‘‘I was young, but not too young. And if it was foolishness, it was my foolishness. I’ll never know if I was good enough. I’ll never know if I could have made that dream real, because when I asked you to help me reach for it, you told me I was too old for nonsense. Too old for nonsense,’’ she repeated, ‘‘but too young to be trusted.’’

‘‘I did trust you.’’ He jerked his chair up. ‘‘And look what happened.’’

‘‘Yes, look what happened. I got myself pregnant. Isn’t that how you put it at the time? Like it was something I managed all by myself just to annoy you.’’

‘‘Jack Casey was no damn good. I knew it the first time I laid eyes on him.’’

‘‘So you said, over and over again until he took on the gleam of forbidden fruit and I couldn’t resist sampling it.’’

Now Pete’s eyes flashed and he rose out of the chair. ‘‘You’re blaming me for getting yourself in trouble?’’

‘‘No, I’m to blame if there has to be blame. And I won’t make excuses. But I’ll tell you this—he wasn’t nearly as bad as you made him out to be.’’

‘‘Left you high and dry, didn’t he?’’

‘‘So did you, Daddy.’’

His hand shot up, shocking both of them. It didn’t connect, and it trembled as he lowered it. He’d never done more than paddle her bottom when she was a toddler, and even then he’d suffered more than she had because of it.

‘‘If you’d hit me,’’ she said, struggling to keep her voice low and even, ‘‘it would be the first real feeling you’ve shown me since I came to you and Mama and told you I was pregnant. I knew you’d be angry and hurt and disappointed. I was so scared. But as bad as I thought it would be, it was worse. Because you didn’t stand by me. The second time, Daddy, and the most important of all, and you weren’t there for me.’’

‘‘A man’s daughter comes in and tells him she’s pregnant, that she’s gone on and been with a man he took trouble to warn her away from, it takes him time to deal with it.’’

‘‘You were ashamed of me, and you were angry thinking of what the neighbors were going to say. And instead of looking at me and seeing that I was scared, all you saw was that I’d made a mistake you were going to have to live with.’’

She turned away until she was sure, absolutely sure, there wouldn’t be tears. ‘‘Aubrey is not a mistake. She’s a gift.’’

‘‘I couldn’t love her any more than I do.’’

‘‘Or me any less.’’