The Body Reader (Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries, #1)

by Anne Frasier

once the facts were hung on the line for the world to see, that abuse robbed the victim of dignity and the victim suffered twice. Once at the hands of the abuser, and once at the hands of the world.

“I wonder why we always feel disdain for our old selves,” Uriah said. “We should feel thankful. We should appreciate the people we used to be rather than being ashamed of them.”

“But kindness is a trait we can’t lose.” She frowned, concentrating. “It might be one of the most important parts of being human. Maybe even more important than love.”

Captives learned the art of no reaction in order to remove the cause and effect of torture, the joy experienced by the torturer.

The professional drinkers were the ones who often seemed more sober than anybody else in the room.

“I wonder how much of a person is simply fabricated by others,” she said. “And think about this: None of us see the same person in the exact same way. We bring ourselves into the equation. So an individual is never really an individual.”

So you found yourself needing to go back there to touch the place, see the place. Not to reassure yourself that it was real and that it had occurred, but to observe it from the distance of a safe mind, to marvel that this thing happened to you and you survived.

She used to find it frustrating when victims refused to press charges against a person who deserved to be put away. Now she understood their thinking. Acknowledgment brought it back. It meant there was no walking away. No starting over.

“It’s kind of unnerving to think about how we’re shaped by the darkness in our lives,” he said in an echo of her own thoughts.

Some philosopher said the darkest place you ever live will be etched forever in your soul and you will look back on those days with a twisted sort of fondness.

“I’m not someone who wakes up very fast. Explorer Roald Amundsen called it morning peevishness.”