I skipped the formalities. I could barely talk, let alone chitchat about the weather.

"Ann, I'm going to ask you one question, okay?" I said, out of breath.

"Sure, what is it?" She acted as if she were hurrying me along.

"Don't think about it, just answer, okay?" I instructed her.

"Okay, okay!"

"Your very first feeling," I commanded.

"What's the question? I'm on the other line a""

I blurted it out, "Do you think Dad ever molested us?"

Dead silence.

Then, "It's him on the other line, it's Dad," she said, no emotion in her voice.

"Oh, my G.o.d" was all I could say.

"I'll call you back," she said calmly.

"Soon!" I pleaded.

"Soon," she promised.

Gently, I put the phone back down on its receiver and waited in darkness for Ann's call.

What terrible timing. It wasn't surprising that Ann was talking to my dad. We both spoke to him several times a month.

After my parents' divorce ten years ago, he had changed. He mellowed. He started to treat each of us as individuals, not just as a gang of children. He remarried. Once lonely, he now seemed genuinely happy.

When the phone rang, after what seemed like an eternity but couldn't have been more than two minutes, I jumped.

It was Ann.

"Good Lord, Kris," she sounded mad.

"So what's your answer?" I asked, as if she were on trial.

"s.e.xually, you mean?"

"Yes," I said, feeling like I'd throw up.

"I don't know," she said, exasperated. "I don't think so."

I didn't believe her, because behind the exasperation, I heard fear in her voice, the same fear I felt in my stomach.

"Where did this come from?" Now, she sounded as if she were accusing me.

I told her everything I knew. About my dreams (although I couldn't bear to be explicit), about his fondness for bathing us and our inexplicable inability to swim, and about telling Destiny a few hours ago.

In the darkness of my apartment, my own words sounded feeble, even as I spoke them. I might not have believed them myself, except for the unmistakable proof: my rising nausea.

I excused myself from the phone, bolted to the bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up. It took me awhile to find a clean washcloth. When I did, I wetted it, clamped it to my forehead, and picked up the phone again. My hands were shaking.

"Are you okay?" Ann asked.

"I think so. I just threw up."

"You never throw up."

"I know," I said weakly. "Maybe it was something I ate."

"It wasn't something you ate."

"I know," I said quietly.

"Do you want me to come over there? I could be there in a few minutes a"just give me time to dress."

I looked around my living room. It was messier than normal: clothes, shoes, and remnants of meals long since forgotten dotted the plush carpet.

"Oh, G.o.d, no!" I exclaimed. I couldn't stand a housekeeping lecture from Ann, and I knew she'd give me one. I just knew it.

'You know I love the view, Kris. It wouldn't be any problem."

I looked out the window then, at Denver's skyline twinkling against a backdrop of blackness.

"Thanks anyway, Ann. Maybe we could just talk some more."

And talk we did. To her credit, although Ann wasn't sure my father had ever touched us inappropriately, she listened to my accusations. I listed all the logical clues that pointed to evidence of incest, though I never spoke the word out loud.

My father and mother had slept in separate bedrooms. Hers was upstairs, next to my little brother's and little sister's. His was downstairs, next to mine, across from Ann and Gail's. He had always walked around the house in his underwear. Jockey shorts, not boxer shorts. No robe. Everything quite visible.

As adults, Ann and I had watched his interactions with my sister Jill after he and my mother divorced. There had been an inordinate amount of affection between them. When Jill was sixteen, she had lain on the couch with her head in my father's lap, as my dad stroked her hair.

Ann and I talked until two o'clock that morning, a morning I'll never forget a" the last day of winter.

When we hung up, I was so agitated, I knew I'd never sleep. Almost as if possessed, I put on my coat and went out.

One by one, I visited each of my family members' houses, sometimes sobbing so hard I could barely see to drive. First my mother's, the house I grew up in, the house where the abuse occurred. When I got there, my tears dried and my insides froze up. I sat there the longest, at the house that was no longer my home, the house that probably never had been.

