Jake is sitting on the edge of the sofa, nearly doubled over, leaning all the way in to the TV, like he might take a bite of it.

“Where are your glasses?” Ursula asks, and Jake startles, then falls back against the leather cushions.

“You’ve heard?” he says. “They’ve found that guy Doug Stiles. He’s talking.”

Doug Stiles turned up in Sonoma County, California. He lives in the hills amid vineyards, some of which were burned out in the fires. He’s a hermit, a survivalist. A woman who works at the Healdsburg post office figured out that this was the Doug Stiles the country was waiting to hear from.

Yes, Doug Stiles remembers New Year’s Eve 1991, Miami, with Stone Cavendish, a person he hasn’t seen or even thought of in eons. He recalls the night. They went to dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab and then to a party in a penthouse apartment overlooking Biscayne Bay. They were at the party all night. Doug Stiles doesn’t remember any girl in particular. There were a lot of girls, he says. And he and Stone were drunk and high, and there might have been some cocaine involved as well, he can’t say for sure, but it’s definitely not out of the question. It was the early nineties.

Despite this bombshell at the last minute, the confirmation hearing goes much as Ursula thought it would. Stone Cavendish is a darling for nearly every senator on the Judiciary Committee. They handle him with kid gloves and no one mentions the new information from Doug Stiles—yes, Stone Cavendish did apparently attend a party in a waterfront condo as Meghan Royce said. He and Doug Stiles did not “go to the clubs.” But does this lie—or misremembering—on his part mean that the entirety of Meghan Royce’s accusation is true?

When it’s Ursula’s turn to question Stone Cavendish, she says, “Is there any statement you’ve made over the past two weeks that you’d like to retract or change, even just a little, so that we have the record straight?”

Stone Cavendish leans into the microphone, eyes down. “No.”

“So you are flat-out denying that you ever followed a girl into the sand dunes, tackled her, threw sand in her face—either intentionally or unintentionally—clapped your hand over her mouth, and tried to lift her skirt against her wishes? And you’re flat-out denying that you met a woman on New Year’s Eve 1991 and asked her to join you in a closet and pushed her farther into that closet when she said she wanted to get out, and clapped a hand over her mouth? And furthermore, you’re flat-out denying that you were even at a party that night, despite the friend you were with recently saying otherwise?”

Stone Cavendish meets her eyes this time. He’s defiant—angry, even; she can see that. His expression says, How dare you hold my feet to the fire like this? Ursula worries for a second that AJ or Bayer told Stone about Ursula’s own indiscretion and that Stone Cavendish is going to turn the questioning back on her in a nationally televised hearing.

“That’s right, Senator,” he says.

Ursula can feel dirty looks from her fellow committee members. She is not usually a disrupter. She’s neutral, a political Switzerland. She is straight up the fairway.

“So you would like us to believe that four American citizens—Dr. Eve Quist, Ms. Cynthia Piccolo, Ms. Meghan Royce, and your own friend Mr. Douglas Stiles—are lying and that you are telling the truth.”

“Yes, Senator.”

Ursula doesn’t ask any further questions, but news anchors and political pundits across the spectrum later comment about the expression on Ursula’s face.

Rachel Maddow says, The senator looks skeptical.

Shepard Smith says, Senator Ursula de Gournsey clearly doesn’t believe him.

Luke Russert says, It’s obvious the senator thinks Stone Cavendish is full of…baloney.

The Senate votes on the confirmation of Kevin Blackstone Cavendish three days later. Before Ursula leaves the house that morning, Jake says, “Just think if one of those young women were Bess.”

“Bess is too smart to get herself in that position,” Ursula says.

“Is she, though?” Jake asks.

Kevin Blackstone Cavendish is confirmed to the Supreme Court by a vote of 61 to 39, which is not surprising. What is surprising is that one of the dissenting votes is cast by Ursula de Gournsey.

Frankly, she surprised herself.

People will talk about her vote for an entire news cycle—five days—but no one will know exactly what moved her near-certain yes to a resounding no.

Jake might think it was his last-minute insertion of Bess into the conversation, and Bess might think it was because of her own final teary plea to her mother—she’d called Ursula during her car ride to the Capitol Building and said, Mom, please stand up for womankind!

No one will know that in the hour before Ursula cast her vote, she was visited by a memory that she’d relegated to the delete-from-deleted file of her brain.

She’s a first-semester sophomore at Notre Dame and she and Jake have just broken up. Ursula is upset about this. Jake was the one who wanted to split; he thought they should date other people. This doesn’t mean we won’t get married, he said. But I think it’s a good idea to see what other people have to offer. Ursula doesn’t philosophically disagree but hearing the words come from Jake, who has been so ardent since the age of thirteen, is hurtful. Ursula feels she has lost her magic.

She turns to religion, which is a comfort. She joins the campus ministry and attends every meeting, and in a few short months she is spearheading outreach for the undergraduates as well as service projects in the community. She organizes trips to shelters and soup kitchens in Gary, Indiana. At the start of the spring semester, she’s a shoo-in for president of the group. But when she approaches Father Gillis, he suggests she run for vice president instead. Father Gillis supports a junior named Nathan Bowers for president. Nathan, after all, is a year ahead of Ursula and has been in the group a year longer.

Right, Ursula thinks, but Nathan Bowers doesn’t do anything. He’s a heavy-lidded dope smoker, good-looking, and with a certain lazy charm; he’s too cool for the campus ministry. He lies around, and makes wisecracks. He’s not exactly a model Christian. In November, when the group goes downtown to fill Thanksgiving boxes—frozen turkey, Stove Top stuffing, cranberry sauce—Nathan keeps calling them handouts.

It takes a while for Ursula to realize that Father Gillis wants Nathan to be president because he’s male.

Nathan becomes president of the Notre Dame campus ministry and Ursula, VP.

Fast-forward to the end of the spring semester, mid-May. Nathan Bowers and his three roommates are throwing a party at the house they’ve rented for the summer on Chapin Street and Nathan is eager for Ursula to attend. Ursula doesn’t go to parties very often; she’s too busy studying. But it’s a mild spring evening, it’s a Friday, and Ursula thinks it sounds like fun.

She drinks way too much—two cups of the grain alcohol–and–Ocean Spray punch they’re pouring out of plastic pitchers. After that, there’s a game of Mexican, a bunch of warm beers, maybe a shot of Jägermeister. At some point, Nathan asks Ursula if she wants to go upstairs. Ursula isn’t sure if she says yes or no. The next thing she remembers is waking up to find Nathan grinding on top of her. They aren’t having sex, but she wants him to stop whatever it is he’s doing. However, she’s too tired and too drunk to push him away. She closes her eyes.