desperate
kind of voice. "I had thought only to tease her,
frighten her, believing she'd be more sophisticated and
laugh and call me a fool, and then I wouldn't have
been able to perform. But she excited me with her
fright, with her panic, with her innocence that was so
appalled by the thought of what I planned to do. I told
myself she was pulling an act, for the girls of Winterhaven are notoriously open about sex. Yes, I raped
your mother. Your thirteen-year-old mother." "You beast! You horrible man!" I yelled,
jumping up and throwing myself at him and striking
his chest. I tried to scratch his face, but he was quick.
"No wonder she ran away, no wonder! And you drove
her into my father's arms so the hills and the cold and
the hunger could kill her!"
I kicked at his shins, so he released my hands to
back off, and then I ran back at him, to strike again at
his face. "I hate you! You killed her! You drove her
from here into another kind of hell!"
He easily seized my fists and held me off, his
cynical smile growing more ironic. "She didn't run
after the first time. Nor did she run after the second or
the third. You see, your mother found out she enjoyed
our forbidden lovemaking. It was exciting, thrilling.
For her, and for me. She'd come to me, stand in the