“What question?”

“Do you know what happened to me at that party in Uptown?”

“Oh, Lila…please.”

“I drank a lot back then—but you knew that.”

“Can’t we—”

“The night of that party, someone put something in my drink—a drug called GHB.”

Charlotte closed her eyes like a child hiding from a monster. “I don’t want to hear that ugliness.”

“That ugliness is a part of my life.”

“Not anymore. It’s in the past.”

“No it’s not—that’s the point.” Lila couldn’t stop the emotion from lifting inside of her. “You can’t know who I am if you keep pretending it never happened.”

“I was watching you kill yourself and there was nothing I could do. First came the drinking. Every time you walked out that door I prayed that you’d come back safe. I’d stay awake, just to hear you walk in. Then the incident—”

“It wasn’t an incident, Mom. Can’t you even say it?”

“You were my little girl, and you were killing yourself right in front of me. I didn’t understand.”

“You didn’t want to understand.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I’m here now. I’m coming to you now.”

“What do you want from me, Lila?”

“I want…” A lump in Lila’s throat nearly blocked her words from coming out. “I want to know that it wasn’t my fault.”

“Your fault? Oh my God! No!” Charlotte knelt on the floor in front of Lila. “No. No. Of course it wasn’t your fault. Why would you ever think—?”

“What did I do wrong?” Tears trickled down Lila’s cheeks. “You wouldn’t look at me…you couldn’t. You were ashamed of me.”

Charlotte took hold of Lila’s hands, her words falling between sobs. “I was never—”

“I felt dirty.” Lila let her tears flow as she spoke. “You couldn’t stand me.”

Charlotte moved from the floor to the couch, wrapping her arms around Lila and kissing the top of her head. “I just wanted my little girl back. I didn’t know.”

Lila could hear the beat of her mother’s heart and the quavering of her breath as Charlotte gently rocked and cried.

Then Charlotte said, “When you were born, I held you in my arms, and I promised I’d never let anyone hurt you. It never dawned on me that I would be the one…I’m so sorry. I was never ashamed of you. And what I did, I did because I wanted to protect you. I thought that if we could just get past it…”

A shaky inhale followed, and Charlotte paused for a long time as if to gather her strength. “I know what those men did to you. They…they raped you. They raped my little girl. I know that. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I’m sorry I got it so wrong.”

Something softened inside of Lila when she heard her mother finally speak those words, and Lila settled into an embrace that she had once thought she would never again feel.