With my father, I attended some business lunches, met some interesting men, but no one yet who captured more than some passing interest. Every once in a while, I would think about Garland and expect some letter, an apology, something, but nothing came for the next seven weeks. One day, my father made a reference to him when he talked about the bank’s investors planning on a quarterly meeting, a meeting that would lead to the election of a new board chairman. I tried to act disinterested, but I saw the way he was looking at me out of the corners of his eyes and then nodding to himself.

If he only knew it all, I thought, perhaps he wouldn’t be so excited every time he mentioned Garland Foxworth, but it wasn’t something I would willingly tell him, ever.

Ever is a small word. It doesn’t have the strength to be what it claims when it is overshadowed by the events of the day.

At the beginning of my eighth week at the bank, it suddenly occurred to me that something was wrong. I woke at night with the realization that I had not had my monthly. It was well over two weeks since my due date. Being so occupied had kept me from thinking about it. When I realized it, a rush of blood flowed up my neck. My face became so hot I had to get up and get a cool washcloth to pat my cheeks. While I stood there gazing at myself in the mirror, I felt the way my nightie was making the nipples of my breasts tingle. Maybe it was the way I woke up, with fear slithering up my legs to the small of my stomach and then on into my heart.

Nurse Grace Rose’s warning gonged like fire-alarm bells. This can’t be, I thought. I’d been a virgin. There had been too much blood, surely. The blood would have drowned any of Garland Foxworth’s sperm. I was just having some sort of summer cold or something, and that had upset my body clock. I worked on convincing myself, but it never was enough to permit me to fall asleep again.

My parents noticed how quiet I was at breakfast, but both thought it was because I did not have a good night’s sleep and was tired. My mother even suggested that I stay home from work this morning.

“You could do that,” my father seconded. “You’ve done swell, Corrine. You’ve earned yourself a day.”

“Are you sure, Daddy? I don’t want to look like I’m taking advantage of the bank because you are the president and possibly the new chairman of the board.”

That made him laugh. “Not at all,” he said. “And what of it? If I can’t get my daughter some special favors, what good is being the president of the bank?”