Her mother saved those girls from their father. Man beat the shit out of her, stalked her, landed lawsuit after lawsuit on her, custody, visitation, support, which, mind, he did not pay, just to fuck with her.

And if he’d had a free hand, he would have destroyed those girls. They’d never be perfect enough for him, but he wouldn’t have given up tryin’ and makin’ them feel like pieces of shit while he did it.

Lyla’s mom delivered them from all of that. Faced him head on with any shit he pulled. Put herself up as a shield in front of those girls. She couldn’t afford to take them anywhere else, so she moved ’em in with their grandparents, and boom! Two more shields.

Anchors.

A foundation.

You got fertile earth to grow in, you bloom.

Lyla’s mom busted her ass to give her girls that and I’ll remind you, this was in a time when MeToo would have been a joke.

The response would have been, so what?

Lyla’s mom birthed those girls then made them the women they became.

I’ll tell you what, every day I work to make sure my girls have that.

Natalie hesitates over eating a chocolate chip cookie or gives the girls a look where I know she’s fretting when I’m making malts.

I say, “Eat it, baby,” at the same time wanting to find her mother and knock her teeth down her throat, because if that woman was there, she’d give my baby shit about having a fuckin’ cookie, goin’ on about carbs and middle-age spread, something the woman had been doing in one way or another to my wife the whole of her life.

And I make my girls malts.

They are, all three of them, the most beautiful creatures who entered my life, and I never let them forget it.

Lyla’s mom and grandparents taught me that.

And hey, Preacher taught me it too.

[Off tape]

So, you’re saying, conclusively, that you, McCade and Lyla were not a threesome and that you and McCade did not indoctrinate her into her status with the band when she was underage.

[Stares straight, speaks firmly]

Yeah, fuckin’ conclusively I’m sayin’ just that.

And you’re saying that McCade did not regularly railroad the band into his way of thinking and rule it with an iron fist.

[Shakes head]

Nope.

He got his way a lot and he pushed to get his way a lot and there were times, and not a few of them, when that was frustrating as fuck.

But he didn’t railroad anybody or rule with an iron fist.

Tom ruled with an iron fist.

[Laughs]

But that was his job.

Cynthia Peters, who became famous in her own right, went on to marry Bobby Sheridan.

[Shakes head]

Match made in heaven for the full, what? Nine, ten months those two idiots were hitched.