Free Suffer the Children by John Saul Page A

recounted the conversation he had just had. When he was finished, Sylvia reflected quietly before she spoke.
    “I think that’s what’s called a shot in the dark, Jack. He didn’t even know what he was saying,” she continued, as Jack looked unconvinced. “Jack, nobody in this town, including you, your wife, or me, knows what happened to Sarah.
Nobody
knows. But you have to face it. Sarah doesn’t talk any more, and she goes to White Oaks, and everybody in town knows what kind of school it is. So there’s bound to be speculation, and some of it’s bound to focus on you.”
    Jack nodded. “I know. Just one more thing to worry about.”
    “One more? What else is there?”
    “Well, there’s the situation between Rose and me.”
    Sylvia wasn’t at all sure she wanted to hear any more, but she knew she would. If only I wasn’t so damned—fond—of him, she thought. She had almost used the word “love,” but had shied away from it. Yet she knew there wasn’t any use in shying away from it. She did love Jack Conger, and she knew it. Not that it made any difference. She had come to grips with being in love with her boss a long time ago, and it helped to know that he loved her too, in a certain way. Not a sexual way. That he had always reserved for Rose, and Sylvia was just as happy that he did. She wasn’t sure she could handle an affair, and she was very sure that she didn’t want to try. She liked things the way they were. In theoffice, she and Jack were close. They moved from a business relationship to a personal one and back again many times each day, and each was in tune with the moods and feelings of the other. It was, she supposed, like a marriage in some ways, except that it lasted only eight hours a day. Bach afternoon Jack went home to his family, and she went home to her cat. For eight hours a day she had a job she loved and a man she loved. It was usually enough. But sometimes, like right now, she wished he wouldn’t tell her everything, that he would hold back a little of himself from her; On the other hand, she knew that for the past year he really hadn’t had anybody else. Not since the day he had carried Sarah out of the woods.
    “Are things getting worse?” she said.
    “I’m not sure if ‘worse’ is the word. What’s your definition of ‘worse’? Rose is starting to hate me, but why shouldn’t she? My drinking seems to be getting a little worse, but not so you could notice. And then there’s Sarah. Sylvia,” he said, and the desperation in his voice was almost tangible. “Why can’t I remember what happened that day?”
    “You were drunk,” Sylvia said. “People black out sometimes.” She put it bluntly, but her tone held no condemnation, only understanding.
    “But I’ve never blacked out before,” he said. “Never. It makes me wonder exactly what I did to her in the woods. What did I do that I won’t let myself remember?”
    Sylvia lit another cigarette, and when she spoke her voice was gentle. “Jack, what’s the use of killing yourself over it? If you’d done what you think you did, the doctors would have known immediately. There would have been some kind of damage to”—she groped for a word, then decided that he might as well hear it out loud—“her vagina. You didn’t rape her, Jack.”
    The word hit him like a physical blow. “I never thought—”
    “Yes you did,” Sylvia interrupted him. “That’s exactly what you thought, and it’s exactly what you’ve always thought. And if you want the truth, that’s probably what’s at the root of your worries. Maybe Rose thinks it has to do with money and liquor. I don’t know what she thinks, and frankly, I don’t care. It’s what you think that counts. And you think you raped Sarah. Well, you didn’t, and you can’t keep torturing yourself by thinking you did. It’s over, Jack, and you’ve got to forget it. Maybe if you can forget it, you can stop drinking.”
    Jack avoided her eyes, staring instead