I reached across the table and took both her hands in mine.
“Then he used you twice,” I said. “And neither time was your fault.”
“I should have known.”
“You were trying to love both your parents. That’s not a crime, sweetheart. That’s just being a good daughter to a father who didn’t deserve it.”
She cried again, quieter this time.
Rachel, who had been sitting silently at the end of the table this entire time, finally spoke.
“Lauren,” she said. “Can I tell you something about your mother?”
Lauren wiped her eyes and nodded.
“When we were girls,” Rachel said, “your mom was the bravest person I knew. When I was fourteen, a boy at school spread a nasty rumor about me. Do you know who marched up to him in front of the entire cafeteria and made him take it back? Your mother. She was eleven. She was half his size.” Rachel smiled. “Somewhere along the way, she forgot she was that girl. Today, she remembered.”
