As we walk past the reporters she calls out, “Don’t film us. We’re not part of the family. We’re just gawkers.”

When we find Michael and Alison he says “The police finally let us go inside, so Mom packed some things so you guys can stay with us at a hotel for the night.”

“Preferably one that’s at least ten miles away,” Alison says. “We’ll try to get some sleep and deal with all this in the morning.”

“What about Daddy?” Jessie says.

Alison looks at Michael. He says, “The coroner’s office has assumed temporary custody of his body till they decide whether or not to hold an official inquest.”

“What’s that?”

“An official meeting where they try to establish the manner of death. In other words, was it a suicide, a homicide, or an accident?”

“We should be there.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Alison says. “But they told us we could see him late tomorrow or anytime Friday. In the meantime, I’ve packed what you need for the night. We should get whatever sleep we can, because tomorrow’s going to be awful.”

Michael and I decide on the Griffin Gate Marriott and he drives the four of us there. We book a room for Alison and Jessie, and one for ourselves, and help them settle in. Since no one feels like going to the hotel restaurant, Michael orders room service for us, and when it arrives we eat in stony silence. After dinner he and I go to our room and he says, “Dad was our rock. I can’t believe he’s gone.” He sits on the bed and suddenly bursts into tears. I do what I can to comfort him and before I know it he’s climbing all over me, pulling off my clothes, pinning me beneath him, forcing me to…I’m shocked and stunned and…I’m serious: he’s sexually assaulting me! I want no part of it, but…I lie there and bite my lip and absorb each angry thrust until he finally collapses on top of me, exhausted and spent.

Dazed, and in considerable pain, I slide out from under him and trudge on unsteady legs to the bathroom and lock the door. My thighs are shaking so violently I have to lean my elbows on the sink in order to gradually work myself down onto the toilet. Now, sitting here, I expect to feel some measure of relief, but for whatever reason the act of sitting enhances the pain. I reach up and grab the large towel from the towel rod and press it into my face and mouth to keep my crying as silent as possible, then wonder why I even care about being quiet. I should march in there and pummel him with my fists! I’m hurt, humiliated, and thoroughly disillusioned by the man who—just hours ago—professed his undying love in a coffee shop over a fucking latte.

I want to scream at him for—is it too much to say? That he basically raped me?

No. It wasn’t a ‘basically’ sort of thing. He absolutely raped me. My insides are on fire! I take a deep breath and pee, and it stings like crazy. I look down, expecting blood in the toilet, but thankfully there’s none. But when I wipe there’s some spotting. Not much, and not from the pee, but he obviously tore me up enough to create some small fissures.

I look through the bag I stuffed with everything I might need for a multi-day trip and find an old pill box with two leftover Percocets. I take one for the pain, and tell myself not to overreact. Of course he wasn’t in his right mind. He just lost his father, and it wasn’t a sudden death, it was suicide, and obviously that’s a million times harder to process.

I get all that.

But it still doesn’t give him a free pass to brutalize me. Because if I’m supposed to rationalize what he did and accept it under the heading of ‘he just lost his father’, then what if I hadn’t been here tonight? Would he have had the right to go down to the lobby bar and rape some other poor woman?

No. And nor do I believe he would have done that.

So yes, I’m taking it personally. And I’ll never be able to view him the same way again, because what does it say about a man whose first response to tragedy is physically assaulting his fiancée?

The more I think about it, the angrier I get.