***
I called Nigel.
He answered immediately.
"Mara?"
"Do you remember your blue bicycle?"
Silence.
Then he asked, "What?"
"The one you got when you were eleven."
His breathing changed.
"Yes."
"How did you get it?"
"My father bought it."
"Why?"
A long pause.
Then Nigel whispered, "He said I'd earned it."
My hands went cold.
"E arned it?"
Nigel didn't answer.
I gripped the phone.
"Nigel, tell me everything you remember about the day you pushed me."
He began breathing unevenly.
"I've told you what happened."
"Tell me again."
He swallowed.
"We were at the playground. You were on the swing. I came up behind you."
"And?"
"My father had told me to meet him there."
My heart pounded.
"Why?"
"I thought he wanted to take me shopping afterward."
I closed my eyes.
"What happened when he arrived?"
Nigel hesitated.
"He was talking to a woman near the parking lot."
