Linda unclasps a barrette from her hair and then puts it back in. "No."

"May I ask why?"

She runs a finger along the edge of the beige Formica. "I don't know," she says.

"You have tremendous potential," he says, still poking at his coffee. "You put sentences together in a very lucid way. Your writing has logic. Need I say, this is a rare enough commodity in student prose?"

She smiles.

"May I ask you a personal question?"

She nods.

"Is the reason financial?"

She has worked it out: even with all the tip money, she won't be able to make a tuition payment, and she hasn't saved all of her earnings. Tuition, room, and board run to $3,500. And that's just for the first year. "Pretty much," she says.

Not adding that the real reason she hasn't applied is that she can't imagine telling her aunt, who would, she knows, see it as only one more example of Linda getting the jump on her, trying to be better than the cousins.

"You know there are scholarships," Mr. K. says.

She nods.

"It's only the end of January," he says. "Admittedly, it's too late for a formal application, but I know some people and so does Mr. Hanson. We could make some calls. I could walk you through this."

Linda, embarra.s.sed, looks over at Donny T. Will he be applying to college? Will he become a thief, a gambler, a banker? She doesn't even know where Thomas has applied. She has made the subject more or less taboo.

"Everything all right at home?" Mr. K. asks.

Everything is just ducky at home, she thinks.

"Do me a favor, OK?" he asks. "Promise me you'll come by my cla.s.sroom and take a look at some college catalogues I have. You're familiar with Tufts? B.U.?"

She nods.

He catches sight of the cross. "B.C.?" he asks. The Catholic college.

She nods again, seeing little alternative but to agree.

"This afternoon? Are you free eighth period?"

"I am."

"Good. We'll do it then."

"All right."

He unfolds himself from the bench. "What do you have this semester? Twentieth century?"

"Yes."

"From my mother's sleep I fell into the State / And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze."

Linda smiles. "Randall Jarrell," she says.

She catches the bus that stops just beyond the student parking lot. The driver narrows his eyes at her as she gets on.

"I'm sick," she says. "I'm not skipping."

She rides along Main Street to Spring to Fitzpatrick to Nantasket Avenue, thinking it might just be possible to do this thing and get back in time for her appointment with Mr. K. She knows that if she dwells on what she is about to do, she'll lose her nerve, and so she doesn't. But her errand feels urgent nevertheless.

All around her, the world is melting. Sparkling and dripping and breaking and sending huge chunks of ice from rooftops, ropes of ice from telephone poles, fantastical icicles from gutters. The bus is overheated, and she opens her peacoat. She has two cla.s.ses before eighth period and will have to come up with a plausible reason for her absence. Perhaps she can use Mr. K. as an excuse.

She gets off at the stop closest to St. Ann's. The rectory is beside the church. If it weren't for the sense of urgency, she would turn around and go back to the school. She forces herself to keep moving forward, even as she knows her request is likely to be met with derision. This is the boldest thing she's done since jumping into the ocean.

She walks up the stone steps and knocks at the heavy wooden door.

A young priest answers it. She has seen him before, from the pews at church, but now, up close, she notices that he looks like Eddie Garrity. His collar is askew, and he is holding a dinner napkin.

"Will you hear my confession?" she asks.

The priest is startled by her request. "Confessions are heard on Sat.u.r.day afternoon," he says, not unkindly. Perhaps he is a cousin of Eddie's, with his pink-gold hair and skinny frame. The good good cousin. "This isn't Sat.u.r.day," he reminds her. cousin. "This isn't Sat.u.r.day," he reminds her.

"I know," she says, "but I have to do this now."

"I'm having my lunch," he says.

"I'm sorry," she says and nearly leaves it at that. Maybe it's a sin to want more than she is ent.i.tled to, she thinks.

"I'll wait," she says.

The young priest slowly brings his napkin to his lips. "Come in," he says.

She steps into a dark paneled hall. Electric sconces provide the only light. It might not even be day outside. From a room beyond, she can hear the sc.r.a.pe of cutlery against dishes. A voice speaking.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

"Will they be worried?"

"No."

"What year are you?"

"A senior."

"If we do this, you'll go back to school?"

"I will."

"I won't ask your name."

"No. Thank you."

"Follow me," he says, leaving the napkin on a side table.

