Why hadn’t she seen this? Laura wondered. Why hadn’t the family counselor? Why hadn’t anyone seen it? “Ali, that’s not true. People get divorced. It’s sad and it’s sorry, but it happens. Your father and I got divorced because of him and because of me. You know I don’t lie to you, Ali.”

“Yes, you do.”

Stunned, Laura jerked back. “Ali?”

“You don’t lie, exactly, but you make excuses, and that’s the same.” She bit her lip, terrified that her mother would cry again. But she had to say it. “You always made excuses for him. You’d say he wanted to come to the recital, but he had an important meeting. He wanted to go with us to the movies, or the zoo, or anyplace, but he had work. But it wasn’t true. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go with me.”

Oh, dear God, how could protecting your child cause so much damage? “It wasn’t because of you. Not because of you, Ali, or because of Kayla. I promise you that’s not true.”

“He doesn’t love me.”

How could she answer? What was right? Praying that whatever words she chose would be best, she stroked Ali’s tumbled hair. “It might be hard for you to understand this, but some people aren’t cut out to be parents. Maybe they’d like to be, or they want to be, but they just can’t. Your father never meant to hurt you or Kayla.”

Ali shook her head slowly. “He doesn’t love me.” She said it quietly. “Or Kayla. Or you.”

“If he doesn’t love you in the way you wish he did, it isn’t your fault. It’s nothing you did. Nothing you are or aren’t. It’s not his fault either, because—”

“You’re making excuses again.”

Laura drew back, shut her eyes. “All right, Allison. No excuses.”

“Are you sorry you had me?”

Laura’s eyes flashed open. “What? Sorry? Oh, Allison.” This part, at least, was easy as breathing. “Do you know, when I was a girl, hardly older than you, I used to dream that I would fall in love one day, and get married. I’d have a home, and beautiful children to fill it. I’d watch them grow.”

Her lips curved now as she stroked the hair away from her daughter’s damp cheeks. “Not all of that dream worked out the way I thought it would, but the best part did. The best part of the dream, and the best part of my life, is you, and it’s Kayla. Nothing in the world could be truer than that.”

Ali knuckled a tear from her cheek. “I didn’t mean those things I said.”

“I know.”

“I said them because I knew you would never go away. No matter what, you’d never go away.”