The Atonement Child

  “Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes? I need to wash my face and brush my teeth.”

  Dynah nodded, forcing a smile as she fought back the tears that burned so hot.

  Janet picked up her pink silk pajamas and her toiletry kit, then turned out the bedside lamp. Opening the door, she pressed the switch for the overhead light and sent the room into darkness. She stood silhouetted against the light from the corridor. “I won’t be long, Dynah. Try to sleep. Everything will look better tomorrow.” She closed the door behind her.

  Turning onto her side, Dynah curled into a fetal ball, pulled the covers over her head, and sobbed.

  The next day, Dynah called Sally Wentworth and quit her job at Stanton Manor House. Surprised, Sally asked why.

  “I’m going to put more time into my studies.” She ignored the feelings of guilt that tugged at her. It was true, in part. She was going to have lots of work to make up once she resumed classes.

  “If you need more money, I can get you a dollar-an-hour raise.”

  “It’s not the money, Sally. Really.” She knew she would have to find some kind of job soon. She didn’t have the luxury of not working at all. The scholarship took care of part of the tuition. Her parents paid the rest, as well as her dorm fees. However, there were still the expenses of clothing and books and her car. She had to pay for insurance and gas and repairs.

  If her car had worked last night, maybe . . .

  “Mr. Packard has been asking for you. He’ll miss you, you know.”

  “I know,” she said, her throat closing up. She thought of the old man’s warning and felt the added burden of not having heeded it. “I can’t help it, Sally. I just can’t come back.” She couldn’t bring herself to even say she would come to visit.

  “I guess I can understand your feelings. This isn’t exactly a happy job.”

  “I enjoyed it.”

  “If that’s true, you wouldn’t be quitting. Are you sure there isn’t more to it, Dynah? This is awful sudden.”

  She hesitated, then leaned her forehead against the wall. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Sally the truth. It was too humiliating. And worse, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She was afraid, so afraid. Even the thought of being across town from the campus made her heart race. Ethan had gotten her car for her this morning, but what if it broke down again? What if Janet couldn’t pick her up? What if Ethan was too busy? She would have to make that long walk down Maple to Main and catch the bus. She would have to walk up Henderson past the park—

  No. She shook her head. She couldn’t face it.

  “I’m sorry, Sally.” She was ashamed to quit without notice. She was sorry to leave Sally and Juan with added responsibilities. She was sorry Mr. Packard would miss her. She was sorry about everything.

  “Well, I took a chance hiring a student. I should’ve known better. I’ll have to work overtime until I can find a replacement. Don’t expect a recommendation.” There was a sharp click as Sally hung up.

  Over the next few days, Dynah tried to pour herself into her studies, but she found it difficult. She was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep. When she did, she was tormented by strange, vivid dreams. She couldn’t concentrate.

  Officer Lawson called and arranged a follow-up interview at Middleton’s police station. He said he could send a squad car to pick her up, but Dynah said she would get there on her own. The last thing she wanted were rumors starting. Janet said the campus was already buzzing with the news of someone’s being raped in the community park.

  Ethan insisted he would drive her. When he picked her up, he said if anyone saw them at the police station, he had a plausible reason worked out. They were doing jail visitation and research. “Let me do the talking,” he said.

  Neither spoke after that. He seemed preoccupied, grim, and her own thoughts were rushing headlong toward disaster. Her stomach churned. It was the first time she had left the dormitory since that night. Instead of driving out the east entrance, Ethan took his usual route straight through the front gate and down Henderson. She kept her eyes closed until he turned onto Main.

  Once at the police station, Ethan waited in the lobby. Dynah endured an hour of questions about the night of the rape. She mentioned the white station wagon with the Massachusetts plates. She couldn’t remember any of the numbers or letters. Officer Lawson kept going back to the man again and again, gently but persistently prodding for details about his appearance, voice, anything that might identify him. Was he tall or short? Heavyset or thin? What was he wearing? Did he have any kind of an accent?

  “All I saw was a dark shape. He didn’t say anything. He just . . . grabbed me.”

  There was nothing conclusive to connect the man driving the white station wagon with the man who had raped her.

  She went home with a splitting headache that kept her vomiting half the night.

  Dynah returned to her classes nine days after the attack. The first day was torturous. She had always felt comfortable around people. Now she was nervous with so many around her. Worse, her friends chose the “incident” as their primary topic of conversation.

  “I wonder who it was.”

  “Maybe that girl from Maine. Didn’t she leave school a few days ago?”

  “I heard she was pregnant.”

  “I didn’t hear that. Really?”

  “What if it was her? Could you blame her for leaving? I wouldn’t want to stay here if anything like that happened to me. Would you?”

  “Did they catch him?”

  “No. I saw a police car on Henderson yesterday. I think they’re talking to all the neighbors, trying to find someone who might have seen something.”

  “It was in the paper yesterday that they’re looking for information about the driver of a white station wagon with Massachusetts plates.”

  “My boyfriend doesn’t think they’ll catch the guy. He’s probably over the border and long gone by now.”

