In that deep sleep, in which my heart had barely continued to beat, at the very bottom of the marble coffin, I had been protected, safe. Almost I would think that Mr. Sandman’s arms had embraced me.

Vio-let Rue! Vio-let Rue!

You know, I love you.

He had never uttered these words to me, I was sure. Yet often I heard them, confused with voices at a distance. Muffled laughter.

“. . . what that terrible man did to you. Try to . . .”

But I did not remember. And Mr. Sandman was my friend. No one else was my friend.

Aunt Irma staring at me, disbelieving. Uncle Oscar, with repugnance.

For I would not testify against the abuser. My eyes were heavy-lidded, my voice was slow, slurred, insolent.

No. You can’t make me. I’ve said—I don’t remember.

There was a female police officer, questioning me. But I knew better than to make that mistake again.

A (female) gynecologist who would report no evidence of vaginal or anal penetration, no (physical) evidence of sexual abuse. A (female) therapist who would report probable extreme trauma, dissociation. Ms. Herne from the Children’s Protective Services.

It would be held against me that I was uncooperative with authorities who were trying to establish a case of repeated and sustained sexual abuse against Mr. Sandman unless it might be argued that I was a victim, mentally ill, unable to testify against the teacher who’d drugged and abused me for a period of approximately seven months.

Mr. Sandman had been careful, fastidious. My clothes had been laundered—no DNA. (Except an incriminating trace would be discovered on one of my sneakers. Just that trace would be enough to convict.)

If you don’t help to convict this terrible man he will hurt other girls, they told me.

I thought—Other girls will be hurt whether Mr. Sandman is in prison or not. That is our punishment.

“VIOLET. NO ONE IS PUTTING PRESSURE ON YOU . . .”

You are all putting pressure on me.

“. . . but you must tell us, you must take your time and tell us, all that you can remember. When did that man first . . .”

Ms. Herne was visibly upset. For (she believed) there’d been a special understanding between us, I’d (should have) known that I could trust her. And yet, I must not have trusted Ms. Herne for the abuse had been going on for months when she’d met with me several times and there’d been no hint.

Of course, there’d been a hint. Plenty of hint. Ms. Herne had failed to detect, that was all.

And now with the (ugly, relentless) publicity in the local media it hardly looked as if Dolores Herne of the Port Oriskany Children’s Protective Services had been very good at her job, one of her at-risk juvenile clients having been sexually abused, terrorized by a teacher, over a period of seven months and she had not noticed.