“I’m good at giving kids a refuge where they can think about their behavior and come to decisions,” Lia had murmured. “Please don’t worry about her.”
She hadn’t been sure then that Mom would worry. Sorrel’s father, a quiet, thin man, hadn’t said much but had seemed distraught. He kept patting his wife, but his eyes had stayed on his daughter who was sitting out in the hall waiting for Lia to take her away from her parents.
Tonight, once Lia parked and locked up the car, she took Sorrel’s hand as they started toward the building. Sorrel held on so tight it hurt.
Inside, the receptionist let them down the hall and knocked lightly on the glass inset on Jennifer Riordan’s door. It opened immediately. Jennifer smiled first at Sorrel, then at Lia. She was young, probably still in her twenties, and hip enough to make the teenagers with whom she worked comfortable. She wore a diamond stud in her nose and half a dozen gold hoops climbing her ears. Her brown hair was worn short and spiky. So far as Lia was concerned, what counted was the warmth of that smile and the way she listened as attentively to the kids as she did to their parents.
“Come in. Your mom and dad are already here. Thanks for bringing her,” she added with another smile to Lia.
Sorrel’s feet seemed to have taken root where they were and she still held Lia’s hand in a death grip.
Lia bent her head slightly to whisper in her ear. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Sorrel turned an anguished gaze on her.
“They won’t believe you, right?”
This nod of the head seemed dazed.
“It’s already happened,” Lia reminded her. “Hearing it again will be unpleasant, but you’ll say with dignity, ‘I’m telling the truth,’ and we’ll leave. Okay?”
The teenager took in a deep breath and let it shudder out. “Okay.” She released Lia’s hand, wriggled her fingers as if to restore circulation, then sailed into the room with her head high.
Lia was really proud of her.
The parents were both on their feet, attention riveted on Sorrel the minute she appeared. Lia could have been invisible, and she hoped it would stay that way.
“Pumpkin,” Sorrel’s dad said roughly, and stepped forward to hug his daughter. She submitted briefly then moved back. At her quiet dignity, his face contorted.
Tears ran down his wife’s face. “Your dad made Raymond admit…” She pressed fingers to her mouth. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. So sorry I didn’t believe you. I loved him. I mostly raised him, which makes this my fault. I never thought he could do something like this, but I should have listened. Oh, Sorrel, can you ever forgive me?”
Sorrel burst into tears, too, and they all hugged and wept on each other, but finally she withdrew and returned to Lia’s side. Lia gently squeezed her shoulder for reassurance. Jennifer handed out tissues so everyone could mop up, then skillfully got all of them to open up about their feelings—the parents’ guilt and Sorrel’s sense of betrayal.
“We want you home again,” her mother said. “Please come home.”
“Raymond has been arrested,” her father told her. “I don’t know whether he’ll go to jail or not, but I can promise you’ll never have to see him again.”
Sorrel lifted her chin. “You know what he did to me.”
“Yes. Oh, dear Lord, yes.” Her mother’s voice cracked.
“I wanted to kill him,” her father said. “I never imagined feeling anything like this. I broke his nose.”
Sorrel’s eyes widened. “You hit Uncle Ray?”
“Yes.”
“Did—did he hit you?”
He shook his head. “He crumpled. Sobbed and sniveled and kept saying how sorry he was, that he couldn’t help himself. I walked out.”
“Oh, Daddy.” Sorrel threw herself across the room for another, fierce hug, then resumed to her seat.
“Will you come home?” he asked. “Give us a chance?”
If they imagined forgiveness would come in a heartfelt rush, they were kidding themselves, Lia thought. It would be a slow and painful process that might never be complete. But she also knew that the biggest battle for Sorrel would be overcoming her own sense of shame.