“I know he raped her.” Marshall kept his tone even, nonjudgmental, as he asked, “But he’s a lamb?”

“Like an Old Testament lamb,” she explained. “I think a million men have done the same damn thing. Most of them never paid.”

He understood then. Kind of. “They should have paid, you mean.”

“But they didn’t,” she agreed. “There are so many of them out there. Boys who had mothers and sisters and sweethearts, who grew up to have wives and daughters and careers. They act as if this one thing never happened. They tell themselves the story in another way until they believe it. Or they don’t tell it at all, and they make themselves forget. But meanwhile they raped a real, live girl. She has to live with it. She sees them pop up in her Facebook feed when class reunions happen, sees their wedding and birth announcements in the paper. She has to eat it, this thing they did, and it eats at her. It’s wrong. It’s awful.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“They should make amends,” she said. “They should face her, and confess, and try to make it right. They should go to jail and do volunteer work and show their sons they must be better. They should have to live with it, too, because I think no matter what they tell themselves, it must stay in them. A canker in them. A black place.”

“Yes,” he agreed again.

“But they don’t, do they? Most of them don’t. Certainly not the rich ones. Not the ones in packs, who lie for each other. Not the ones who lie to themselves. These fine young men all go on and have their bright futures.” The way she said those words, he knew she’d thought them before. She said them like they were a bad taste in her mouth that she was trying to push out. “They don’t pay.”

He saw it now. “Trey was the lamb.”

She nodded. “It’s like the world picked one, to be shot for it, to lie there bleeding in the grass, apologizing. I wish that they would all pay their own damn bills. Him included. If only . . .”

She might have said more, but Robbie came running back then, hurling himself violently into her arms. “Time-out ober! Gramma says!”

She laughed, and Marshall had to grab her to keep them both from falling into the pool. That was the end of it. She never spoke of it again. Not in that way. Instead she kissed the corn-colored hair on top of her boy’s head, gathering his stocky, solid body in her arms.

“I think Grandma had enough time-out,” she said to Marshall, eyes sparkling. “Maybe it’s nap time.”

“No!” Robbie said instantly.