  “Back in Massachusetts.”

  “I hope he stays there.”

  “I hope he has a wreck on the way.”

  “Doesn’t it give you the willies thinking about it? I mean, can you imagine? I’ve been going down there every afternoon to study since I came to NLC. It sure doesn’t have the same feel now, does it?”

  “Where are you going, Dynah?”

  She blushed, trapped by their curious looks. “To the student employment office,” she said, backing away, her books clutched against her chest like a shield.

  “You already have a job, don’t you? At Stanton Manor House.”

  “I had to quit.”

  “I thought they paid pretty well.”

  “The pay is all right, but it’s too far away and was eating into my study time. I’m going to see about getting a job here on campus.”

  Lies, lies. There were so many lies now. . . .

  “There’s a job open at the library. I know because I just quit. Shelving books was a bore.”

  She got the job, and by the end of the week, she had her work schedule. She started work on Monday.

  To all outward appearances, everything was fine. If she seemed to smile less, friends just assumed it was because she was distracted by midterms looming. Wasn’t everyone?

  But deep within, Dynah knew. . . . She was shattered and didn’t know how to put herself together again. She lay sleepless in her dorm room, a nursery rhyme running through her mind again and again.

  Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall.

  Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.

  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

  Couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again.

  She wanted to talk about her feelings with Ethan, but every time she tried, he changed the subject. She felt the distance between them like a yawning chasm, growing as each week went by. They still studied together in the library between classes. They still went to dinner on Friday and the movies on Saturday and to church together on Sunday. Yet she was left yearning for what had b
een. She missed the tenderness and intimacy they had shared. They had always talked about everything. They still talked, but not about anything that mattered—not about what preyed constantly on her mind and heart, not about whatever was eating away at him.

  Tonight, she sat in a small booth in a quiet Italian restaurant and listened to Ethan talk about his homiletics class. Over the past hour, he had gone over four different ideas he was considering for his final presentation. The waiter had given them menus, returned to take their orders, delivered Ethan’s salad and veal parmesan and her side order of pasta, and left the check.

  “What do you think?” he said finally, finishing the last of his dinner and looking at her over the edge of his water glass.

  Dynah pushed her pasta around the plate and raised her head slightly. “What do you think?” she said quietly, aching inside. She wanted to say, “What is it you really feel about what happened to me? Do you blame me, Ethan? Do you think it was my fault I was raped?” She voiced none of those questions, but he must have seen them in her eyes because his face hardened.

  “Why can’t you just forget about it?”

  “Can you?”

  “I’m trying. I’m trying to forget it ever happened.”

  His eyes were dark, though whether from anger or pain she couldn’t tell. She knew he wanted to forget about it, but burying it wasn’t helping. She didn’t know what would.

  “I’d like to forget, too. I would. But I can’t. Every night, I dream about it.” She looked down at the red checkered tablecloth, biting her lip. If she cried, it would only make things worse for him.

  “Maybe you ought to get counseling.”

  She wondered if he realized how dispassionate he sounded, how uninvolved. Was this just her problem? Didn’t it concern him as well? He was going to be her husband in a few months. Shouldn’t he care about what she was feeling? What was he really telling her? She searched his face, hurt and confused. “Maybe we both need counseling.”

  “Maybe we need time.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Yes. I’m angry. I’d like to kill the guy. I think about what I’d like to do if I ever got my hands on him. Is that what you wanted to hear, Dynah? Sits nice with my chosen vocation, doesn’t it? It tears me up every time I think about what was taken. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather not have this topic as dinner conversation.” He tossed his napkin on the table.

  Snatching up the check, he looked at it, dropped it on the table, dug for his wallet, and extracted enough cash to cover the bill. “Let’s get out of here. It doesn’t look like you’re interested in eating anything.” He tossed the money on the table and slid out of the booth.

  She didn’t say anything on the drive back to campus. What could she say that would change anything? Ethan didn’t tell her what was wrong, but she felt it. She saw it in his eyes sometimes, though he tried to hide it from her and from himself.

  She was defiled.

  Ethan pulled into a parking space near the dorm and shut off the engine. Gripping the steering wheel, he sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Dynah. I don’t like to think about it, let alone talk about it.” He looked at her bleakly. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. We’ll just have to live with it.”

  “Live with it.” The words reverberated in her mind. Live with it. Live with it. We’ll have to live with the monstrous reality of what happened? It will grow like a living, breathing thing between us, a crouching beast waiting to devour . . .

  “Oh, Ethan, I wish you’d hold me and tell me everything will be all right.”

  He reached out then and drew her close, but she felt the difference. His touch was tentative, almost impersonal. “Will things ever be the way they were?” She didn’t have to look up at him to feel his withdrawal.

  “If God wants them to be.”

  His words were like a blow. Dynah drew back and looked at him, stunned. “You think God was punishing me for something. You think He allowed it to happen because He wanted to teach me a lesson.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ve always agreed there’s a lesson in everything. Look, I don’t know why things like this happen. Why are there wars? Why do people in third world countries starve? I can’t pretend to understand the mind of God. All I do know is God has a reason for everything He does.”

