The first of the things that came in threes happened on May 4, 1979. Good news. Pat’s second child, John Dale, who would be called JD, was born. A grandson for my parents. Dad was of a different generation and this boy was a legacy.
The second of the three was news we knew was coming. Nana died on May 8, and Sam and I went home to Condon for her funeral. Saw her one last time in her casket at the mortuary. I didn’t yet know all the questions I hadn’t asked her about her life. Or that death entered like this. You knew it was coming and you should make yourself as ready as possible to meet it. You were never ready.
The third thing of three was the unlucky, the random, the thing that isn’t supposed to happen to a girl finding her way to the life she thinks will make her happy. It isn’t supposed to happen to any girl.
Sam worked at a convenience store through the nights while I studied and slept. In the early morning of May 19, I was asleep. And then awake to a whisper shout in the bedroom.
—Wake up. Shut up.
A tall silhouette in dawn light. A man. A mask. Butcher knife in hand.
—Do what I say or I’ll kill you.
Always I’d thought that if a man did what this man was here to do, I would fight. I would run. This is not what I did. This is not what my body did.
I did what he said.
—Get out of bed. Crawl. Lie face down on the carpet.
Fear-breath breathes shag and dust and the footsteps of others.
Fear-breath makes noise. Loud to me. Loud to him.
—Shut up or I’ll shove this into you.
Blade of knife against my skin. Towels torn for blindfold and binding and gag. Eyes, wrists, ankles, mouth.
My body trembled, like from winter-cold air. But it was spring. I curled my shoulders in as if this would make it stop.
—Where’s your money? Car keys? The cops are looking for me.
Take my money, take the keys, take anything. Words, starved of air, speak fear and the high sound of pleading.
He did not go.
He didn’t want money or keys or running from cops.
Over the next two hours, he went back and forth between the day-to-day things of my life: my cupboards and refrigerator, my leftover chicken and bag of chips, my blue backpack and books on statistics and group process, my closet and dresser drawers; and me: my mouth, my breasts, my vagina.
Body numb, mind blank with fear-static, eyes covered. My ears all that were left. Cat ears, tuned to his every move.
In the final moments, his body covered mine. One last time. Knife against ribs. His mouth against my ear.
—You saw me. I’ll kill you if you saw me.
No, I said.
I was only twenty years old, but now I knew: This is how easy it is to die.
I’m cold, I said.
He moved off me. Loosened my binds. Covered me with a blanket.
Thank you, I said.
The shame of gratitude.
—Don’t move for half an hour.
Spring air. Silence.
The farm girl in me knows how to track time.
I look. The front door is open. The sky is blue. The phone cord cut. Run now. Out into that blue morning. To the neighbor for help. To call the police. To talk with Sam. To the questions and hospital and reports, and what next. What next?