She follows the young priest to a small anteroom off the hall. But for the crosses, it might be a room in which a potentate would have an audience with a foreign dignitary. Two armchairs, side by side, face the entrance. Two matching sofas flank the wall. Apart from the furniture, there is nothing in the room.

She watches as the priest pulls the armchairs out into the center of the room and puts them back to back, so that the people sitting in them will not be visible to each other. He gestures to her to take one.

She sets her pocketbook on the floor beside the chair and slips her peacoat from her shoulders. Panic wells inside her. It seems inconceivable that she will actually announce her sins in this room with the two of them back-to-back - - with no covering, no booth, nowhere to hide. with no covering, no booth, nowhere to hide.

"Father, forgive me, for I have sinned," she begins, her voice barely a whisper.

There is, at first, a long silence.

"You have sins you wish to confess?" the priest prompts. He sounds, if not exactly bored, then perhaps tired.

"Years ago," Linda says, her heart thumping in her chest, "I had an improper relationship with my aunt's boyfriend. I was thirteen."

"How do you mean improper? improper?"

"We ..." She thinks about how to phrase this. Would fornicate fornicate be the right word? "We had s.e.x," she says. be the right word? "We had s.e.x," she says.

There is a slight pause. "You had s.e.x with a man who was your aunt's boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"How old was this man?"

"I'm not sure. I think in his early forties."

"I see."

"He lived with my aunt. He lived with us."

"And how often did you fornicate with this man?"

"Five times," she answers.

"Did he force himself on you?"

"No. Not exactly."

"Have you ever confessed this before?"

"No."

"These are grave sins," the priest says. "Fornicating and withholding a sin from your confessor. No one knows about this?"

"My aunt. She found us. I was sent away for a long time."

"Ah," the priest says. Unmistakably, the "ah" of recognition. "Go on."

"The relationship ended. The man just kind of left the family."

"And you think this was because of you?"

"Possibly. I mean, it seems likely."

The priest is silent for a long time. His silence makes her nervous. This is not supposed to be how it happens. From outside the room, she can hear water running, voices in the hallway. Will the priest want more details?

"May I speak frankly to you?" the priest asks finally.

The question is unsettling, and she can't easily reply. The priest turns in his seat so that he is leaning over the arm of his chair in her direction. "This is unusual," he says, "but I feel I must talk to you about this."

Linda shifts slightly in her chair as well. From the corner of her eye, she can see the priest's sleeve, his pale hand. Freckled, like Eddie Garrity's.

"I know your name," he says. "You're Linda Fallon."

She sucks in her breath.

"I know something of your situation," he says. He sounds kinder, not quite as censorious. Definitely not as tired. "The individual you speak of was a despicable man. I knew him only slightly before he went away, but I saw enough and have since learned enough to convince me of this. What he did to you he did to other girls your age and even to younger girls. He did this repeatedly. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

Linda nods, scarcely believing what she is hearing. Other girls? Younger?

"We can say that he was a sick man or an evil man," the priest explains. "Probably both. But what I'm trying to tell you is that you were not alone."

The information is so new to her, it sends the world as she has known it momentarily spinning out of kilter. She feels nauseated, as though she might be sick. She has a sudden memory of Eileen and her enigmatic comment: It was just your body acting, and you shouldn't be afraid of your body. It was just your body acting, and you shouldn't be afraid of your body.

"I can't begin to imagine the heart of such a man," the priest says. "One must pray for his soul. But I can, I think, understand something of your heart."

The place where she can breathe seems to be rising higher and higher in her chest until, she is afraid, there won't be room at all for air.

"You feel responsible for what happened," the priest says.

She nods, but then realizes he might not be able to see the nod. She leans slightly more over the arm of the chair as the priest is doing, though she doesn't want to look directly at him. In the distance, she can hear what sounds like a farewell, a door shutting. "Yes," she says. "More or less."

"Though one might have wished for you to have been stronger and to have resisted this man, his is by far the graver sin. You were a child. You are a child still."

To Linda's horror, tears come unbidden into her eyes. They well up over the lower lids.

"It was wrong of your aunt to send you away. I can't imagine what it was like for you."

She shakes her head back and forth. The kindness, the kindness! It is almost more painful to her than a harsh word. No one has ever spoken to her like this before.

"This is not a sin you need to confess, because you did not commit a sin," the priest says. "Do you understand what I am saying?"