Shame

situation.”
    “You don’t know your Alice.”
    “Alice?”
    “In Wonderland. When the Duchess says, ‘Everything’s got a moral if only you can find it.’”
    “I’m more interested in finding a clue than a moral.”
    “Maybe they go hand in hand,” Lola said. She looked at her watch, made a frightened little noise. “I’ve got to go.”
    “Break a leg.”
    “You sure you don’t need anything else?”
    “I think you’ve thought of everything.”
    The table in front of him was stocked with food ready to be grazed, opened drinks with straws, and a portable phone. Lola had set up the MP3 player for him to listen to
Shame.
Even with his restricted mobility, Caleb could move his fingers and press buttons. And at his feet was a chamber pot. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
    “Maybe I should have thought about tying up my sailor boy,” Lola said. “He always told me he’d be here waiting, but he never was.”
    She sighed, announced she’d be back by one, and then walked out of the room. Caleb listened as the door opened and closed. With Lola out of the house, he examined his bonds, flexing against them. She had made the mistake of tying his hands in front of him, or maybe it was just her way of trusting him, at least up to a point. But duct tape had made a professional out of a non-Boy Scout. There was little, if any, play in the binding. Still, he could move his arms, could even get up and hop around if he wanted. Lola had to have known that.
    He reached over to the MP3 player. Over the speakers Elizabeth Line started narrating.
    Why’d you lie? Caleb wondered. Why did you tell the world I attacked you? It didn’t make sense. She didn’t need to sell any more books, and her false accusations rankled.
    He decided that he should listen to his father’s childhood, at least for a little while.
    Winona Parker was always worried about the evil out there.
    Her “out there” was a nebulous but all-encompassing place. She worried for herself, but mostly she worried for her boy Gray.
    Gray was the baby she had prayed for, her change-of-life miracle born to her when she was forty-seven. Winona believedherself to be a modern Sarah and her husband Abraham. Gray was her blessing, or at least her mixed blessing. Winona had always dreamed of having a little girl. She liked to describe her son as “both a miracle and my cross to bear.”
    Winona’s husband, Gray Sr., didn’t see anything miraculous about the birth. In fact, becoming a father seemed to be a remarkably uneventful occurrence in his life. He worked as a field representative for a carpet company and had been on the road when his son was born, but even when he was home, Parker never appeared interested in his boy, treating him more as a curiosity than his own flesh and blood. All child-rearing duties were his wife’s domain, a situation that delighted Winona.
    Gray was Winona’s doll—her girl doll. She dressed the baby in pink and continued dressing him in girls’ clothing until he was five. Winona grew his hair long. Those who didn’t know his sex often commented on “what a beautiful girl” Gray was. And they were right. With his light blue eyes, long, dark locks, and perfect features, he was beautiful. Winona dressed him in lace and frills and adorned his tresses with ribbons. Gray was given dolls and encouraged to play “house” and have tea parties. Winona kept a close watch over her child. She did her best to keep him away from “bad influences,” which included all little boys. But despite her best efforts, “evil” found Gray.
    From his window, Gray watched troops of boys pass by his house. They wore boys’ clothing and did boys’ things. He wanted to join them but was ashamed to go out dressed like a girl. Besides, his mother wouldn’t let him. So Gray became an observer, watching the world from his window, but he found ways to rebel, including the acting out of his anger on the dolls his mother brought him. Some he beat the stuffing out of; others he disfigured; most he dismembered.
    When Gray was five, his father finally objected to Winona’s trying to make the boy a “sissy.” He bought Gray boys’ clothing and forbade Winona to dress his son up like a girl. It was the onlytime Gray remembered his father ever intervening on his behalf. Three years later, when Gray was only eight, his father died of an aneurysm in his brain.
    After her husband’s death, Winona became more unbalanced. Family, friends, and