Slowly, slowly winding down, heading for a gentle, feather-light landing, Frankie would try to see if she could get me to say it. That I’d been that boy. That predatory boy.

And, of course, telling her that would be telling her that I was that predatory man, the one everyone said I was. Maybe it would be a relief to her. I didn’t know.

When Frankie returned, there was a woman with her who I didn’t recognize. The woman was dressed all in black, a thin hoodie and jeans with tattered hems. The two women stood outside the door talking animatedly. Frankie gestured toward me. The young woman looked. Nothing had twinged in me the first time I saw her, but as she turned toward me, her mouth open, almost frantic, I recognized her as the little girl Melanie and I had spent our brief relationship trying to avoid.

I’d stood and walked into the hall without realizing it. My heart was hammering.

“Elise.”

It was Elise Springfield. The little girl at the top of the stairs, pouty lip and heavy, clopping leather school shoes bought a size too big so she would grow into them. I’d thought I remembered little about her, but as I looked at her I realized there was plenty there—I remembered the way she’d wailed when her sister had pulled her hair, and I remembered that she’d had a real nail-chewing problem, apparently still did. I remembered her room now, as I stood looking at her, her white pet mouse and the plastic hanging beads strung over the windows. My first girlfriend’s sister. Someone who should have had the right to fade completely from my life, and me from hers, a fleeting, meaningless connection formed and broken decades ago, a brief passing without pain. All I could think as I looked at her was that this was unfair. Her being dragged here was unfair. She should have remained the funny, pouty little girl in my memory.

“Look at you,” I said, for some reason. An absurd tingle of joy or novelty or something had struck me. She was all grown up. But then the crashing reality of it all hit me. My mouth was suddenly dry. I was desperate. “Elise, you know I didn’t … I didn’t…”

“Ted, I’m so sorry,” she said. She was wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry about all this. We haven’t known what to do. We were going to ask for a press conference, but we wanted the police to be there, to…”

“Who?” I asked. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“The family,” she said. “Melanie. She made a terrible mistake, Ted.”

Sean was standing at my side. I felt the heat of his body suddenly, as though his fury was literally burning him from the inside.