Mirror Image

Avery couldn’t deny the ugly allegations because they were probably true. Carole wouldn’t have had any scruples against having an affair with her husband’s brother, or, just short of that, making out like she was open to one. Most of her pleasure would be derived from the disharmony and devastation it would cause within the family. Perhaps that was all part of Carole’s scheme to destroy Tate.

“I have no designs on Jack, Dorothy Rae.”

“Because he’s not the one in the limelight.” Her hand clenched Avery’s arm like a claw. “He never is. Never was. You knew that. Why didn’t you just leave him alone? How dare you play with people’s lives like that?”

Avery wrenched her arm from the other woman’s grip. “Did you fight me for him?”

Dorothy Rae wasn’t prepared for a counterattack. She stared at Avery with stupefaction. “Huh?”

“Did you ever fight me for Jack’s attention, or did you just drink yourself into a stupor every day and let it happen?”

Dorothy Rae’s face began to work convulsively. Her red-rimmed eyes got redder, wetter. “That’s not a very kind thing to say.”

“People have been kind to you for too long. Everybody in the family turns a blind eye to your disease.”

“I don’t have a—”

“You’ve got a disease, Dorothy Rae. Alcoholism is a disease.”

“I’m not an alcoholic!” she cried tearfully, echoing the denials that her own mother had used for years. “I have a few drinks—”

“No, you drink to get drunk and you stay drunk. You wallow in self-pity and then wonder why your husband lusts after other women. Look at yourself. You’re a mess. Is it any wonder that Jack has lost interest in you?”

Dorothy Rae groped for the door handle. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.”

“Yes, you do.” Turning the tables on her, Avery grabbed her arm and refused to let go. “It’s time somebody got tough with you, woke you up to a few facts. Your husband wasn’t stolen from you. You drove him away.”

“That’s not true! He swore I wasn’t the reason he left.”

“Left?”

Dorothy Rae looked at her blankly. “Don’t you remember, Carole? It wasn’t long after you and Tate got married.”

“I… of course I remember,” Avery stammered. “He stayed gone about…”

“Six months,” Dorothy Rae said miserably. “The longest six months of my life. I didn’t know where he was, what he was doing, if he was ever coming back.”

“But he did.”

“He said he needed time alone to sort out a few things. He had so many pressures.”

“Like what?”

She made a small, helpless gesture. “Oh, Nelson’s expectations for the law firm, Tate’s campaign, my drinking, Fancy.”

“Fancy needs a mother, Dorothy Rae.”

She laughed mirthlessly. “But not me. She hates me.”

“How do you know? How do you know how she feels about anything? Do you ever talk to her?”

“I try,” she whined. “She’s impossible.”

“She’s afraid that no one loves her.” Avery drew a quick breath. “And I’m afraid she might be right.”

“I love her,” Dorothy Rae protested adamantly. “I’ve given her everything she ever wanted.”

“You threw her play-pretties to keep her occupied so that rearing her wouldn’t interfere with your drinking. You grieve over the two children you miscarried at the expense of the one you have.”