My Lost Daughter by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg

bar.”
    Chris laughed. “I doubt if she meant it as anything other than a figure of speech. I think I said something along the same lines. Everyone does. You’re under so much pressure. And the California bar exam is a bitch. Even I failed the first time. Talk about panicked. I’d never failed anything in my life.”
    Lily was surprised. “But didn’t you graduate at the top of your class?”
    â€œYeah, but I was just a kid, remember? Besides, I’m not as smart as everyone thinks. I have a great memory, that’s all. I memorize everything. If I haven’t seen it before or the question is arranged differently, I’m lost.”
    â€œI don’t believe you. You’re just saying that so I’ll feel better about Shana. I might understand you having problems with the exam, though, because you were so young. How many people graduate Harvard Law at eighteen? Good Lord, Chris, you’re a genius. You can’t play dumb with me because I know better.”
    They both fell silent for a while. “They say victims of violent crimes,” he said, “particularly sex offenses, find the events resurfacing later in life. Maybe that’s what’s happening with Shana.”
    Lily turned around and faced him, resting her back against the railing. “I don’t believe in repressed memory. Whether you realize it or not, that’s what you’re talking about. When something terrible happens, even if you’re a kid, you don’t forget it and then suddenly remember it years later. That’s just nonsense the shrinks invented.”
    â€œBut there’ve been dozens of court cases. Men and women have been sentenced to prison on the basis of repressed memory. Some of it has to be legitimate, don’t you think?”
    Lily was hard-nosed on certain issues. “Maybe one in a thousand is real. If a child was victimized before the age of five, he might not remember, but if he doesn’t remember, he simply doesn’t remember. What happens in a lot of those cases is a woman gets depressed because her marriage is failing or she can’t accept that she’s getting older. Her kids might be leaving home, or she believes her husband is having an affair. She goes for counseling and before she knows it, the psychologist has convinced her she was molested as a child and that’s the cause of all her problems.” She held up a finger. “Don’t forget, a lot of these shrinks use hypnotism. People are highly suggestible when they’re under hypnosis. Look what happened in the McMartin preschool case. Those people went through hell and the whole thing was totally fabricated.”
    â€œInteresting.” He placed his hands inside the pockets of his robe. “I never realized you were such a skeptic, Lily. You would have made a good scientist. In the scientific community, if it can’t be proven, it doesn’t exist.”
    Before they had started dating, Lily recalled Chris telling her he planned to remain a judge for a few years and then quit to study theoretical physics. “By the way, when are you going to resign and start studying physics at Cal Tech?”
    â€œProbably never,” he said. “I found something better to play with than numbers.”
    â€œReally? What?”
    He smiled seductively. “You.”
    She reached over and squeezed his ass. “You’re turning into a sex maniac.”
    â€œIt’s getting cold out here.” He wrapped his arms around his chest. “Let’s go inside and snuggle under the covers.”
    The wind was blowing hard now and she didn’t hear him. When one thing went wrong, Lily expected everything else to collapsearound her. Too many bad things had happened in her lifetime. She’d made too many mistakes, deceived too many people, sinned in the worst way possible. How did she know Chris wouldn’t leave her as soon as she told him the truth? Maybe