“Corrine,” my father said in a more demanding tone. “What is going on with you?”

“I lied to you,” I said. He stared silently, anticipating I would continue, but I felt like I had spent my ability to speak for the rest of my life with just those four words.

“What lie?” he asked. “Well?”

“I did go to Foxworth Hall that night.”

He nodded. “I can’t tell you I wasn’t suspicious, Corrine. I knew how taken with Garland Foxworth you were, and from the way you described your great-aunt Nettie’s home and what was happening, the temptation to do something more interesting and exciting was surely there.”

“It was more than just that, Daddy.”

He nodded again. “Anyway, I’m glad you decided to tell me the truth. I don’t want there ever to be gaps of distrust between us. Lies between people who love each other are like cancer.”

I could see how eager he was to end with this, to wrap up this uncomfortable moment with only that simple confession. How I wished I could, how I wished I deserved this father who was so forgiving and who loved me too much ever to despise me.

“I was impressed with Garland Foxworth from the moment I met him at the Wexlers’. I can’t say I’m not still. He’s very good-looking and has traveled so much and . . .”

“And?” His eyes narrowed as he realized I was not finished with my confession. “So you went to his home and . . .”

“He showed me some of Foxworth Hall, and we ended up in a room upstairs, where he had a drink he had discovered during his travels in Italy.”

“What drink?”

“He called it limoncello and was so taken with it he wrote down a recipe someone in Italy gave him and had it made here. We talked, and I drank, and—”

My father’s eyes darkened. His body stiffened. “You got sick from it?”

“Yes, but—”

“You were alone in this room the entire time?”

“Yes.”

He turned like he was going to run out but just stared down at the floor. “How far did it go, Corrine?”

I took the deepest breath of my life first. “Earlier today, I cycled to Nurse Grace Rose’s home to ask her some questions about myself.”

He looked up quickly, his face sizzling with growing fear and rage.

I was afraid to look at him and looked down at my hands in my lap instead.

“Why?” he asked.

“I thought . . . I was worried that I was pregnant.”

He was silent. I could hear his deepening breaths.

The bird outside, as though it had eavesdropped on our conversation, flew away. I heard no other. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath.

“And what did Nurse Rose tell you?”

“She said I was . . . was pregnant.”

His legs seemed to go out on him. He sat on the edge of my bed quickly.