During the next year and a half, Regina put the finishing touches on the wall that would shut out her father. In his presence, she no longer stooped to sullenness or insolence, for she had found that her most effective revenge was to ignore him. Yet he took her punishment unflinchingly, keeping her at an early curfew and insisting upon being given her exact destination (or destinations) whenever she went out with her friends.

The night she introduced us to Virgil Evans, I saw a flickering of something alien in Frank’s face. Perhaps that was the beginning of the real momentum, because from then on nothing would be the same.

Regina had had exactly three dates by the time she entered her junior year of high school. Whether this was due to her intimidating height, an overeagerness to please, which hid a cache of jealousy and resentment, her unglamorous appearance next to her prettier friends, or any combination of these, I could not say for sure. (Had she gone to Peck, I might have had more ready answers. However, neither of us thought it a good idea for her to be in the school situation with me, although Frank wanted it that way. So she attended Old Central, eight blocks from our house.) What was obvious to me was her jealousy over her girlfriends’ popularity with boys. Friday night was stag night: the girls all went out together. Saturday night was reserved for dates. It was this night that Regina sat at home, sulking and turning down every offer of consolation. Now and then, she would let slip a sour-grape criticism of her friends: they were boy-crazy or they had no taste and would go out with anyone who asked them. At these times, I saw that familiar look on her face, the one that had been there the day she sent Frank out into the vacant lot to drive the kids off the swings and the day she had begrudged Brian her coloring book. What was missing now was the gratitude, the worship, she once had for her father. Without her noticing it, I would watch her from the corner of my eye while she looked him over as though he were some kind of distasteful specimen.

“Why did you marry him?” she asked outright one day when we were alone in the car.

“What a thing to ask. I fell in love with him.”

“What with?” Her voice was cool and hard.

“Of all people, it should be obvious to you. Your father’s a rare man in his own way. He’s intelligent and kind and conscientious and . . . humble.”

“What else?”

“I think that’s plenty.”

“Didn’t you ever go out with any handsome men?”

“Yes; I just never met a handsome man who has what your father has.”

“Maybe you didn’t look around long enough. Your friend Gloria found one.”

“You can’t always help who you fall in love with.”

“If you’d married someone else, I wouldn’t look like him.”