“Fathers, or parents, are weak spots with a lot of people. What Laurel’s made of herself, in a lot of ways despite them, is something to be proud of.”

“I completely agree, but it’s easier for you and me because we didn’t have to deal with despite. We always had love and support. And knowing your father was weak enough—and just had the extremely bad taste—to have an affair with Linda’s a tough one to swallow. And while Laurel’s choking that down, Linda bitch slaps her with how everyone’s talking and laughing at her about you, about her delusions that you’d ever be serious about someone like her, and insults her with all that ‘everyone knows she’s after the Brown money and status anyway because look where and what she comes from.”’

She paused a moment, just to seethe, and Del let the silence ride as he turned it all over in his mind.

“Which tied it up in a big ugly bow,” Emma continued, “making her the pathetic gold digger and you the slime who’s just banging his sister’s friend because he can. And because that’s exactly the way Linda thinks, she pushes that knife in with authority. It made Laurel cry, and you have to practically beat her with sticks to make her cry. If Linda hadn’t been gone when I got there, I’d have . . . And oh shit, shit, Laurel didn’t tell you about this.”

“She told me about Linda and running her off. But she left out several salient points.”

“Damn it, Del, damn it! You maneuvered me into telling you the rest.”

“Maybe I did, but don’t I have a right to know?”

“You may have the right to know, but I didn’t have the right to tell you.You set me up so I’d betray a friend.”

“You didn’t betray anyone.” He pulled into the nursery lot, parked, then turned to her. “Listen, how can I fix it if I don’t know?”

“If Laurel wanted you to fix it—”

“Apparently Laurel gets pissed at the idea of my fixing anything. But leave that out for a minute. Linda’s a problem, and she’s a problem for all of us. But in this specific incident, she went after Laurel. She hurt her. Weren’t you going to say you’d have taken her on over it yourself if you’d known at the time?”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you think I’m with Laurel just because I can be? That I’m sleeping with her because she’s available?”

“No, of course not.”

“But there’s part of her that thinks so.”

“That’s not for me to answer, and it’s not fair for you to ask me.”

“Okay, I’ll rephrase the question.”