"Yeah?"
"There's a little more to that story than what I told the cops."
"Oh?"
"Babsie didn't even tell the cops this - she only ever told me. I was her best friend, you know... but anyway, there was one of the guys that raped her that she didn't identify."
"Who?"
"Her dad."
"Harry?" Isaac exclaimed. "No way."
"Well, that's who she said it was. I don't understand though. I've met Harry since he decided to show up recently. He's a nice guy. He doesn't seem like the type to... but you have never tell these days."
"No, you can't."
There was quiet for a while. Then Jarod started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
"If... y'know if it weren't for Shane, I may have ended up marrying Babsie," he replied ruefully. "At the time... I had been trying to cough up enough nerve to ask her out for months before they'd started dating. And I've never gotten the nerve to tell her how I felt ever since. Well, except once, but I was drunk and she assumed it to be drunken ramblings."
Isaac laughed.
"You know, she ended up pregnant from the rape."
"She did?"
"Yeah. But we didn't find out until about two months into it. See, she had gotten into a fight - which isn't at all unusual, especially then, and she ended up in hospital. A miscarriage."
"Poor Babs."
"Everyone thought she'd get through it right? I mean, we all know what she's like. But losing the baby... it was the worst thing that ever happened to her. Her therapy tripled within a week. She couldn't stand the idea that the baby had died because of her, which is exactly what she had convinced herself had happened - oh my gosh!"
"What?"
"That's what Shane was trying to do! Oh man, Ike, I hope your kids survive, if for no one's sake but Babsie's. She'll go crazy if they die. They'll put her in a mental hospital and it'll be years before she'll come out - assuming she ever does."
Isaac stared at him for a good long moment, then leaned his head against the window.
"Man, I'm sorry," Jarod said, noticing this. "I shouldn't have -"
"No, it's ok Jarod. I'm glad you told me. I just..."
"I know. I know."