Outside, I heard the car doors shut and the crunch of gravel under the tires. Someone was still in the kitchen, shuffling around, and now coming toward the TV room. It was Mr. Warren. He stood in the doorway and then went over to the TV and turned down the sound. I pretended to be asleep and kept my eyes shut. He walked toward me. I could hear the clink of ice in his drink and could smell him standing over me. I tried not to squeeze my eyes shut so tight that he would know I was pretending, but not so open that he would see me awake. Then he moved away. I thought he was leaving, but instead he sat down on the sofa where I was, down by my feet. I heard him put his drink on the table, and then he picked up my bare feet and put them in his lap. I tried to be absolutely still. He stayed like that for a few minutes, touching the skin on the soft underside of my foot with one of his fingers, then pressed my feet deeper into his lap and started to push against them. He shifted around under them, holding them with one hand suspended, and then another part of his flesh was touching me, between my feet, which he held together. And all the time that he moved against my feet and exhaled and squeezed, I was motionless. Then he let out painful sounds and was gripping my feet hard, and I felt my feet wet, and still I just lay there, saying nothing, trying not to breathe. Then he wiped my feet with something, maybe his shirttail, and stood up and lowered them gently, as if not to wake me, even though he had just been holding them so tight and pushing them down. He picked up his drink and left the room. I opened my eyes. On the screen, the housekeeper was standing behind the new wife at an open window. In the book, this is where she’s trying to convince her to commit suicide, to jump. Then the flare signals from where the boat has crashed on the rocks.

When I think about that night at the Warrens’ house, I don’t think about what Mr. Warren did; I worry about what I didn’t do. Why I didn’t just pretend to wake up and walk up the stairs to Jessie’s room? Why I didn’t just pull my feet away or kick him? I think about how, before it even started, I already felt like I’d done something bad just by being there, by making myself at home in their house.