A few minutes later I made the suggestion that we could risk the highway north from Prunedale to the airport. Klara agreed. She also slept for an hour. I nudged her awake when we were around twenty minutes away from San Francisco International, just as the 2 p.m. NPR news was coming on the air. The third item was ‘about a horrendous shooting in the desert region of Twentynine Palms near the Joshua Tree National Park’.

There was an interview with a former colleague of Elise’s at UCLA who said that she was always noted for being someone ‘with a strong ethical viewpoint and a horror of cruelty and injustice; a woman who believed that you had to truly act on your beliefs in a very corrupt modern world. But to discover that Elise lost her life helping a sexually brutalized, underage woman … it’s the stuff of modern legend, isn’t it?’

After this there was a spokesperson from the California State Police saying that ‘Professor Flouton’s murder at the hands of an anti-abortion activist – who also shot the young woman whom Dr Flouton had decided to shelter – points up the terrible price paid when such activism turns violent. The woman who shot Dr Flouton did so – according to the priest eyewitness on the scene – when Dr Flouton threw herself in front of the teenager who had been the victim of statutory rape for years … and was over five months pregnant at the time. The fact that the woman who killed Dr Flouton first shot the teenager in the stomach … well, I don’t have to speak further of the tragic irony inherent in the fact that a “right to life” activist killed an unborn child while allegedly defending the rights of unborn children.’

There was one final item on this story. A woman named Patricia Babson – who was the ‘director of communications’ for Patrick Kelleher – made a statement:

‘Given that the late Richard Grout worked for the organization in security for several years – and that Mr Kelleher has a long-standing commitment to both women’s rights and the rights of the unborn child – he is beyond devastated by what has transpired. We want to assure the public that this young woman will be taken care of for the rest of her life … and that a chaired professorship is being funded by Mr Kelleher in Dr Flouton’s name at UCLA.’

When the news item ended I told my daughter:

‘What you said would happen has happened. Amber is being paid off big time to stay silent. In the meantime Todor and Kelleher have also ensured that Elise is going to become some sort of a folk hero. Maybe even a saint.’

‘Yeah, she’ll probably end up canonized by every progressive group in the country.’

‘Your tone is strange. Don’t tell me you wish you were the one being martyred now?’

‘Martyrdom is cool.’

‘Stop talking shit. Be happy you’re alive.’

‘I am …’