Free Her Daughter's Dream by Francine Rivers Page A

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    1963
    About the time Carolyn started eleventh grade, Dock came back in her dreams. Sometimes she awoke aroused and confused. Guilt and shame caught her by the throat. She knew the facts of life. She’d taken biology. She’d overheard whispered conversations about sex in the girls’ locker room. Girls who “did it” were considered sluts.
    What would people say if they knew she’d lost her virginity while playing games with the man who lived next door? She’d only been in kindergarten, but it didn’t do any good to tell herself it wasn’t her fault. She knew it was. She had gone over there day after day, hadn’t she? She’d told Dock she loved him. She let him do what he wanted.
    Carolyn went to church with her parents—and Oma, when she wasn’t away on one of her trips. She knew God existed. She imagined Him as old, with a long white beard and dressed in long white robes, His eyes blazing, and ready to cast the damned into a lake of fire. Was that where she would end up? God knew everything, didn’t He? He saw everything. God would know she boiled inside. He probably knew why, even if she didn’t.
    She listened to Rev. Elias talk about the peace of God and doing what was right. She needed desperately to talk to someone. When she went over to talk with Oma, she found her grandmother packing for another trip. Oma spent more time away than at the cottage. She went to visit Uncle Bernie and Aunt Elizabeth or Aunt Clotilde. She flew to New York to see Aunt Rikka when her paintings were shown in some famous gallery. This time she was going to spend a week in San Francisco with her old friend Hedda Herkner, whose husband had died of a heart attack. Oma smiled over her shoulder as she folded a dress into her suitcase. “You’re all grown-up, Carolyn. You don’t need me.”
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    Two days after Oma left for San Francisco, a student came into Carolyn’s civics class and gave the teacher a message. Mrs. Schaffer burst into tears when she read it. “President Kennedy has been shot down in Dallas, Texas.”
    Everyone sat stunned for a few seconds and then started asking questions.
    A few girls burst into tears. Even a few boys looked ready to cry, though they tried hard not to show it. Mrs. Schaffer said everyone was to go to the auditorium for a school assembly. The principal would tell them everything he knew.
    The principal cried, too.
    Carolyn felt hollow and numb inside. Shouldn’t she be scared? Others were. Shouldn’t she be angry? Others were. She heard the news and waited to feel something, anything .
    The assembly ended after less than fifteen minutes. School was dismissed. Parents would know about it. Students with cars headed for the parking lot. Most headed for the buses lined up in front of the high school. Someone had already lowered the American flag to half-mast. Carolyn got on her bus and sat in the back row. She stared out the window while others talked, sobbed, cussed in whispers, made speculations about the future. What would Kennedy’s death mean to America? Would the space program end? What about the Peace Corps? So much for those who dreamed of being astronauts or going to foreign countries and solving world problems. So much for hoping the world would ever get any better.
    One by one, students got off at their stops. As the rows of seats emptied, Carolyn moved forward row by row until she sat near the front. She could see the bus driver’s face in the rearview mirror. Tears ran down his cheeks. She stepped forward and clung to the pole next to the steps. “This is my stop, Mr. Landers.” She had the feeling he would have forgotten if she hadn’t spoken. He pulled over, stopped, and opened the bus doors.
    Carolyn walked up the long driveway. The birds still sang. Everything still looked the same. She wished Oma were home, so she wouldn’t have to go into an empty house. She took the key out from under the flowerpot and unlocked the door. The place felt like a tomb—closed up,