"Karen?" asked Abigail. "But she doesn't even know me!"
Jack sighed heavily. "I didn't tell you before because I knew you had enough on your mind as it was, but she came to see me while you were in the hospital. She told me she'd stopped drinking and wanted to resume our relationship. I told her that I was happy for her that she'd stopped drinking, but that I was married to you now and it was going to stay that way."
"And how did she take that?"
"She seemed to take it well enough at the time. I never dreamed she'd do something like this."
"Well, maybe it wasn't her, Jack. Maybe it was just someone who looked like her."
"God, I hope you're right," said Jack.
For a while after Abigail's accident, things seemed perfectly normal. Then Abigail began to get strange telephone calls at night. Usually there was silence on the other end of the line, but sometimes she heard background noises such as a television or various household appliances. One night Jack answered the phone instead of Abigail.
"Do you know what I'm doing right now, Jack?" asked Karen. "I'm sitting here completely naked, playing with my little thing. Don't you wish you were here, Jack?"
Jack's face turned red with anger. "You listen to me, Karen," he said through his teeth. "If you don't stop harassing me and my family right now, I'm calling the police!"
Karen laughed. "What are you gonna tell them, big boy? That you're horny for your ex-wife and you're frustrated because she won't give you any?"
Furious, Jack hung the telephone up and called the police. They told him to keep a log of the inappropriate telephone calls and, if they came on a frequent basis, they'd see about getting the line tapped.
Jack and Abigail never received another strange telephone call after that.
One day Abigail took the children to the park. Jackson was playing on the slides and Abigail was pushing Julie on a swing when she felt a sudden intense pain in her eyes and began gasping and choking.
"Help me! Somebody please, help me!" she screamed when she was able to vocalize again. She felt Jackson tugging anxiously at her slacks.
"Mommy? Mommy, what's wrong?"
Within moments she heard an adult male voice. "Ma'am, are you all right?"
She shook her head, gasping and sobbing.
"What happened?"
"I...I don't know. I was pushing my little girl in the swing when I suddenly felt this incredible pain in my eyes...it just hurts so bad..."
"Where's your little girl now?"
"She's not right here?" Abigail shrieked in alarm.
"No, ma'am. There's no one here but the little boy and myself."
"Mommy! Mommy! Where's Julie?" Jackson cried, still tugging at his mother's pants.
"Oh, my baby! My baby!" The pain in Abigail's eyes was instantly replaced by a much deeper one in her heart.