Mastine had no further questions.

Paquette got up only to have me repeat one thing. He wanted me to repeat the distance of Madison's face from mine during the rape itself. I did: one centimeter. Later he would try and use my certainty against me. Quoting this distance in his final statement as to why I couldn't be trusted as a credible witness.

"No redirect," Mastine said.

"You are excused," Judge Gorman said, and I stood.

My legs were shaky underneath me and I had sweat through my skirt and stockings and slip. The male bailiff who had led me in came toward the center of the room and waited for me.

He took me out.

Down the hall, Murphy spotted me and helped my father gather his books. The bailiff looked at me.

"I've been in this business for thirty years," he said. "You are the best rape witness I've ever seen on the stand."

I would hold on to that moment for years.

The bailiff walked back toward court.

Murphy hustled me off. "We want to get away from the door," he said. "They'll be breaking for lunch."

"Are you okay?" my dad asked.

"I'm fine," I said. I did not recognize him as my father. He was just a person standing there, like all the rest. I was shaking and needed to sit down. The three of us, Murphy, my father, and I, returned to their bench.

They spoke to me. I don't remember what they said. It was over.

Gail breezed out of the courtroom and over to us. She looked at my father. "Your daughter's an excellent witness, Bud," she said.

"Thank you," my father said.

"Was I okay, Gail?" I asked. "I was worried. He was really mean."

"That's his job," she said. "But you held up under him. I was watching the judge."

"What did he look like?" I asked.

"The judge? He looked exhausted," she said, smiling. "Billy is really tired. I wanted to get up there so bad. We have a break until two and then it's the doctor. Another pregnant lady!"

It was like a relay race, I realized. The leg I'd run had been arduous and long, but there were still others-more questions and answers-more key witnesses, many more hours to Gail's day.

"If I learn anything I'll contact the detective," she said, turning to me. She extended her hand to my father. "Nice to meet you, Bud. You can be proud."

"I hope the next time we meet it's under more pleasant circumstances," he said. It had just hit him. We were leaving.

Gail hugged me. I had never hugged a pregnant woman before, found it awkward, almost genteel, the way both she and I had to lean only the upper halves of our bodies in. "You're incredible, kiddo," she said quietly to me.

Murphy drove us back to Hotel Syracuse, where we packed. I may have slept. My father called my mother. I don't remember those hours. My attention had been so focused that now I let go. I was aware that my case was still continuing as we folded clothes and waited for Murphy to pick us up later that afternoon. My father and I sat on the edges of the twin beds. Putting distance between us and the city of Syracuse was our unspoken goal. We knew the plane would do it. We waited.

Murphy came early to meet us. He brought news.

"Gail wanted to be the one to tell you," he said, "but she couldn't get away."

My father and I were in the carpeted lobby, our red American Tourister luggage waiting nearby.

"They got him," he said joyfully. "Guilty on six counts. He was remanded to jail!"

I went blank. My legs felt weak beneath me.

"Thank God," my father said. He said this quietly, acknowledging an answered prayer.

We were in the car. Murphy was chattering. He was high off it. I sat in the back of the car while my father and Murphy sat in the front. My hands were cold and limp. I remember feeling them distinctly resting on either side of me, useless.

At the airport, while my father and Murphy sat off at a distance in an airport lounge, I called my mother from a pay phone. Murphy offered to buy my father a drink.

I pushed in my home phone number and waited.

"Hello," my mother said.

"Mom, it's Alice. I have news."

I faced the wall and cupped the mouthpiece in both hands. "We did it, Mom," I said. "All six counts except the weapons one. He was remanded to jail."

I didn't know what remanded meant yet but I used the word.

My mother was ecstatic. She shouted up and down the house in Paoli, "She did it! She did it! She did it!" over and over again. She could not contain her joy.

I had done it.

Murphy and my father exited the bar. Our flight was boarding soon. I found out what remanded meant. It meant Madison would not be released between conviction and sentencing. They had handcuffed him inside the courtroom as the charges were read. This made Murphy gleeful.

"I wish I could have been there to see his face."

It had been a long, good day for John Murphy, and, as my father confided on the airplane, Murphy could really pack the drinks away. But who could blame him? He was heady, celebratory, off to see his Alice.

I was drained. Though it took me a while to realize it, I, too, had been remanded. I would be held over for a long time.

On June 2, I received a letter from the probation department of the County of Onondaga. They wrote to inform me that they were conducting "a pre-sentence investigation of a young man who was recently found guilty after trial of Rape First Degree, Sodomy First Degree and other related charges. These charges," the letter stated, "stem from an incident in which you were the victim." They wrote to inquire if I had any input on the sentencing recommendation.

I wrote back. I recommended the maximum sentence allowable under the law, and quoted Madison calling me "the worst bitch." I knew Syracuse had been voted the seventh-best city to live in that year, and I pointedly stated that having men like Madison on the streets wouldn't bolster this reputation. I knew my best hope to be heard was by making the point that a maximum sentence would make the men who sentenced him look good. That way they wouldn't be doing it for me, but for the people who elected them and paid their salaries. I knew this. Whatever skills I had, I used.

I closed my letter by signing it over my title: victim.

On July 13, 1982, in a court where Gorman presided, and Mastine, Paquette, and Madison were in attendance, Gregory Madison was sentenced. It was the maximum for rape and sodomy: eight and a third to twenty-five years. The larger sentences, along with lesser ones given for the four remaining charges, would run concurrently. Mastine called to tell me. He also informed me that Gail had given birth. My mother and I went shopping for a gift. When I saw Gail fifteen years later, she brought the gift along to show me she remembered.

That summer I began my makeover. I had been raped but I had also been raised on Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue. The possibilities of the before-and-after that I had been presented with all my life took hold. Besides, those around me-namely my mother now, with my sister working in Washington before leaving for Syria, and my father off in Spain-encouraged me to move on with my life. "You don't want to become defined by the rape," she said, and I agreed.

I got a job in an ill-fated T-shirt shop where I was the only employee. I stamped badges in an unventilated attic and did sloppy silk-screening for local softball teams. My boss, who was twenty-three, was out hustling up business around town. Sometimes he was drunk and showed up with his buddies to watch TV I was wearing huge clothes at the time, ones I made myself, what even my mother called tent dresses. And I wore a lot of them in the June and July heat of 1982. One day when my boss and his friends taunted me to show a little flesh, I turned around and walked out. I drove home in my father's car, covered in inks.