Endings spawn beginnings, and so quite naturally the conclusion of the trial nudged us into our present routine, our change of place. The board of education dismissed me “with regret” and with the florid jargon bureaucrats use when only half committed to expediency. Public opinion, it seems, did not coincide with the jury’s verdict. But the university made no move against Frank. It wasn’t necessary. The number of girls who signed up for his classes plummeted to five, three of whom thought they would like to brush bodies with depravity and made advances to him. A number of the boys smirked their way through the term and asked pointed questions about the practice of incest among tribal cultures. Frank gave notice for a January departure, and we put the house up for sale. The agent warned us not to get our hopes up: our notoriety would attract a lot of curiosity-seekers not at all interested in buying a house, and once a buyer could be found, he would be certain to feel an advantage in the bargaining. For our own peace of mind, we were asked not to be in the house at all when it was being shown.

As it turned out, we sold it at a fairly small loss and went to stay with my parents for a month. My mother was valiantly cheerful and supportive and made a dress for me and a sweater for Frank. Her smiling intentions, however, were outweighed by my father, who looked as if he were on trial. His eyes seemed larger, liquefied, unable to focus—not on what he saw but on something within him. He was quiet most of the time, but it was a restrained silence. It broke the night he got drunk and cried in front of me at the kitchen table. He said I should never have married Frank, he had a feeling from the beginning something was wrong, it was Frank’s fault the way Regina turned out, and my life was ruined, our marriage now only a charade. I didn’t bother defending Frank against the insult, because I knew it was the only handle available to my father for expressing his long-term disappointment in me. And although I decided there and then it was time for us to leave, I resolved to wait a few days so my father wouldn’t think he had driven me away. Two days later, Barry came up from Texas with his wife and kids for a week’s visit. Assuming the role of brotherly protector, Barry spent his first night home making a blatant gesture of avoiding Frank. Later in the evening, Karen, Barry’s five-year-old, crawled onto Frank’s lap and asked him to help her with her puzzle. Under Barry’s watchful eyes, Frank’s hands shook in an obvious effort not to touch her in any way. She sat there smiling and babbling to him while he resisted her by quickly assembling the puzzle. When he finished, he told her to take it and show the others, then got up and played bartender to avoid sitting down again.