Innocence

The pretty girl with the long golden hair stayed after class to talk to me. I thought she wanted some help with the theoretical grammar class I was teaching, but instead she told me how she was being hounded by the police and the media because her ex-boyfriend was suspected of killing his wife. She was innocent, she said, not having dated him until after the woman's death--and then mostly to help with his children. I was instantly sympathetic and hoped all would go well for her. It's hard when one gets entangled in someone else's snare.

That was two or three years ago, but this morning's paper had the full story of my student's trial testimony--for which she received immunity from prosecution. The affair had actually started a couple of months before his wife's death, she admitted, and she knew he was planning to kill his wife, and after killing his wife, he told her about it in grisly detail. She said she hadn't turned him in because she was afraid for her life, and that she herself had not participated in the murder.

In other words, the pretty girl with the long golden hair was still innocent.

But I wonder. I cannot help but wonder.