looking out the bay windows onto a real bay view. The cloud cover has lifted just enough to light up the bay and fill the room with honey-colored light. I never once questioned why Harmon and Lila worked in here; it’s the most beautiful room in the house. It feels like anything you wrote here would turn into gold, Lila had once said, twirling her delicate hand in the light that reflected off the bay and poured in through the old mottled-glass windows. For a moment I want to back out; I don’t want to bring any more trouble into this room with its shelves of old books and framed prints of historic buildings and maps and portraits of Henshaw ancestors. The eighteenth-century judge Elias James Henshaw gazes down at me from his portrait above the fireplace with a look he might have given to one of the girls he sent to Haywood for indecency. When I look from the portrait to Harmon the family resemblance is jarring. He looks older than I’ve ever seen him before; for a moment I don’t recognize him.
But then Harmon manages a small, sad smile and familiarity washes over me. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back,” he says. “I was afraid you”—he leans forward and covers his face—“that you believed those terrible, terrible lies.”
I go to him, sliding into his lap and pushing his hands away from his face to kiss his wet cheeks. “I don’t believe any of it,” I tell him. “You could never . . . you’re not like that. For heaven’s sake, I had to ask you out and you wouldn’t go until I wasn’t your student anymore.”
Harmon groans. “Your Kevin Bantree brought that up. Did I make a habit of dating my students?” He gives his imitation of Kevin’s flat, working-class accent.
“I was already a grown woman with a child when we met and there were only seven years between us . . . what do you mean my Kevin Bantree?”
Harmon leans back in his chair, forcing me to readjust my balance. “He made a big deal of you two having gone to school together. He asked me if I knew what happened to you after you left Haywood and if I knew who Rudy’s father was.”
A splinter of ice lodges in my throat. I recall Kevin asking me when I met Harmon, but I hadn’t understood why. “What the hell does that have to do with Lila?”
Harmon shrugs, casual, but his eyes are still locked on my face. “I think he was trying to make the case that I was a serial pedophile. That I seduced you when you were a high school senior.”
“That’s absurd,” I say. Still, I shift off Harmon’s knee and perch on the edge of the desk. Suddenly sitting on his lap feels . . . suggestive. “You were in grad school at Brown when I was a senior at Haywood.”
“Yes, but no one really knows where you went when you left Haywood so people speculate.”
I look down at Harmon. He’s still looking at me, but the reflection of light from the windows has reached his eyes so I can’t read his expression. Why would Kevin Bantree be asking about where I was after high school? Is he trying to find out who Rudy’s father is because he plans to make a case against Rudy if he can’t make one against Harmon?
“Bantree said that Lila didn’t submit her paper to the historical society.” The words spill out of my mouth like yolk escaping a cracked egg. “Do you know why?”
Harmon raises his hand in front of his face. I suppose it’s to shade his eyes against the glare but it looks like he’s warding off a blow. “I’ve no idea. I gave her some final suggestions three weeks ago—minor details, really, a few sources I thought she should double-check, some grammatical issues . . . and then I didn’t hear from her. I had assumed she turned the essay in to the historical society. It’s a shame. It would have been something to commemorate her. She’d done fine work . . .” His voice falters and he covers his eyes. “She had so much promise.”
“Don’t you have a copy of the paper?”
He lowers his hand and gives me a pained look. “No. Why would I?”
“I mean . . . don’t you have some of her corrected drafts? You’ve been working together for months.” I spread my hands out to indicate the scene of