IN THE BUNK ON SHASTA LAKE, KURT HAD PUT A PILLOW over my face so no one would hear me scream, but now I wonder: Who would have heard me? And if someone had heard, on that boat anchored to an island I didn’t know until today was named for an actual meat market and slaughterhouse, who would have acted? Who would have helped me? From the distance of nearly thirty years, my heart made vulnerable by motherhood and my fierce desire to protect my children, I wonder, How many other women were raped that night on Slaughterhouse Island? I feel certain I was not the only one.
