Chapter 1

I hadn't seen her for years.

I instantly knew who had softly placed a hand on my shoulder. Even though I hadn't seen her for years.

It was a soft touch, unique in its placement and path it took from the edge of my shoulder to the final pause and release with a gentle pull of the hairs on the nape of my neck. I didn't even have to raise my head, turn my face to her and look into her eyes.

"Allie," I thought.

It was Allie's soft comforting hand. I didn't even question the how and why of her presence. I didn't know how or why. I just accepted she was there.

I was sitting a ways from my house. My back to the crumbling embers of my life. With knees scrunched up to my chest, rocking back and forth into them, rivulets of tears were trickling down my face.

How I wished I was a woman and could shed buckets of tears to help wash away the pain. "Men don't cry," I'd heard often throughout the younger part of my 27 years. It really never bothered me; that altruism.

"Work hard."

"Tough it out!"

"Be a man Donnie. Be a MAN!!!"

The male credo, "Take it like a man."

The credo my father had beaten into me in my youth. Time and again. Time and time again I had gotten the firm hand of his belt. The STRAP as he called it. At the least slight of a whimper as the leather caught my skin, tore my skin, he'd yell at me, "Be a man."

My back, buttocks and the rear of my legs bore witness to the uncountable number of times I'd been subject to my father's frustration and fury. It never had to be much to light his fiery tirade about how worthless a human being I was.

Kids break things as they learn. It's their job to test and try things that don't make sense to an adult. It's just the way of life.

Kids make mistakes. That too is a way of learning and life.

Kids wonder how strong things are and just what will make them break.

Kids learn how careful you have to be or glass that's all around them will break.

But not in my house growing up. No mistakes allowed. Make one and it was strip for the strap.

"Donnie ... go bend over the workbench in the shed," he'd tell me as he drew that heavy leather punishment belt from the strong loops round his waist. "Take your medicine ... like a man," he'd said so many times I'd stopped listening. Stopped caring. Stopped loving. Began hating.

Over childhood years as I got older the fury ebbed. I learned to both be more careful and his health failed. Finally in my late teens, just before I became that "Man" he always drummed into me, beat into me, he abandoned me with death.

Even with the physical torment by my father ended, I still flinched at every error, expecting "The Strap." He was gone yet I continued to punish myself.

It was once about Allie, the error of my ways. The small thing that had given my father just one more reason to unbuckle his belt and with a stern finger point to the shed saying those dreadful words, "Get into the shed." Then with disgust oozing from his mouth he added, "Donnie ... Get your ass into the shed!"

It had been a very warm sunny afternoon early in my 14th summer. A sleepy breeze wafted through my hair as I mowed our lawn. Sweat dampened my shirt. I thought of removing it to wrap over my head. Or throwing it to a branch the next time I neared the Dogwood tree centered on our front lawn.

Opting for neither, I started to tie it around my waist. Easier, I thought, was to tie it around my middle.

As I swung the t-shirt around my hips to tie it off, it never reached around me. That little sprite of a girl next door, Allie, went off in a run. Her excited scream of victory billowing from her mouth, waving her trophy round and around, over her head. "Catch me if you can," came over her shoulder, her eyes shining brightly a challenge.

It only took a moment of indecision before I was after her in a full tilt run. Just as I'd gotten in gear she disappeared into the woodland bordering our back yard. She slipped into the narrow trail ending at a small pond just a short ways back.

It was a destination we'd gone to many a time as kids. A place where we swam together in the heat of summer and skated in the frigid winters. A place we'd gone many times, enjoying our solitude, together or alone.

But that fateful day, the first day of my 14th summer, everything changed.

As soon as I got to the edge of the woods, I let my pace slow a little. To this day, I don't know why. I just did. Somehow, even though I wanted to speed up to overtake her, the chase now seemed more important than the catch.