“I'm not helpless, you know,” she objected vociferously.

“Yes, you are. Don't forget, I'm the boss here,” he overruled her, and she laughed. It was so easy being with him, and so comfortable. They lay on her bed after dinner, and talked, and he held her hand, but he was desperately afraid to go any further, or of what would happen if he did. And finally, unable to stand it any longer, he turned and asked her one of the things he had wanted to know for weeks now.

“Are you afraid of me, Grace? I mean physically … I don't want to do anything that will frighten or hurt you.” She was touched that he had asked her. He had been lying next to her on her bed for two hours, and holding her hand. They were like old friends, but there was also an undeniable electricity between them. And now it was Charles who was frightened. He didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize their relationship, or make him lose her.

“Sometimes, I'm afraid of men,” she said honestly.

“Someone did some awful stuff to you, didn't they?” She nodded in answer. “A stranger?” She shook her head and there was a long pause.

“My father.” But there were other things, and she knew she needed to explain those too. She sighed, and picked up his hand again and kissed his fingers. “All my life, people tried to hurt me, or take advantage of me. After … after he was gone … my first boss tried to seduce me. He was married, I don't know … it was just so sleazy. He just assumed that he had a right to use me. And another man I had business dealings with did the same thing.” She was talking about Louis Marquez and didn't want to explain him to Charles just yet, although she knew that eventually, if this got serious, she'd have to. “This other man kept threatening, threatened that I'd lose my job if I didn't sleep with him. He used to show up at my apartment. It was disgusting … and then there was someone I went out with. He did pretty much the same thing, used me, made a fool of me, never gave a damn. He put something in my drink and I got horribly sick. But he didn't rape me at least. At first I was afraid that maybe he had after he'd drugged me, but he hadn't. He just made me look like a fool afterwards. He was a real bastard.”

Charles looked horrified. He couldn't imagine people doing things like that. Especially to someone he knew. It was appalling. “How did you know he hadn't raped you?” he asked in an agonized voice, thinking of what she must have been through.

“My roommate took me to a doctor she knew. Nothing had happened. But he pretended that it had, and told everyone that. He told my boss, which was why he went after me, and I guess why he expected to sleep with me. That was why I quit my job and left Chicago.”

“Good luck for me.” He smiled, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

“Those were the only men I really had any dealings with. I only went out with that one guy in Chicago, and he made a real ass of me. I never went out with anyone in high school … because of my father …”

“Where did you go to college?” he asked, and she smiled at the memory.

“In Dwight, Illinois,” she said honestly.

“And who did you go out with there?” This time she laughed, remembering what would have been her choices.

“Not a soul. It was an all-girls school, so to speak.” But she knew then that she'd have to tell him soon. She just didn't want to tell him all of it on her birthday. It was too hard to go through, and they'd had such a nice time. It was the best birthday she'd ever had, even with her broken bones and her stitches and her crutches. He had made up for everything and a lot of years with his dinner, and his present, and his kindness.

He didn't want to push her much further than he already had, but he wanted to understand something more clearly. “Am I correct in believing that you're not a virgin?”

“That's right,” she glanced up at him, looking breathtakingly beautiful in a blue satin bathrobe he'd bought her.

“I just wondered … but there hasn't been anyone in a long time, has there?”

She nodded. “I promise we'll talk about it sometime … just not tonight. …” He didn't want to talk about it on her birthday either. He suspected correctly that it was going to be hard for her, and he didn't want to spoil their evening.

“Whenever you're ready … I just wanted to know … I don't ever want to do anything that scares you.” But as he said the words, and she had her face turned up to his, listening to him, he found himself melting toward her and he couldn't help it. He gently took her face in his hands, and ever so carefully kissed her. She seemed cautious at first, and then he felt her responding to him. He lay down next to her, and held her close to him, and kissed her again, wanting her desperately, but he never allowed his hands to wander toward her body.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed him this time. “For being so good to me, and so patient.”

“Don't press your luck,” he almost groaned after he'd kissed her again. This was not going to be easy. But he was determined to bring her back across the bridge eventually. He knew that whatever it took, and however long, he was going to save her.

