“No. I want to talk in person, but I’m not ready yet. I need to think things out.” She gathered the loose cards and handed them to Laurel. “I mean, let’s face it—my mother is a pervert. She’s like those pathetic women you see on TV all the time who get sent to jail for having sex with kids.” Lolly shuddered. “It’s so disgusting. How am I supposed to live with something like that?”
Laurel took a deep breath and put the deck on the side table. Playtime was over. “The same way I do. You just keep going.”
Lolly’s head whipped around. “What do you mean? Did your mother…?”
Laurel shut her eyes for a moment, trying to summon the courage. Could she say it? She’d told Jase. Maybe it would be easier this time around. “Not my mother. My father.”
Lolly nearly came off the couch, bumping into the table in the process and scattering the cards across the floor.
“But your father was a pastor!”
“And Marguerite Shelton was a teacher.” Laurel shrugged. “Pastors can do all sorts of horrible things. So can teachers. They’re just like everyone else.”
“Laurel, what—what did your dad do?”
“He took advantage of some of the teenage boys who came to him for counseling. He—he molested them.”
“My dad?”
“No. It happened later, after your father left town.”
“But…your father was good. Dad called him his moral compass.”
Laurel started picking up the cards. “Daddy was a good person in many ways, but he was bad in other ways.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either.” She stacked the cards and put them on the table again.
“Did you love him?”
She looked Lolly in the face. “I idolized him. I wanted to be exactly like him.”
“Do you still love him?”
“Most of him.” She covered her eyes with her hand.
Lolly touched her arm in sympathy. “I’m sorry I brought it all up, Laurel. You’ve been so kind, putting up with me. I don’t want to upset you.”
“You needed to know.” And maybe she needed to hear herself say it too. Her father had been two people, and she had the same dilemma Jase did—how could she separate the good that was in her father from the bad?
*
Lolly returned to the den after lunch and lay on the couch, listening to her iPod, watching TV, and making notes on a tablet Laurel had supplied.
Laurel popped in and out of the room between cleaning up the kitchen and tending to laundry, then settled down in the big leather armchair with Jane Austen.
Lolly looked up. “I want to talk to Dad.”
“When do you want him to come over?”
“Tomorrow morning.” She looked at her notes. “That’ll give me time to decide what I want to say.”
Laurel held the phone out to Lolly, but she drew back.
“Couldn’t you talk to him for me, Laurel?”
“No, honey. You need to do this yourself.”
Lolly swallowed as though it hurt and reached for the phone. “Okay.”
She pushed the buttons carefully and out the phone to her ear. “Dad? I’m ready to see you…No, not tonight…How about tomorrow morning, maybe about ten?”
Chapter Nineteen
Laurel’s nerves tightened like piano wires as she and Lolly walked down the stairs to wait for Jase.
A vision flitted through her mind of Jase throwing himself at her feet, begging forgiveness for abandoning her, and promising they would never part again. She gripped the newel post to steady herself. Why was she torturing herself with fantasies like this?
Lolly glanced over at her. “Laurel, you okay? You looked sorta funny there for a second.”
“No problem. I’m just fine.” Not really. She was more uptight about Jase coming to the house than Lolly was.
God help her, how could she make herself stop loving him?
“Well, I like the way that dress fits you, and peach is your color.”
Laurel glanced down a herself. “This old thing?”
She knew the sleeveless shift looked good on her, and she hoped it would remind Jase of what he was missing, but she didn’t want to be too obvious about it. “I’ve had it for ages.”
They walked into the drawing room and took seats across from each other, Laurel on the ribbon-back chair that should have long since been hauled off to the antiques man, and Lolly on the sofa.
Lolly glanced down at her tie-dyed tee. “Thanks for loaning me the clothes.”
“Sorry the hem and waist had to be safety-pinned.” Lolly not only had the tiny waist of an hourglass figure, but she was also a good eight inches shorter than the skirt was designed for.
“I’m just glad you have stuff I can wear. I hope you burned that awful pink dress.”
“It was really rather pretty, honey. I’ll get it cleaned and send it to Dallas for you, if you want.”
Lolly shuddered, causing her curly doggie ears to bounce. “No. Donate it to Goodwill or something. I usually never wear things like that anyway. It’s just that I thought…”
“I understand.”
“I’m keeping the necklace and earrings, though. Aunt Maxie gave them to me last Christmas.”
Laurel nodded, rising as she heard a car in the driveway. “I think your dad’s here. Are you ready?”
Lolly caught a quick breath. “Maybe.”