The few times Shelley has been able to afford good therapy, she has learned that on occasion she disassociates—that she might realize she has heard nothing coming out of the mouth of the person standing in front of her because the tightening of her own throat has forced her to think only of the click, click, click of a distant ceiling fan while she wonders, What next? What next? What next? And apparently it isn’t a legitimate excuse that someone is boring and eating up all the oxygen around you in a way you find offensive. The spoken word is overrated, and if there is a hell like what Brent’s parents taught him to believe and she is forced to go there, she will have to sit in a doorless room and listen on and on and on.

Her job has been a lesson in focus and vigilance as she records every word and gesture and mannerism but as objectively as possible, which is another lesson in discipline, such amazing discipline, and focusing on the concrete without analyzing, a nearly impossible exercise to pull off in real life, and in fact it has been quite difficult in this particular case, because the young murdered woman’s face is so familiar. Shelley knows that she probably passed her a million times, in the grocery store, in the post office, the makeup masking the very young face of someone nearly invisible in society, and so in light of that—the murder and abuse—how can you possibly listen to someone talking about the young woman’s weight or the way she wore her hair as if that is significant? And it is hard for Shelley to listen to all of that because she’s heard it her whole life. Have you gained a little weight? What made your skin break out? Do you think if you had a job that forced you to walk around you wouldn’t gain weight? Do you think if you just gave up anything that has ever given you pleasure that maybe you would look better, behave better, do better in school? I’d take you to a dermatologist if I could afford it—try some Clearasil, scrub harder. The alternative to criticism was no attention at all, which would have been the better choice had she had any power to choose.