  Dynah looked at him, sick at heart. Ethan had always been so certain he knew what God wanted. God wanted her to come to NLC. God wanted her to be his wife. Had all that changed?

  Turning away, she opened the door abruptly and got out.

  “Dynah, wait a minute!” Ethan got out the other side. “Dynah, don’t be like this!”

  She ran up the steps and went inside the dorm before he could close his door and follow. Several girls were just coming out of the elevator when she reached it and ducked inside. She punched the button for the third floor.

  Thankfully, Janet was out on another date, and she could be alone to think, to feel. She put her purse on her desk and sank down, head in her hands.

  She remembered the violence of the Old Testament. It was filled with stories of adversity, slavery, and deliverance. The Israelites had wandered in the desert. Even after they entered the Promised Land, things hadn’t gone smoothly. There had been wars, death, tragedy. The people were stubborn and rebellious. Prophets cried out for repentance. Israel turned away over and over again. God’s people wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t trust and obey. They were stiff-necked and headstrong. And God punished them in order to turn them back.

  Oh, God, I trusted You. I’ve obeyed.

  All men sin and fall short of the glory of God.

  She tried to think how she had displeased the Lord. She loved Him. Sometimes she thought she was born adoring Him. As far back as she could remember, Jesus had been real to her. He was the Bridegroom, the Holy One, her Savior and Lord. She had been raised to feel secure and safe and protected in His love. She had been taught that His loving hand was in everything.

  In everything.

  Are You in this, Lord? Are You?

  God is the potter. I am the clay.

  She could see her mother smiling and saying, “God is molding you into the beautiful woman He wants you to be.”

  Oh, God, why have You crushed me? Why have You cast me into the pit? Aren’t acts of violence wrought in retribution? Oh, Jesus, what did I do to displease You? Was it because I was too proud of Ethan? Was I too happy about marrying him? Was it because I didn’t spend enough time with poor Mr. Packard? Was I rude to that man in the white station wagon? Haven’t I prayed enough? Have I loved Ethan more than You? Is that why You’ve put this wall between us? Oh, Jesus, what did I do wrong? Oh, Jesus, Jesus . . .

  The telephone rang. She knew it was Ethan and didn’t answer.

  Chapter 2

  Dynah saw Joe sitting comfortably at the top of the marble steps of the library, his back resting against a pillar. He smiled and stood, meeting her halfway as she came up.

  “Going to work?”

  “Not until six.” She raised her head and searched his eyes briefly. “I thought I’d study for a while.”

  “It’s a nice day to study outside. What do you say we go to the quad?”

  She hesitated, suspicious. “Did Ethan send you?” When his mouth curved ruefully, she rushed on to explain herself. “You’ve always made it such a point that I’m Ethan’s girl.”

  “You still are.”

  She frowned, wondering why he was waiting for her. He must have a reason. It had to be Ethan. Shifting her books, she held them tightly against her chest and waited. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Joe had to say. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Ethan might have told him about her behavior last night. “I’m not angry anymore, if that’s why you’re here waiting for me. You can tell Ethan I find no fault with him. He can’t help how he feels.”

  Joe’s expression changed, softening as he searched her face. He didn’t avoid looking at her the way Ethan did but gaz
ed straight into her eyes, accepting the inner turmoil and anguish that lay just beneath her surface control. He didn’t hide from her pain. “Let me be a gentleman and carry your books.”

  Dynah allowed him to take them from her. They walked along the cobblestone road and between the political science and liberal arts buildings to the quad. The maple trees were just beginning to bud with spring leaves. Before the attack, she would have noticed and remarked about it. Now, she didn’t even look up. She stayed close to Joe as they walked beneath the shade and into the sunlight again.

  Joe didn’t say anything, but she felt comfortable with his silence. Unlike Ethan, Joe didn’t try to fill every minute with words or suppositions.

  “God has a reason for everything He does.”

  She couldn’t seem to drive that thought out of her mind.

  What reason, Lord? Tell me what reason.

  “This looks good,” Joe said and put her books down.

  Dynah looked around. He had picked a place in the open, no shade, sunlight streaming down from blue heaven. She used to love this exact spot—had come often with Janet and other friends to feel the sun beat down. Now she wished for a dark corner away from people. She felt Joe watching her, waiting. Forcing a smile, she sat down and curled her legs to one side. Joe sat resting his forearms on his raised knees. She had always felt at ease with him, which made her tension now that much more disturbing.

  Picking up a textbook, she opened it. “So, what does Ethan want you to tell me?”

  “He didn’t send me, Dynah.”

  She raised her head, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Are you sure?”

  “I want to sit with you and talk. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  She lowered her head. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re too pale to be fine.”

  “I spent the better part of two weeks in my room. Now I work at the library.” She was ashamed by the edge of bitterness she could hear in her voice, the undercurrent of anger. Anger was the enemy now. Christians were supposed to be docile, accepting, obedient to God’s will. . . .