I saw the bas.e.m.e.nt window that looked into my father's old workroom. I remembered using one of his tools once, not to build, but to destroy. I had repeatedly hit my left thumb with his hammer. I did it slowly and carefully so that it didn't hurt too much. But I made sure that my thumb was bruised and swollen. I'm not sure why I bothered a" no one in my family noticed the injury anyway.

I turned on the interior car light to look at my left thumb. It looked a little crooked. I tried to remember how old I was when I damaged it. I couldn't have been more than five years old then. Another memory from the first years of my life. No wonder I'd blocked them so well.

Next I went to my father's, the house that he shared with his new bride. There, I had no feelings. Absolutely nothing registered. I wanted to cry, to wash it all away.

Purify my body. Purify my soul. But I couldn't.

Where evil hands have touched, is a stain left?

This I wondered as I drove off.

In front of Ann's house, I cried a lot. For her and for me. Her lights were off a" she must have gone to sleep after our phone call. I wondered if she was sleeping well.

Then, it was on to David's, the home he lived in with other chronically mentally ill people. David had been in and out of mental hospitals and boarding houses and even jail since he graduated from high school. Each year, his life seemed to get a little more desperate. Long ago, I'd started to deal with the fact that my brother would probably die at a very young age. Maybe from the effects of his epilepsy. Maybe from the effects of his depression. Maybe from the effects of my parents.

I would have visited Gail and Jill, too, but years earlier, they'd both fled to California.

So, I went home, my tour finished. Riding the elevator up to my apartment, I thought about the incredible highs and lows of the past twenty-four hours. How close they'd been to one another. The high of thinking Destiny had a crush on me a" it had been a long time since I'd felt another woman's attraction to me. And the low of fully realizing the horror of what my father had done to me.

Life's bottom was really just the top turned upside down.

I looked at the clock before I turned out my bedroom light. It read four o'clock. Still, I tossed and turned for a long time before I finally fell asleep.

Someone in my bedroom.

I see a figure, large, hunched over, walking from my bed. Just his back.

Wearing loose-fitting underwear and a T-shirt. The underwear hangs on him exactly like my father's did.

The terror.

I willed myself awake.

Chapter 12.

The phone rang just hours later as I walked into my office.

"Hey, Kris!"

"Destiny, hi! What are you doing?"

"Not much, pretending to work. How about you?"

"I just got in, but I'll start pretending pretty soon."

"Want to go to dinner tonight?"

I was both surprised and pleased at her invitation.

"I'd love to," I answered easily.

"Great. I'll come by and get you at seven."

"Okay. See you then."

"Not so fast, Kris. I really called to see how you're doing."

"Never been better," I lied.

"Really, are you okay?"

"I'm all right."

"Any regrets about telling me what you did?"

"It feels strange," I answered which was only partially true.

It felt more than strange. It felt wrong to have talked to Destiny. Too sad. Too painful. Too incriminating.

Bill Ashe, my dad. He belonged to me. I belonged to him.

He was a horrible person. Or maybe he was an ordinary person who had done horrible things, but he was all I had.

I wanted to tell Destiny all of this, but it seemed like further betrayal. My own betrayal.

"Did you sleep well?"

I didn't answer.

"Kris, did you have one of those dreams?"

Still, I didn't answer.

"Kristin Ashe!" she shouted.

"Yes," I answered in a small voice. "But I can't talk about it right now, okay?"

"No, not okay!" Her vehemence shocked me. "We had a pact. Why didn't you call me? I've trusted you more than I've ever trusted anyone. Why can't you trust me?"

"I tried," I said lamely.

"What, and my line was busy, I suppose?"

"I tried, Destiny. Don't be angry. I just couldn't do it. I dialed the first six numbers of your phone number and then I hung up. I'm not playing games with you. I just couldn't do it," I said wearily.

"Really, you couldn't?" she asked in a much softer voice.

"Really. I wish I had called you a" then maybe I could have gotten back to sleep. As it is, it's nine in the morning and I'm worn out. I can't do this much more," I said, and even I could hear the desperation in my voice.