And so Ronnie began to think of ways he could punish them, all of them.

And the worse the punishments he imagined for them, the bloodier, the more painful, the wider his smile became.

“Someday,” he whispered to Suzanne one night, “I’m gonna make all of ‘em real sorry for what they did. I don’t know how, exactly, but I’m gonna do it.”

My Ronnie doesn’t talk that way, he doesn’t think those things.

“But it ain’t fair!”

That’s not for you to decide, Ronnie. Can’t you just be happy that you’ve saved us? We’re happy here.

“I wanna be happy too,” he said, starting to cry and hating himself for it. “I don’t wanna have any more bad dreams or remember everything that done to all of you or…or watch how the other kids here get all sad when nobody comes on Visiting Day.”

Stop worrying about everyone else for one night, okay? You look very handsome in your new tie and shoes. Every girl there will want to dance with you.

Ronnie didn’t say anything to that.

Every girl there will want to dance with you.

That was precisely what he was afraid of.

* * *

The Valentine’s Day dance was a tradition at the Central Ohio Department for the Developmentally Disabled. Each year “clients” (that’s what they were called, not “patients” or “students” or “subjects”) from every group home, sheltered workshop, and special-education school in the county were invited (“required” would be the more appropriate word, but the Special Education Board felt it held too many negative connotations, so “invited” it was) to attend a “gala” celebration in the main ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Cedar Hill. For an entire week before the dance, classes from various schools and cells from assorted workshops gathered together decorating the space, making it look as romantic as possible. This year’s theme was “Evergreen,” after the Barbra Streisand song from the movie A Star Is Born. (Everyone else was putting on dances celebrating the Bicentennial, and a person can only take so much Red, White, and Blue before they start getting a headache—or, at least, Ronnie could only take so much, so even though he was terrified of the dance, he was at least glad they’d chosen other colors.) The drama department from Cedar Hill Senior High School donated a box of colored gels as well as loaned out a few of their stage and spot lights so that the ballroom would look extra classy.

Coupled with the opulent chandelier hanging from the center of the ceiling, the ballroom looked like something out of a fantasy movie, and made all the attendees, even Ronnie, feel like real movie stars, maybe Al Pacino or Robert Redford or that guy who played in Rocky, and all the girls felt like Jane Fonda or Sissy Spacek.

It was actually kind of cool.

Ronnie did his best to monopolize the punch service, until one of the lady supervisors pulled him out from behind the table and made him dance with her. Ronnie was shocked to find that he felt nothing while doing this—at least, nothing bad. The supervisor was in a good mood and thinking only about happy things.