I could not even imagine my way into Jill’s deracinated world, stripped of everyone she loved, even her musical cousins, her aging father, a minister who, well into his seventies, still rang the bells himself, evenings and Sundays in a green, fog-shrouded North Carolina hollow where Jill went to church three days a week and never suspected there were little girls who only went once—if at all.

For a moment, I wondered if Jill might not go back to the South now; but I put that speculation quickly aside. Her advocacy against dating violence—and, if I am honest, I thought as well, her hatred of Stefan—were the beacon in her life now.

At the cemetery, I was astonished at the number of cars on a weekday until I realized with a shock that this was Memorial Day.

The caretaker advised us that we’d see a flowering redbud tree and then a small wrought-iron fence on a knoll far back, not visible from the winding little road. We parked the car at the curb near that section and slowly walked up the gentle hill. The fence wasn’t as small as I imagined. It was waist-high and about four by six feet. Inside it rested a few bedraggled teddy bears and a few tiaras, and a large SAY sign laminated against the weather. We stood there quietly, and then, impossibly, simply not possibly, I heard, and I hoped that Stefan didn’t hear, a treble voice say, “It is so him! I saw him on the news.”

Stefan tried to shrink. He would have loped back toward the exit if it didn’t mean passing the members of a small family group who were now all frankly staring at him.

“Maybe they didn’t even mean you.” I cast around for a possible loophole.

“Sure, Mom. There are probably a lot of people in this cemetery right now that somebody saw on the news.” His lip jutted and his elaborate slouch was almost risible, a cartoon of disgruntlement. “You know, this is bullshit.”

“What is?”

“My coming here today. Trying to make anything better. What am I, an idiot? A child? No one’s ever going to believe a word I say ever again. Nothing is ever going to change. Everybody will always think I’m a stone-cold killer who likes to hit girls. I’m a real model for rebuilding your life, huh? Broke and now, wow, probably half-blind, no future, living with my parents and sleeping in the bed I slept in when I was twelve?”

“Stefan, half the people you know your age are still living with their parents. Give it time.”

“Give it time! More time! More time! More time won’t change anything. I’ve been home months now.”

“I get how hard it is to keep starting over.”