As the courtship with Daniel continued, Dad was making lewd, sexual comments on a regular basis, and his groping hadn't slowed down, either. I felt even more soiled than I had before and disloyal on top of it, even though I had never initiated or encouraged these advances in any way. Of course, there was always a chaperone nearby whenever Daniel was there, even if we were only talking, usually a brother or sister. Every word was listened to, nothing was confidential.

Around this time, the most terrifying experience I'd ever had occurred. I was asleep and had a dream. Things started going strange in the dream, spinning wildly out of control, disorienting, and my heart was pounding at an increasing rate proportional to the spinning things in the dream. I couldn't breathe, my chest hurt, and my heart was pounding so hard that I could hear it loudly, drowning out the sound of anything else, deafening. Things were going black, and I knew that I was about to die, that it was going to happen, it was coming. Absolute terror engulfed me. I screamed, but no sound came out, was screaming with all my might, and all I could hear was a whispery, faint sound. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, was helpless in the face whatever was happening. By now I was awake, but I still couldn't talk or scream. I was left frozen with fear in a way that I'd never known before. There are simply no words adequate to express how horrible it felt. I laid there in my dark bed, terrified to go back to sleep lest it happen again.

I tried to explain it in the morning. I thought maybe something was wrong with my heart, or that I'd had a seizure. I was afraid of dying if it happened again. Eliyah leered knowingly and said I'd had a "swoon" because I was so turned on by Daniel. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. A swoon? Swoons were stupid things that happened to dumb airheady women in Victorian novels, not to sturdy outdoorsy girls like me. Besides, I didn't have a nice dream about Daniel, I had a nightmare that had nothing at all to do with him. But Dad kept talking about the "swoon" and hinting that it was some kind of a sexual experience, and I knew for a fact that what had happened to me was the farthest thing possible from sexy.

Because I didn't get any answers, any words for the experience, I was even more frightened. I assumed that it was some kind of a seizure, that I might be defective in some way. Maybe I wouldn't make a good wife because of it. Maybe Daniel wouldn't want me if he knew about it. And if there was one thing in the world that was even more terrifying than these night attacks, it was rejection, the fear of being cast off and unwanted, unloved again....just like when Mom had walked out the door and left me.