Free Guilt by Association by Susan R. Sloan Page A

her inside his coat when she complained of the cold, but that had been his idea, not hers.
    “It wasn’t like that,” she cried, the tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “Oh, darling,” Beverly said hastily, grabbing a tissue and dabbing at her daughter’s eyes. “Now don’t get yourself into a tizzy. Nobody said you meant to do anything wrong. It’s just that sometimes we don’t realize how our actions might appearto another person. The way we smile, perhaps, or the way we stand or the way we say things. It’s so easy to be misinterpreted.”
    “I was just having a good time,” Karen sobbed.
    “Of course you were.” Her mother relented. “Just like anyone else at a party would. You had no way of knowing that this Bob person would take it so seriously.”
    “No,” Karen mumbled. This wasn’t going at all the way she had thought it would. First the police, and now her parents. She was suddenly very confused.
    “I don’t mean to distress you,” her mother added, “but your father and I just can’t understand how you could have gotten yourself into such a situation, how you could have been so, so … careless.”
    Leo had yet to say a word.
    “Neither do I,” Karen sobbed, letting go of the tube to cover her face with her hands.
    After a moment, Beverly sat back down in her chair, crossed her legs at the ankles and clasped her hands together in her lap.
    “Yes, well, I think we have a pretty clear idea of what took place and we’re not going to dwell on it any longer,” she said firmly. “You’ll soon be well again, and I think it’s time that we consider this … unfortunate incident over and done, and get on with the rest of our lives.”
    Over and done, Karen thought wistfully. Could it really be over and done with a snap of her mother’s fingers?
    “Do you think so?” she asked.
    “Yes, I do,” her mother affirmed. “I can tell how terribly upset talking about the whole thing is making you, and I don’t see any reason to put you through the painful ordeal of repeating this story again. After all, it’s none of anyone’s business.”
    “The police know,” Karen reminded her. “I told them everything. They’re going to find Bob and arrest him and make him pay for what he did.”
    “Your father will take care of that,” Beverly said smoothly. “The last thing we’re going to do is let anyone drag you intosome sordid courtroom and smear your name all over the newspapers.”
    “But I’ll have to testify,” said Karen. “I want to. I want to see him convicted and put in jail.”
    “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” her mother declared. “You’re not going to have anything more to do with this whole unpleasant mess. From now on, we’ll simply tell anyone who asks that you were taken to the hospital because… because of an accident.”
    “An accident?”
    “Yes.” Beverly declared. She studied a speck of lint on her red jacket. “Actually, that’s pretty much what we’ve been telling people anyway.”
    Karen looked from her mother to her father and back to her mother again. “You told people I had an accident?”
    “We weren’t very specific about anything, of course. After all, we didn’t really know anything. We just sort of intimated that it was an accident. There wasn’t any reason to go into the gruesome details.”
    “What kind of accident did I have?”
    Beverly hesitated a moment. “I think we’ll make it an automobile accident,” she decided. “That’s the most logical choice,
     isn’t it? I mean, considering how damaged you were, we can’t very well say you fell out of a tree, now can we?”
    Karen’s head suddenly began to hurt. “But that’s a lie,” she said.
    “Well, if it is, it’s only to save you, save us, from a lot of humiliating gossip.” Beverly’s full lower lip began to quiver.
     “Isn’t it enough that we have to know what went on, does the rest of Great Neck have to know, too?