The name Salem brought two images to me: cigarettes and the witch hunt. Picoult wove a story that brought a handsome, well educated man from a rich background to a rape victim who not only kept her rapist's child but loved and mourned her for years after the child died of an illness. While the victim suffered in silence, the man was openly accused of rape of a minor and was imprisoned as a result of a plea.
Both the man and the woman were innocent who suffered grievously. I felt very angry with Jack, the history teacher who doubled as soccer coach, who did not have a care about what others thought about him. He was a fool for getting his class of teenage girls to put on their swim suits and then draped table cloths over themselves for mock war fare. He was a moron for picking up his student's bra and kept it on his person. That just about sealed his fate of being charged as a child rapist.
When I was residing in Silver City, there was a woman who waited for words from her daughter who disappeared during her first year as a university student in Australia. The mother kept her old house and her old house phone for years until the death of her husband. Then she sold her house to a relative who promised to keep the old house number and would pass the message if her daughter called. Twenty one years to the date her daughter was missing, a call did come. Two months later, her long lost daughter came back with a twenty year old son. Apparently, she was raped on a date. As a Roman Catholic, she refused abortion and accepted state aid. She changed her name legally to protect herself and her son. Overnight she relocated to another state with the help of a social worker. Happily for the mother, her long wait was over.
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