He left her apartment late that night, after he'd tucked her into bed, and she was almost sleeping. He kissed her again, and let himself out. He had borrowed a key from her, so she didn't have to get up, and he could lock the door behind him. And the next morning, as she hobbled to the bathroom and brushed her hair, she looked startled as she heard him let himself into the apartment. He had brought orange juice and bagels with cream cheese, and the New York Times, and he made her scrambled eggs and bacon.

“High cholesterol, it's good for you, trust me.” She laughed at him. And he told her to get dressed. He took her for a short walk down First Avenue, and then brought her back when she was tired. And he watched the baseball game while she slept in his arms that afternoon. She looked so beautiful and so peaceful. And when she woke up, she looked up at him, wondering how she'd been so lucky.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Mackenzie?” She smiled sleepily at him, and he leaned down to kiss her.

“I came over so you could work on your dictation.”

“No kidding.”

They ordered pizza that night, and he had brought some work with him, but he absolutely refused to let her help him. And after he'd finished, she looked at him, feeling guilty. It seemed late in the day to be keeping secrets from him, although she knew that he would never press her.

“I think I ought to tell you some things, Charles,” she said quietly after a few minutes. “You have a right to know. And you may feel differently about me after you hear them.” But it was time, before they went any further. Not everyone wanted a woman who had committed murder. In fact, she suspected that most wouldn't. And maybe Charles wouldn't either.

He took her hands in both of his, before she started and looked her in the eye squarely. “I want you to know that whatever happened, whatever they did to you, whatever you did, I love you. I want you to hear that now … and later.” It was the first time he had told her that he loved her, and it made her cry before she'd even started. But now she wanted him to listen and see how he felt after she had told him all of it. Maybe everything would change then.

“I love you too, Charles,” she said, holding him, with her eyes closed, and tears rolling down her cheeks. “But there's a lot you don't know about me.” She took a deep breath, felt for the inhaler in her pocket, and started at the beginning. “When I was a little girl, my father beat my mother all the time … I mean all the time … every night … as hard as he could … I used to hear her screams, and the sound of his fists on her … and in the morning I'd see the bruises … she always lied and pretended it was nothing. But every night he'd come home, he'd yell and she'd cry and he'd beat her again. After a while, you stop having any kind of life when those things happen. You can't have friends, because they might find out. You can't tell anyone, because they might do something to your daddy,” she said sadly. “My mother used to beg me not to tell, so you lie, and cover up, and pretend you don't know, and act like nothing's wrong, and little by little you become a zombie. That's all that I remember of my childhood.” She sighed again. It was hard telling him, but she knew she had to. And he squeezed her hand more tightly.

“Then my mother got cancer,” Grace continued. “I was thirteen. She had cancer of the uterus, and they had to do some kind of radiation, and …” She hesitated, looking for the right words, she didn't know him that well yet. “I guess that changed her … so …” Her eyes began to swim with tears, and she felt the asthma closing her throat, but she wouldn't let it. She knew she had to tell him. Her survival depended on it now just as it had on opening her eyes at Bellevue. “My mother came to me then, and told me I had to ‘take care’ of my father, to ‘be good to him,’ to be ‘his special little girl,’ and he would love me more than ever.” Charles was looking seriously worried as she told the story. “I didn't understand what she meant at first, and then she and Daddy came into my room one night, and she held me down for him.”

“Oh my God.” Tears filled his eyes as he listened.

“She held me down every night, until I knew I had no choice. I had to do it. If I didn't, no matter how sick she was, he would beat her, I had no friends, I couldn't tell anyone. I hated myself, I hated my body. I wore baggy old clothes because I didn't want anyone to see me. I felt dirty and ashamed, and I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but if I didn't do it, he would beat her, and me. Sometimes he beat me anyway, and then raped me. It was always rape. He loved violence. He loved hurting me, and my mother. Once when I didn't do it, because …” she blushed, feeling fourteen again, “because I had … my period … he beat her so bad, she cried for a week. She already had bone cancer by then, and she almost died of the pain. I did it anytime he wanted after that, no matter how much he hurt me.” She took a deep breath. It was almost over now. He'd heard the worst, or almost, and he couldn't stop crying. She gently wiped the tears from Charles's cheeks and kissed him.