They were very early. Clusters of people knelt or sat with heads bowed in the low pews or looked upward as though trying to comprehend the space around them. Marion leaned close to her and nodded toward the side aisle: confessions were being heard. Kit chose to show no comprehension, and having looked that way, she looked away again.

“Hasn’t it been a long time?” Marion whispered to her. “We’d like you to go to Communion with us.” She touched Kit’s arm and, smiling, gently pressed her, go on.

Okay. All right. If she was going to do this.

She went to the pew nearest the minatory little box, blond wood too but unmistakable for anything else, and knelt to Examine her Conscience; and when it was her turn she went in through the purple drape as onto a tiny theater stage, actor with an audience of one.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said. “It has been six months since my last confession. These are my sins.” She heard these formulae as though for the first time, odd as a child’s made-up game. The priest beyond the veil breathed with difficulty, asthmatic or a smoker. She listened for a moment; so did he.

“Actually there’s only one sin I’m aware of,” she said then, reluctantly or as though reluctantly. “I’ve. Well. I’m having an affair with a professor. At my college.”

Breath, altering. “How old are you, child.”

“I’m twenty years old, father.”

“And is this professor a married man?”

She thought. “He’s a widower.”

“And for how long has this affair gone on?”

“For a few months.”

“And has this affair included sexual intercourse? Do you know what’s meant by that?”

“Yes, Father. It did. It does.”

“Did he force himself on you, child? Against your will? Did he threaten you?”

“No, Father.”

“Did you lead him on?”

“Well. I was, you know, there.”

He breathed. She wondered if he would pry for details, and what her mood would lead her to say if he did. He said: “He has done you a great wrong.”

She said nothing.

“He was placed in a position of authority over you and has abused it. He should have nurtured and not done you harm.”

“Yes, Father.”

“He is very much at fault here.”

“Yes, Father. That’s what I think too.”

“And you are very much at fault for having allowed it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Do you know that if this were to come out, he would be disgraced, maybe fired?”

“It won’t,” she said.

Breath. “You must,” he said, “break off this relationship.”

“Well I don’t think I can.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Yes. But not of him. I love him.”

“Then of what?”

“I’m afraid the world is going to end.”

He breathed so long and painfully that Kit wondered if he was afraid of it too. He said: “I cannot give you absolution for this sin until you feel repentance. You can repent in fear of God’s anger and judgment, or in sorrow at having offended Him. But you have to repent.”

A low bell sounded; people called to pray. Holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

“Okay,” she said. “Well.”

“Pray to the Virgin, child, for help. She can’t refuse.”

“Okay,” Kit said, with a shrug, moved by her own imaginary dilemma, no way out.

“Now,” the priest said. “For any other sins you may have committed. Make a good act of contrition.”

She did, saying the words with care and attention as she had been taught to do; through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. She left the booth, admitting the next sinner, a bent old man with his hat in his hand. She went to kneel again beside her mother, who had taken out her beads and held them loosely, the trembling stones catching the light of the windows; her face was calm, absorbed, alight even, and her eyes moist. It was four months since Ben had been brought home: exactly four, Kit thought, and realized why she had been taken here. The Mass began. She listened to the prayers and to the responses, changeless as nothing else ever would be, the ones Ben used to make, the bottoms of his sneakers showing as he knelt: Quare me repulisti, et quare tristis incedo, dum affligit me inimicus? Why do you push me from you, why do I go on so sorrowfully? When it came time she went up to the rail with her father and mother, and in a tremor of shame and delight and wonder, cloven forever into inside and outside but not alone, not just now, she took the nearly nonexistent bit of food on her tongue, where it melted like snow.

As they went out after the Mass, Marion took her arm and leaned close to her, her face a scowl of disapproval.

“Listen,” she said. “Before you can go back to school. We have got to take you clothes shopping.”

7.

In Kit’s mailbox at the dormitory when she returned to the University there was a small envelope that had been waiting there for her return, stamped in gold with the address of the dean of students. It contained a small folded note.

Dear Miss Malone:

Welcome back! I hope you had a wonderful summer.

A matter of importance has come to our attention and I would like to talk with you about it. Will you please come to my office on this Thursday afternoon at 1 o’clock.

A kind of dread descended on Kit like a cold breastplate from her shoulders to her thighs. It seemed to her that every instrument of news, every sign of sudden revelation, could make her feel this now, and she wondered how long it would go on. Around her the students came and went and greeted and called out to one another. The day was Thursday; by the big clock above the mailboxes it was almost noon.

The office was in an older building in the campus center, high-ceilinged corridors and floors of worn stone. Dean of Students. Office of Student Affairs. The tall door was dark, and opened to a secretary’s office cluttered and cheerful.

“Oh yes,” the secretary said brightly. “Oh yes.” She pressed a button on her intercom with one hand while she pointed to a farther door with the other; but it was opened before Kit reached it, and the dean, smiling, stood aside to admit her.

“Thanks so much for coming!” she said, the same alarming brightness. She was Kit’s mother’s age, and carefully made up too as her mother always was. A face to meet the faces that I meet, Marion used to say. “You’ve met Mr. Bluhdorn, I think.”

He was there, in a broad side chair. She hadn’t seen him at first, the light of the windows making deep shadows in the room’s corners. He lifted himself to his feet with a sort of effortful wiggle, smiling his smile. Kit hadn’t moved from the carpet’s edge where she had come to a stop seeing him.

“Christa Malone,” he said. “Known as Kit. That’s right, isn’t it? Kit.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger, smart guy.

The dean took Kit’s arm and brought her within the room. Kit understood now that this story, whatever it was, had taken her up and was going to keep on till it was done. Her heart beat so hard she could hear its little cries in her ears.

“Sit, sit,” said the dean. “Would you like something, a cup of coffee?”

Kit shook her head.

“You know, I’m very glad to have the chance to meet you. You came here with some very impressive achievements. And you’ve taken a couple of advanced courses and done very well. Very very well.”