Her eyes widened. She was wearing a light-green cotton bathrobe. She had just finished washing her hair and was still wiping it dry when I had cycled up to her house and knocked on the door. She had paused, surprised to see me, and after taking a closer look at my face, had suggested we both sit. Maybe because she was a nurse, she could feel the way my very bones were vibrating.

“Are you saying you were raped?”

“I don’t know if I’d put it that way,” I replied. “I was offered too much of a unique lemon alcohol drink made in Italy, and I didn’t realize how it would affect me. I drank too much of it.”

“So someone took advantage of you when you were inebriated?”

Now that this had happened, was I prepared to cast all the dark, black sheet of blame over Garland Foxworth?

“Maybe,” I said.

“I don’t understand. How can that be maybe? There are no maybes or almosts when it comes to this.”

I looked away. The tears felt like they were freezing over my eyes and I was looking at the world through snow. Garland’s smile faded in and out. Somewhere on the street, little girls were laughing, and for a moment, I longed to be a child again, free to do anything that didn’t make me or my clothes dirty as long as I was where my mother knew I’d be. But I was never an angel, I thought, even then.

“I’m not entirely without fault,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I went to Charlottesville deliberately to see him and used visiting a great-aunt as an excuse. When I was there, I willingly went to his home without any chaperone or anyone knowing. My great-aunt and her servant are too old to realize anything. The gentleman didn’t force me to drink. I did willingly take it.”

“More than one?”

“Yes, and then everything just seemed to happen so fast. I didn’t offer any real resistance.”

Nurse Rose sat back, the right corner of her mouth tucked in as she thought about what I had just said. “Willingly didn’t offer any? Are you saying you led this young man into believing this was all right, that you wanted it to happen?”

“No. Certainly not,” I protested. “Not this.”

She nodded but didn’t look like she completely believed me. “All right, Corrine. How much fault will your young man admit to?” she asked.

I shook my head. Could he blame it all on me? Would he?

“Does he know yet?”

“No.”

“And your parents? They know nothing of this yet?”

“Nothing.”

“I think that is where you have to begin, Corrine. Have you been nauseated in the morning, unusually tired?”

“Not nauseated, but I have been tired. I was too tired to go to work today. My father has me working in his bank.”