“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she’d started, sweating beneath the armpits after slipping into the anonymous confessional. “It’s been two weeks since my last confession and these are my sins…” She paused to draw breath, to gain control of the quiver of her voice. “Father, I blackmailed a less fortunate family from St. Gerard’s.”

The grate between the boxes shadowed as the man on the other side inched closer. “You did?” he inquired.

“Yes, Father.”

“And how did you blackmail this family, child?” he whispered solemnly.

“I told them that if they didn’t start contributing to the weekly donation envelopes, I wouldn’t sign their daughter’s sponsorship to attend St. Joan of Arc.”

Silence. The thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat in her ears and the vision of Tilly’s smile behind her closed eyelids. It had taken all of Kate’s courage to turn her head and spy through the wire to make out Father Jeffrey’s reaction.

The moment stretched like elastic pulled to its limit. “Did you?” he said.

“I did.”

A pause. The shadow on the grate receded as he sat back. “Well, child, I think six Hail Mary’s and an Our Father will absolve you of your sins.”

Screw you, Jeff. “Thank you, Father. I’ll make sure I light a candle for you once I’ve said them.”

She’d pushed open the door to the confessional with such a shove that, in the front pew, Sister Mary Monica’s eyes shot up from her Bible. “Katherine!” she’d berated. “Gentle!”

Gentle.

“Kate?”

Kate looked up from her desk and met Grace’s eye. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t realised the girls were ready to begin the lesson.

She blinked. “Do you have a question, Grace?”

Grace’s expression twisted. “No. But I, umm…well, we think we may have offended Tilly last period.”

With a sigh, Kate dropped their essays down on the top of the piano. “You think?”

Kate popped two extra-strength Panadol and chased them down with a gulp of water.

At the other end of the kitchen counter where she stood waiting for the kettle to boil, Tilly nervously pinched at the lapels of her pyjama shirt. “Headache?” she asked.

Nodding, Kate leaned into the corner of the counter and studied Tilly’s face. Hours after their argument, she still seemed tense. “So I don’t know if you know this,” Kate started, “but I’m a huge proponent of never going to bed upset.”

Tilly looked across the small kitchen. She seemed to think that over for a moment. “Have you lived with somebody in the past?” she asked. “A…partner?”

“Yes.” For three years, she’d lived with Elodie. And two with Britta.

“Oh,” Tilly said. She stared out the kitchen window at the illuminated field across the road where a few of the boarders were playing touch footy. “I’ve always lived alone. I mean, I’ve had roommates, but never a…” Trailing off, she dropped her gaze to her slippers. “I’m not trying to fight you on the novel for the sake of it, Kate. And I am progressive—I would hate for you to think I wasn’t. I just…I felt so silly,” she said, her voice whisper-soft beneath the loud hum of the boiling kettle. “I’ve only ever taught in Catholic schools with very strict and conservative curricula, and I’ve only taught English once—we studied Keats and Austen.” She looked up. “I usually understand the sexual references. I’m not stupid. But today…” She rubbed at her temples, as though she had a migraine fit to compete with Kate’s. “The thought of going back into that classroom tomorrow, with those girls just waiting for me to trip up again…” She sighed. “Sixteen-year-old girls understand their bodies better than I understand my own,” she rasped, her eyes wide and bright. “And they know it.”