“It wasn’t your judgment that concerned me, Sissy. It was everyone else’s.”
“Since when have you given a hoot in hell what anyone thinks of you?”
“It wasn’t what they thought of me that worried me. It’s what they would have thought of Win, what they would have said about her if they’d known about us. I didn’t want a whiff of that to touch her or Erik after he was born.”
“No one would have thought a thing of it if you’d married Win. Or even if you hadn’t. No one cares about that anymore. Win was living at the xL. She’s single, you’re single. She’s beautiful. Probably half the town suspects anyway. It’s the secrecy that is so—so terrible, just unforgivable, really. It’s as if you’re the one who’s ashamed of them.”
“I built them a house so they’d be close.”
“Keeping up appearances, I guess.” Sarcasm edged Lily’s voice.
“I was a father to that boy in every way I felt that I could be. I fed him, bought his clothes, helped him with his homework, taught him to ride and to shoot. He had chores, responsibilities, but he was lazy.”
“I’ve heard you call AJ lazy.”
“Yeah, maybe sometimes. But AJ’s got heart; he’s got passion for his work. Erik doesn’t.”
“So you cut him out of your will without even consulting his mother.”
“It was stupid, a stupid move on my part. I don’t know what to do about it, how to make it up. I can pay for his defense, and I will. I’ll get him and Win whatever they need.”
“Yes,” Lily said. “But I don’t know that you can ever make it up.”
Lily didn’t explain it to Paul when she called him later, beyond saying that what had set Erik off was family related and rooted in the past. He was behind bars; AJ was free and safe, and the ordeal was over.
“I’m not family anymore, I guess.”
“By your own choice.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Nothing right now,” she said. “I’m staying on here. AJ needs me.”
“What will you tell him? About us, I mean.”
“The truth,” she said. “That you’re involved with Pilar Dix.”
Paul didn’t like it. She knew by the impatient intake of his breath, the click his teeth made when he set them together. The truth wasn’t going to enhance his image. Too bad, she thought.
“I was going to drive down this evening, but maybe I’ll wait. Will you let AJ know—” Paul stopped, seeming to consider.
Lily tried to imagine what he wanted AJ to know—that he had never doubted AJ’s innocence? That was a lie. That even though he’d cheated on her, he was still worthy of AJ’s respect? That, too, was a lie. If she was honest, she’d cheated on Paul with Edward. Even if it was only emotionally, she wasn’t proud of it. But the one thing she would never do would be to put AJ in the middle of her marital difficulties in a way that would force him to choose one of his parents over the other. AJ was an adult; he could make up his own mind about the sort of man his father was.
24
Dru went to the hospital on Sunday, the evening before AJ was to be discharged. Shea was the only other person there, and when she caught sight of Dru, her eyes widened. Dru hadn’t told her she was coming. She went to AJ’s bedside, steeling herself.
Unlike Shea, he met her gaze as if he’d been expecting her. She gripped the side rail. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she heard the quick, astonished intake of Shea’s breath. “I jumped to conclusions about you that aren’t true.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “If I had a daughter like Shea, I’d be just like you.”
“It’s hard for me, because of Shea’s dad.” Dru glanced at Shea.
AJ glanced at her, too. “She told me,” he said, and then paused, taking a moment. He wiped his face, let out a gust of air. “I know I’ve got PTSD, that I probably need help.”
It cost him, admitting it. Dru could see that it did.
Shea slid her palm over his hand.
“I haven’t wanted to admit it. I’m afraid of how people will look at me, what they’ll think. I figured I could—that I should, you know, tough it out, that I ought to be able to control it, my emotions, my temper. I mean, I’m a soldier, right? A marine. I should just get through it, drive on—”
“You’re human, AJ.” Dru’s defense came unbidden out of the swift bloom of her sympathy, and she was surprised by it. But she realized she didn’t regret it. She was only telling the truth. “My God, when you consider what you went through over there, what all of you soldiers go through, not to mention what’s just happened. Erik could have killed you—”
“I’m scared is what I am.” AJ looked at Dru, and she could see it, the fear shadowing his eyes, but there was something else in his expression, too. Something harder and more determined. “I promise you I will never harm Shea, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Dru,” she corrected softly.
“He’s going to get help, Mom, the way Dad did. AJ’s going to go back into counseling, and he’s going to work with the Wounded Warrior Project.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to for Shea,” he said, “for our future, our children—to keep them safe. I want to come home, Mrs.—Dru—all the way home in my head.”
Dru reached out to him—she couldn’t help it—touching her fingertips to his cheek, letting them rest there briefly before taking her hand away and clearing her throat. “Rob wants me to go with him to couples’ counseling.”
“Will you?” Shea asked.
“Yes.” It was only in the moment that Dru made up her mind, and she knew it was because of AJ, his honesty and his courage in the face of his vulnerability, that had decided her. She had no idea where counseling would lead her and Rob as a couple, but she knew Rob, like AJ, deserved her support, her participation—her faith.
A nurse came in, and they were quiet while she checked AJ’s vitals.
After she left, Dru said, “Ken was by the house earlier. He said Erik has made a full confession. He’s tried to waive his right to an attorney, too.”
“He left a suicide note in the sack with his bloody clothes,” Shea said. “Did Ken tell you that?”