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Just my name, because you begin by identifying the accused.
“I received a call last night from your aunt Margaret. She’d seen something distressing on your Facebook page, and she wanted to know if I was aware of it. ”
His eyes are my eyes, dark brown and full of sympathy. His manner is reasonable. His diction is clear and measured. He doesn’t yell in the office. He judges. We come to him like criminals, and he passes sentence on us, calmly and rationally.
“When I told her I didn’t know what she was referring to, she sent me the link, and I checked it out for myself. The link took me to a website where …”
He clears his throat—the first sign that any of this is disturbing to him.
“… where I found several pictures of you unclothed. Some of them compromising. Sexually compromising. Although it wasn’t possible to positively identify each of the pictures as you, there were certain …”
He looks away from me for a second.
This is not your fault, I tell myself. You didn’t do this. Nate did.
Dad clears his throat again. “There’s no question that at least one, if not more, of the sexually explicit photographs is of you. I followed a second link to much the same thing, and I can only assume that the additional links were also to these photos. ”
There’s a long pause, and I wonder if I’m supposed to say something. But what can I say?
Yes, that’s me.
That’s me, giving Nate a blow job.
That’s my vagina, my hand between my legs, stroking my clit.
Yes, that’s me riding Nate’s cock. My face with his semen on it.
Yes.
That’s your baby girl. Your pride and joy.
I sit silent. I knew this would be hard, but it’s harder than I expected. I’d thought about his judgment, feared his disgust, but I’d never thought about his grief.
The grief is in his face, in his eyes.
These pictures make him sad, sad because of me, sad for me, and it’s unbearable.
“So. ” He folds his hands on his stomach, over the top of the ratty beige cardigan that he wears on top of his Oxford shirts at home. “Tell me how this happened. ”
I take a deep breath and imagine a string tied to the crown of my head, pulling me up straight and tall. An exercise that our high school choir director gave us, but one that comes in handy anytime I need to be perfectly poised, perfectly careful.
“Nate took the pictures. When we were still going out. And he—they showed up online right after we broke up. ”
The lines around his mouth deepen, twin parentheses framing his impatience. “Am I correct in remembering that you broke up with Nate soon before returning to school in August?”
“Yes. It was August when he first posted them. ”
“You know that he posted them. ”
“No. I assume it was him, but I can’t prove it. They were submitted anonymously to the sites. He denied it. ”
“Caroline. ” My father looks right at me, leaning in a bit. “It’s March. ”
“Yes. ”
“Tell me what happened between August and March. ”
“I made a systematic effort to remove the photos from the Internet. I set up automatic searches, sent out cease-and-desist email—”
