Disclosure

Word of the accusation gets to MicroSym. The company suspends him from his job, pending the outcome. They say they don’t want negative publicity.

Masters is seeing his life dissolve. His younger daughter won’t talk to him. His wife won’t talk to him. He’s living alone in an apartment. He has money problems. Business associates avoid him. Everywhere he turns, he sees accusing faces. He is advised to get a lawyer. And he is so shattered, so uncertain, he starts going to a shrink himself.

His lawyer makes inquiries; disturbing details emerge. It turns out that the particular psychologist who made the accusation uncovers abuse in a high percentage of her cases. She has reported so many cases that the state agency has begun to suspect bias. But the agency can do nothing; the law requires that all cases be investigated. The social worker assigned to the case has been previously disciplined for her excessive zeal in pursuing questionable cases and is widely thought to be incompetent, but the state cannot fire her for the usual reasons.

The specific accusation-never formally presented-turns out to be that Masters molested his daughter in the summer of her third grade. Masters thinks back, has an idea. He gets his old canceled checks out of storage, digs up his old business calendars. It turns out that his daughter was at a camp in Montana that whole summer. When she came home in August, Masters was on a business trip in Germany. He did not return from Germany until after school had started again.

He had never even seen his daughter that summer.

Masters’s shrink finds it significant that his daughter would locate the abuse at the one time when abuse was impossible. The shrink concludes that the daughter felt abandoned and has translated that into a memory of abuse. Masters confronts the wife and daughter. They listen to the evidence and admit that they must have the date wrong, but remain adamant that the abuse occurred.

Nevertheless, the facts about the summer schedule lead the state to drop its investigation, and MicroSym reinstates Masters. But Masters has missed a round of promotions, and a vague cloud of prejudice hangs over him. His career has been irrevocably damaged. His wife never reconciles, eventually filing for divorce. He never again sees his younger daughter. His older daughter, caught between warring family factions, sees less of him as time goes on. Masters lives alone, struggles to rebuild his life, and suffers a nearfatal heart attack. After his recovery, he sees a few friends, but now he is morose and drinks too much, a poor companion. Other men avoid him. No one has an answer to his constant question: What did I do wrong? What should I have done instead? How could I have prevented this?

Because, of course, he could not have prevented it. Not in a contemporary climate where men were assumed to be guilty of anything they were accused of.

Among themselves, men sometimes talked of suing women for false accusations. They talked of penalties for damage caused by those accusations. But that was just talk. Meanwhile, they all changed their behavior. There were new rules now, and every man knew them:

Don’t smile at a child on the street, unless you’re with your wife. Don’t ever touch a strange child. Don’t ever be alone with someone else’s child, even for a moment. If a child invites you into his or her room, don’t go unless another adult, preferably a woman, is also present. At a party, don’t let a little girl sit on your lap. If she tries, gently push her aside. If you ever have occasion to see a naked boy or girl, look quickly away. Better yet, leave.

And it was prudent to be careful around your own children, too, because if your marriage went sour, your wife might accuse you. And then your past conduct would be reviewed in an unfavorable light: "Well, he was such an affectionate father-perhaps a little too affectionate." Or, "He spent so much time with the kids. He was always hanging around the house . . ."

This was a world of regulations and penalties entirely unknown to women. If Susan saw a child crying on the street, she picked the kid up. She did it automatically, without thinking. Sanders would never dare. Not these days.

And of course there were new rules for business, as well. Sanders knew men who would not take a business trip with a woman, who would not sit next to a female colleague on an airplane, who would not meet a woman for a drink in a bar unless someone else was also present. Sanders had always thought such caution was extreme, even paranoid. But now, he was not so sure.

The sound of the ferry horn roused Sanders from his thoughts. He looked up and saw the black pilings of the Colman Dock. The clouds were still dark, still threatening rain. He stood, belted his raincoat, and headed downstairs to his car.

0n his way to the mediation center, he stopped by his office for a few minutes to pick up background documentation on the Twinkle drive. He thought it might be necessary in the morning’s work. But he was surprised to see John Conley in his office, talking with Cindy. It was 8:15 in the morning.

"Oh, Tom," Conley said. "I was just trying to arrange an appointment with you. Cindy tells me that you have a very busy schedule and may be out of the office most of the day."

Sanders looked at Cindy. Her face was tight. "Yes," he said, "at least for the morning."

"Well, I only need a few minutes."

Sanders waved him into the office. Conley went in, and Sanders closed the door.

"I’m looking forward to the briefing tomorrow for John Marden, our CEO," Conley said. "I gather you’ll be speaking then."

Sanders nodded vaguely. He had heard nothing about a briefing. And tomorrow seemed very far away. He was having trouble concentrating on what Conley was saying.

"But of course we’ll all be asked to take a position on some of these agenda items," Conley said. "And I’m particularly concerned about Austin."