Part 4: Whatever Happened to Paige Foster?

Part 1

Seven years after Paige Foster, a rural dog breeder, gave up the only puppy she ever wanted to keep, she boarded a jet that would reunite her and that little terrier.

Why did she give him up? Because the stranger on the phone 1,800 miles away needed him more than she did.

It would be years before I understood Paige’s sacrifice or learned that she had intended to keep the puppy born on her birthday.

At the time, she was married to a chicken feed salesman and storefront baptist minister, owner of a Vitalis-wet poorly executed combover, the latest of her tormentors and sexual abusers.

First, there was her maternal grandfather, who regularly visited her bedroom for years when she was young. When Paige sought help from her mother and father, they pretended it was not happening.

Later, when Paige was raped by two boys she thought were friends, her mother insinuated it was her own fault.

“You’re too sexy. You’ve always been.”

Throughout all the torment, Paige dreamed of running away. “I’m going to …