Page 15 of The Banned Books Club
He suddenly felt scorched, as though he’d been shoved inside an oven beneath the broiler. “How do you know?”
“One of Edith’s best friends—I think it was Janet Robel—got an email this morning saying Gia’s starting up in-person meetings for the Banned Books Club now that she’s back in town. The email was an invitation to the launch party.”
Hadhereceived that notice? He hadn’t been on the computer to check. Usually, he handled emails while he ate lunch, but today he’d given up that time to squeeze in Mrs. Wood and Astro.
He couldn’t believe there’d be anything about the club inhisinbox, however. Gia wasn’t that obtuse. “She’s probably here because of her mother,” he said. “I’ve seen Mrs. Rossi around town, at the bank and grocery store. She looks very frail. I bet she doesn’t have much longer.”
“That’s unfortunate—not only for everyone in their family but for us now that Gia’s back. How will we deal with having her around? I can only imagine how Dad’s going to react. He’s been struggling enough as it is. I can’t take another call from him for help.”
Cormac tried to picture what the next few months might be like. He knew Gia had visited Wakefield since she left, but as far as he could tell, she did it ninja-style—stealing into town after dark and leaving fairly quickly, without anyone other than her sister and parents seeing her. “Maybe their paths won’t even cross.”
She gaped at him. “I get that you’re basically an optimist, but even you must know that if he finds out she’s this close, he’ll track her down and try to set the record straight. You’ve heard him talk about how much he longs for that opportunity. And in a town this size,someone’sbound to tell him she’s here.”
Protecting his father was a role Cormac was very familiar with. After all, he’d been doing it for years. His sisters had been doing the same. “I can understand why he’d be dying to confront her,” he said. “When she was seventeen, he couldn’t go anywhere near her, not without making himself look even worse. But now that she’s an adult and it’s been so long, he’d like to have a conversation with her, see if he can talk some sense into her and finally get her to come clean and admit the truth. That’s the only way he’ll ever be able to remove the stigma he’s lived with for so long. Without a retraction that comes directly from her, everyone will continue to believe what they’ve believed since it happened.”
Louisa nibbled on her bottom lip. “Mom thinks he did it. That’s why she divorced him.”
Cormac had met their mother for dinner last night after he got off work. She’d lost quite a bit of weight, was obviously working out and looked better than she had in ages. She’d been wearing a pricey sweater dress with a long leather coat and had a handbag that was so expensive he’d nearly choked on his drink when she told him how much it cost. As a nurse, she made a decent living, but she certainly wasn’t wealthy. The way she’d been spending lately, she often had to borrow money from him just to get through the month.
“I know, but Mom’s wrong, okay? Dad had a great career going, an impeccable record of working with children and young adults, and Gia took that from him. Not only did they fire him, they prosecuted him—all because of what shesaidhe’d done. There was no evidence whatsoever. It was her word against his. That was all it took.”
They’d had this conversation a million times, but he assumed they’d have it a million more—unless they could finally achieve some resolution. It was impossible to get over the injustice of it.
“Maybe for Mom it wasn’t about guilt or innocence as much as embarrassment,” Louisa said. “She couldn’t live with the humiliation. She said people in town looked at her like she couldn’t keep her man satisfied, as if they were thinking, ‘Why wasn’t he getting what he needed at home? Why would he ruin his career and his reputation going after a high school girl?’”
Cormac wished their mother hadn’t folded on Evan. The fact that she’d defected to the other side made her husband look even guiltier. “The lies Gia told back then changed the trajectory of all our lives.”
“And yetshewas able to go on as if nothing ever happened,” Louisa said bitterly. “It’s not fair.”
Duke’s tail was thumping the floor as he waited patiently by the door to be let back out. Cormac wasn’t feeling quite so patient. He was conscious of all the people waiting to have their animals seen and felt pressure to get back to work. But having Gia in town made it hard to focus. “MaybeIshould talk to her...”
“And say what?” his sister gasped.
“See if I can convince her to tell the truth. Apologize. Right the record. If I do it, Dad won’t have to, so she won’t be able to claim he came after her again.”
Skepticism descended on Louisa’s face. “You’d rather she told peopleyoucame after her? No way. I won’t have her maligning you next. Besides, have you forgotten what happened the last time you confronted her?”
“That got a little out of control,” he admitted. “But I was young, and I’d just found out what she was saying about Dad. I’ve had to live with the situation long enough that I’ve gained some perspective—at least on hownotto approach her.”
“Any way you approach her would not be good,” Louisa insisted. “Even if it doesn’t get as explosive as it did before, she can’t take back what she’s done. There’s been too much fallout. So what would be the point?”
“The point would be closure,” he argued. “Don’t you want the truth to finally come out? To feel vindicated for remaining loyal to a man who was a good teacher, a great father and an upstanding citizen—instead of continuing, like we have for seventeen years, to deny that any impropriety took place? So many people are convinced Dad did it. I’m tired of all the doubt, would love to show them how wrong they’ve been.”
“So would I. There hasn’t been one other girl,ever, who has accused Dad of anything even remotely like what Gia said he did to her.” Louisa shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense that he would have done that to her.”
Actually, it sort of made sense to Cormac. Gia had been unlike anyone he’d ever met. Vital. Full of life. Confident. And sexy as hell. He could easily see a man wanting her. Although he wasn’t about to admit it, he’d once wanted her himself. That was why he’d joined her Banned Books Club. At that age, he hadn’t been much of a reader—or even an advocate for books. He’d just wanted to see her, be near her. Although he’d never held out much hope that she’d be interested in him—he was a year younger—her sex appeal had beenthatpotent.
But the false claims she’d made had essentially tossed a hand grenade into his family’s living room. Once it exploded, the pieces of their lives flew in every direction. “She was attractive. I can’t deny that,” he said, admitting only to a watered-down version of the truth. “But Dad wouldn’t lie to us. He wouldn’t let us make fools of ourselves standing up for him all these years if he’d done such a terrible thing. He was nothing but kind and fair—completely consistent—all the time we were growing up. If that doesn’t earn him a little loyalty and trust, what will?”
“Exactly! The way so many people turned on him was gut-wrenching. I’ve seen him cry over this, cry so hard his shoulders were shaking!”
Cormac had seen his father break down, too. It made him hate Gia Rossi even more—for costing Evan his dignity along with everything else.
“So are you going to try to talk to her?” Louisa asked, seemingly warming up to the idea.
A knock interrupted them. “Dr. Hart?”
Louisa barred Duke’s exit with one leg while she cracked open the door to find one of Cormac’s next appointments—Venice Gomez, a middle-aged bank teller with purple hair who had a labradoodle on a leash.
