Michael Malone - Weebly

And yes, she knew there was much yet to feel about
John, about the sad, chance waste of his death, much
yet to forgive herself and him about the fearful waste of
their marriage. She knew, too, that what she had felt
during the assault and the killings lived still unordered
inside her and could never be wholly excised; that from
time to time memory would spring open the unlockable
gate, and shame or pain or rage or grief would leap up
in her thoughts like the dogs of her imagination.
Yet, Judith knew that she was not stunned by
shock. This peace that made no sense was not
stupefying, but was clear and clean and light. She had
let go of all she had lost, and so let go of cowardice as
well. The world was oddly upside down. The violation
of her self, the defilement of her body, were unrelieved
horrors to her. Dr. Deeds had not needed to warn her.
Judith did not lacerate herself, or think she deserved
what had happened to her. And still, out of the
violation, her heart had been freed, as if immersion in
dreadful polluted water could clean. She had fallen into
the filth beside those other drowners she had always
pitied. But the world was upside down, and in falling