But I didn’t offer her a ride home. Possibly she would have said no thank you, but if she’d said yes, and I drove her home, and the mother found out, that might have presented problems. And if I drove one of my students home just once, she might expect to be driven home again; and if others found out, or other teachers, that would definitely present problems. So I never knew where she lived but I had the idea—I don’t know why—that she had a considerable distance to walk and that she wouldn’t take the school bus, and I could imagine why not.
And one day suddenly when we were alone together in my homeroom she said, Miss Schine, did you know people kill babies?—and nobody cares; and I asked what did she mean, who kills babies?—and she said, looking like she was about to cry, At the ’bortion clinics. They kill them and dump the baby-bodies different places. And nobody cares.
I was shocked to hear an eighth grader say such things. I don’t know what I said—something like, Oh that’s terrible, Dawn . . .
She asked had I ever heard of it, and I said no, I didn’t think so. (Because I could not say yes. Not to an eighth grader.) And she said, They don’t have one of them here, I guess—’bortion clinic. There was one in Muskegee Falls where we lived, a “women’s center” they called it . . . And I said, Did they! (Thinking, Oh my God that was where her father had shot the men, the abortion doctor and the other man, who’d been his driver. That was what she was talking about—why she was so earnest and emotional. But I could not—I could not acknowledge this.) She asked me did I think the babies who were cut into little pieces would go to heaven and I swallowed hard and said yes.
On Valentine’s Day Dawn left a beautiful valentine for me on my desk, about ten inches high, inside a large white envelope. She’d made the valentine that was in the shape of a heart out of scraps of white satin sewn together and dozens of hearts she’d drawn with a red marker pen and inside in red ink was—
Dear Miss Schine
You are my Vallentine
I LOVE YOU
Your Vallentine Freind
There were a few other valentines for me from students but nothing like Dawn Dunphy’s which was so special. I think I still have it somewhere at home . . . Every Valentine’s Day I make up cards for all my homeroom students, girls and boys both, but the cards are just commercial cards from the drugstore, so of course I had one for Dawn Dunphy but it was not a special card, nothing like hers. I think that she was happy enough to receive it but maybe she was a little hurt, it was just such an ordinary valentine compared to hers. (Oh I hate Valentine’s Day! I just dread February fourteenth! It’s so cruel at school especially, some of the popular girls get dozens of valentines and girls like Dawn Dunphy get none—not one. Which is why I make sure I have valentines for everyone.)
But then, the next Saturday I encountered Dawn Dunphy and a short heavyset woman at the mall, at first I thought the woman might be Mrs. Dunphy but turned out she was an aunt, and I was with my fiancé Rolly on our way to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Dawn stared at him and seemed very distracted by him; and the following Monday at school Dawn was waiting for me by my car and asked if my brother lived in the same house with me and if we lived with our parents, and I told her that Rolly was not my brother but my fiancé and she didn’t seem to hear this or possibly to understand. But after that things were not so friendly between us. I mean, on Dawn’s side. She didn’t smile at me so much and she didn’t drop into my classroom so much and I could see that I had disappointed her. It might have been around this time that her father’s second trial began, over in Broome County. It was on TV every night—not the TV camera in the courtroom but outside in the street, and reports on how the trial was progressing, and many pictures of Luther Dunphy—and Dr. Voorhees—every night. So it wasn’t a good time for Dawn Dunphy, I knew. And what she had to endure at school I could imagine. She’d show up in the morning for homeroom then disappear an hour later. She was missing classes, and her grades were poor. And one day she said to me with this strange look in her face, a kind of smile, but her eyes were not smiling, People say you are married, Miss Schine, and I said, Really? Who?—(because I doubted this could be true for Rolly and I had set our wedding date for June tenth and everyone who knew us knew this fact)—and Dawn said vaguely, Oh just people. That’s what they are saying. And I said, But why? Why’d they say such a thing? and Dawn said, with this mean little twist to her mouth, and her eyes narrowed almost shut, Because they say you are preg-nent, Miss Schine. Because your belly is getting big and you are preg-nent, Miss Schine. That is what they are saying.
I was so shocked, I could not stammer any reply. And Dawn Dunphy just laughed and pushed past me. And that was the end of what you might have called our friendship—whatever it was . . . That was the end.
TRIAL
The date was set for the trial. Then, the date was postponed.
A new date was set. Then, the new date was postponed.
“God will never allow you to be judged, Luther. I think that must be it”—so the chaplain said, laying a hand on Luther’s shoulder.
Wincing, Luther did not shake off the man’s heavy reassuring hand.
“IF THE SECOND TRIAL ends in a deadlock also, that’s it—the prosecutor won’t try again.”