Jamee crawled into the back seat, folded her arms, and closed her eyes. Darcy sat beside her mother up front. “Mom, Aunt Charlotte has no right to put you down,” Darcy said. “You’re a great nurse—you practically run that ER! You save people’s lives every night. You’re a hero and a great Mom and a great daughter to Grandma. Aunt Charlotte just fools with a computer in an old bank, and she doesn’t lift a finger for anybody but herself. She’s got no right putting you down!”

Mom took her eyes off the road for a minute to look at Darcy. “Oh baby, what would I do without you?” Tears began to roll softly down her cheeks. “But the truth is, I’m no hero. I’m just trying to keep ahead of a mountain of paperwork and doing about one-third of the patient care that I ought to be doing. I’d need the arms of an octopus to meet all their needs. And I did blow it marrying your father. Maybe I was a bad wife, or he wouldn’t have left me like that. ”

“Mom!” Darcy cried. “It wasn’t your fault. It was his fault! He was like what Pastor Bromley says about people who desert their families: They’re weak and selfish!”

Jamee was roused to join in the condemnation of their father. “Yeah, he was a jerk!”

“Maybe that’s true,” Mom said softly.

“It is, Mom,” Jamee insisted. “What kind of a man sneaks away like that? What kind of a dirty coward does that? Just because he fell for that stupid Janelle woman was no reason to dump us!”

“Jamee, what are you talking about?” Mom asked, in a horrified voice, nearly swerving the car into oncoming traffic.

“Oh, Mom,” Jamee went on, rolling her eyes, “Janelle’s niece, Deedra, goes to my school, and she told me the whole story. Her Aunt Janelle was a waitress at that diner where Dad used to eat breakfast. She told me how Dad would flirt with this young, pretty waitress. The next thing she knew, the two of them ran off to New York together. Deedra’s been teasing me about it ever since. The other kids used to ask what happened to my daddy, and I’d make up some lies. But the truth is Dad left us for that young waitress. ”

Mom was really crying now, and Darcy wanted to strangle Jamee for what she said. Darcy and Jamee had discussed the true story a couple of years ago, but they had promised to keep silent out of respect for Mom’s feelings.

“Oh Mom, stop crying,” Jamee said crossly. “Men are slime. Boys too. Old Aunt Charlotte is pretty smart not to have anything to do with them. She just makes piles of money and takes trips to Paris and Madrid and takes care of herself instead of wasting time on men. ”