You put out your hand, to take Lionel’s limp, big-knuckled hand. It is not a decisive gesture—it can be withdrawn in an instant. You are trying to remain calm. Not to cry. You understand that, in prison, an inmate must not cry. A man must not cry. You want to give comfort to this wounded man but you are not fully at ease with him, not yet. You are cautious, fearful.

Wanting to explain to Lionel how it had happened. Not why, you have no idea why. But how it had happened was too quickly.

That morning. In the school infirmary. Your skin had been burning, feverish. You had not been thinking clearly. You had not thought of consequences. Strangers had questioned you, meaning to be protective and kind. In the confusion of the moment you had not known how not to answer them.

Uttering certain words to a police officer. Not like uttering identical words to a priest. Safe now, Violet. You will be safe now.

It is not possible to explain to Lionel. The words will not come. The child you’d been has been lost, can’t be reclaimed. Your brother is confronted only with you.

Though you continue to squeeze the big-knuckled hand which neither resists nor yields to your own.

In this pause, the visit seems to be over. In this silence, some understanding has been reached. Each of you is relieved, exhausted. Pent-up breath is expelled, you are feeling almost giddy rising to your feet.

There is a moment when the two of you should embrace. It is up to you, the female, to clasp the male in your arms—though Lionel is taller than you by several inches, heavier by fifty or more pounds.

He has not forgiven you. No.

But you must forgive him.

BUT THEN, AS YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET INTO YOUR CAR, LIONEL calls after you—“Vi’let?”

And you turn, and see that Lionel has followed you from the house, blinking and smiling in the sunshine, relieved, giddy like one who has been released from a cave.

He has called you “Vi’let”—as your brothers called you, when you were a girl.

So touched by this, you scarcely hear what Lionel says next.

“I was thinking—maybe—we could walk over to the old house? Just to look? OK?” It is the most that Lionel has said to you, in a single outburst.

Your half-formed plan is that on your return to Katie’s house you’d drive along Black Rock Street. Over the Lock Street Bridge. And afterward, you might drive across town to Howard Street, to see the house in which Hadrian Johnson once lived.

These intentions, lurking in the periphery of your consciousness while you’d been speaking (awkwardly, haltingly) with Lionel in the house.

So close to Black Rock Street! A five-minute walk.