ZELDA FELT a surge of excitement when she woke up the following morning. She was getting closer; she could feel it. She had slept far better than the previous night and could remember no bad dreams, not even fragments. Her nights were unpredictable, as were the moods of despair and feelings of worthlessness that washed over her like tsunamis out of nowhere and swept all hope away. She had no way of foreseeing them. Or the panic attacks. Sometimes she could guess later that a specific incident had set off the chain reaction—a face in the crowd that seemed too much like one of the men who had abused her, groups of men behaving aggressively, men giving her certain glances or making lewd comments, bedraggled, frightened-looking girls sitting on pavements hugging their knees and keeping their heads down as they begged for loose change. But her panic didn’t always require any of those triggers to set it off.

Raymond had learned to leave her alone when such feelings enveloped her, though more and more she found herself going to him for comfort, wanting to be held. That had taken a long time. Her psychiatrist, if she had one, would no doubt have noted it as a positive sign, an acceptance of the need for human warmth and help she had spurned for so long after her traumatic experiences. But Raymond never questioned her, never asked for explanations; he simply gave her comfort when she needed it. Maybe that was why she had started to trust him after so long, to love him. She was quite aware that the only two men she had ever loved, apart from her father, whom she could hardly remember, were much older than she was, but she didn’t dwell on it. She was happy with Raymond, happy in a way she had never thought she could be again, and as happy as she could ever be, given the nightmares and the shame and the guilt—not for what she had done, but for what she had allowed it to do to her.