While she wasn't physically thrown out of her home, she did become a mental outcast, and her life with her parents became increasingly difficult as her due date drew near. It had been arranged for her to go to a home for unwed mothers, and after Rick was born, Linda decided she could not return home. With money saved for college expenses, she struggled on her own for a year; and when the baby was old enough to be taken to a sitter, she got a job as a file clerk with a company south of San Francisco. She worked hard, going to a secretarial school at night, and eventually she got a good paying job as an executive secretary. Through it all she avoided any kind of contact with her family, though not because they hadn't believed her about the rape. It was her guilty feelings, feelings she carried with her all the time, for in the back of her mind she knew that she had almost enjoyed that brutal rape by the sailor.

Thus, Linda put sex and men out of her mind, looking upon both as crude and brutal and dirty. She never dated men, but instead devoted her time to improving her professional life and raising her son, Rick, in the best way possible. Everything went along fine – she believed herself happy – until one day she woke up and realized that her son was almost a man… Now in addition to the problems of Karl Williams' persistence about a date, there was Ricky…

With the letter typed and ready to be posted, Linda busied herself with clearing her desk until quitting time. She considered leaving early, what with the long weekend ahead, but after having turned down her boss for the umpteenth time, she felt it wiser not to take advantage.

At five o'clock, to the second, she quietly locked her desk and walked out of the building with the rest of the office staff. Outside, she was pleased that she hadn't been confronted with Karl Williams again, and she ran to her car in case he might be following her. She wanted to get home to her son, and she didn't think she could take anymore of her boss's arguments about why she should go out with him. The three-day weekend was that much sweeter for the fact that she wouldn't be making excuses to him.