I watched him walk out, finally understanding what we’d been up against. Finally. It wasn’t just that us Pantown girls were on our own. It was also that Dad and Sheriff Nillson got to write the story. Any messy details that happened outside their narrative, like my dad with his hands in Maureen’s hair, pressing her to him, or Sheriff Nillson taking pictures of scared girls trembling on his apple-green carpeting, it just didn’t happen. Erased. Wiped out.
