“Yes,” Allie said.

It was a child’s voice, piping out from the fresh-scrubbed child’s face. Virgil was silent. His face was in shadow. I was nearly invisible sitting away from the light in the corner.

“I shoulda stayed with you, Virgil.”

“Yes,” Virgil said. “You should have.”

“But I was bad, just bad, all I can say. I run off and I tried but I could never find a decent man, never nobody like you, Virgil. And they passed me around and I kept going down, down, and down, and…” She stopped talking and took in a deep breath, and let it out very slow. She did it again.

Then she said, “I had to do some awful things, Virgil… awful things with awful men.”

Virgil was silent. Allie looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

“Awful,” she said.

Virgil stood suddenly and walked to the window and looked down through the darkness at the ugly street.

“And now?” he said.

“I guess I’m awful,” she said. “I look awful. I feel awful. I ain’t worth no man’s attention. I ain’t worth anything.”

“You changed any?” Virgil said.

“I don’t know,” Allie said. “I’m at the bottom, Virgil. I can’t go down no further.”

“Think you could change?”

“I’d like to. I can’t stand this no more. I’d surely try.”

“What you think we should do?” Virgil said.

He was still looking down into the street.

“I don’t know,” Allie said in a really small voice. “I might just die.”

Virgil didn’t move from the window.

Still looking down into the street, he said, “Sooner or later. Everett, you got a thought?”

“I don’t, Virgil. I don’t believe it’s mine to think about.”

“You believe her?” Virgil said.

“I believe what’s happened to her,” I said.

“Think she can change?” Virgil said.

“Believe she wants to,” I said.