“Tell me about it,” he urged.
Silence reigned until finally she spoke. “Remember what it was like being a kid?” she asked. “When life was one big illusion?”
“After my parents died, reality killed any hopes of that. Do you?” he asked.
“Yes. One day we were a happy family, no major problems that I knew of. The next we’re front-page news. Scandal of the year.” She plucked the half-cooked bacon off the pan and stacked it next to the pancakes. He didn’t see any reason to point that out. “Breakfast is served.” She executed a mock curtsy and placed his dish before him.
“Thanks.”
She smiled. “No problem. And because I like you, I caved in.” Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out a large pitcher. “Freshly squeezed. Never say I don’t accommodate you.”
“Who me?” he asked. “Never.”
He waited until she had seated herself across from him before continuing his questioning. “What kind of scandal?”
Her dark eyes met his, and though they beseeched him to drop the subject, he wanted her to unburden herself, to trust him enough to share her pain. “Well?”
“You should have been a cop,” she muttered. “You never give up.”
“I’m the next best thing to a journalist. What did you expect?”
She groaned and paused to eat something before beginning. “We lived in a small town in upstate New York. Everyone knew everyone else and gossip ran rampant. So when Roger Wexler, district attorney with political aspirations, hit the news he did it in style.”
She flicked her bangs out of her eyes and looked at him. He waited for her to continue in silence. “Want to take a guess?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“My dad carried on an affair with his secretary for one year. Until the woman forced him to choose between her and his family. In political terms, that’s your lover or your career. Take your pick.” She toyed with her pancakes, staring at th
e now cold stack.
“He chose your mother?” Mike asked.
“Yes, but that doesn’t make the man a saint. I have no illusions that his decision was politically motivated. And I guess he thought his choice was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t.”
She shook her head, her pained gaze meeting his. “The woman killed herself, Mike. But not before leaving a suicide note and mailing it to the local paper. She was pregnant.”
Mike sucked in a breath, wishing he had never forced Carly to resurrect these memories. But he had... “Then what?” he asked, knowing he had to hear the end.
“Life went on. Dad’s political career was in ruins, but he never let it get him down. After a while we packed up and moved to the city. Dad hooked up with some old law school buddies and started his own firm.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“How did all of this affect you?” he asked.
“I was fifteen. Your friends are your friends so long as there’s nothing to laugh at. I went to school surrounded by gossip and laughter. I got used to it.”
“I doubt that.”
She shrugged. “Eventually we moved and I finished up in private school.”
“But how’d you survive? Being a teenager is tough by definition. Add your problems...”
“I kept busy. Joined the teen crisis hot line. It kept me out of the house after school so I didn’t have to go home where talk of our family problems was prohibited. I couldn’t watch my mother pretend life was fine.”