Public Secrets

beside her. “Want to yell at me awhile?”
“No.”
“That’s a relief. Why don’t you get out of those wet things?” He put his hands over his eyes, then spread his fingers and grinned. “No peeking.”
Because it was something to do, she rose and went to her closet for a robe. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“That your father liked women? Yes. I guess I first suspected it when we were twelve.”
“I’m not joking, Johnno.”
So, she wouldn’t give him an easy way out. “Okay. Listen, Emmy luv, a man’s entitled to sex. It just isn’t something he likes to flaunt in front of his daughter.”
“He paid her. She was a whore.”
“What do you want me to say?” When she stopped in front of him, wearing a white terry-cloth robe, he took her hands. She looked pitifully young now, her hair wet and sleek around her head and shoulders, her eyes dark and disillusioned. “Should I tell you the nuns are right, and it’s a sin? They probably are. But this is real life, Emma, and people sin in real life. Brian was lonely.”
“Then it’s all right to have sex with a stranger if you’re lonely.”
“This is why God saw to it that I wouldn’t be a father,” Johnno murmured. He tried again, the best way he knew. With the truth. “Sex is easy, and it’s empty, no matter how exciting it is at the moment. Making love with someone is a whole different experience. You’ll find that out for yourself. When feelings are involved, I guess you could practically say it’s holy.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to. He went out, found that woman and paid for her. He had cocaine. I saw it. I know Stevie … but I never believed Da. I never believed it.”
“There are all kinds of loneliness, Emma.”
“Do you do it, too?” She set her jaw.
“I have.” He hated admitting a weakness to her. Strange, but until that moment when he had to confess his own flaws, he hadn’t realized how much he loved her. “I probably haven’t missed much. The sixties, Emma. You had to be there.” He laughed a little, and drew her down beside him. “I stopped because I didn’t like it. I didn’t like giving up my control for a quick buzz. That doesn’t make me a hero. It’s easier for me. I don’t have the pressure Brian does. He takes everything to heart, I take everything as it comes. The group’s what’s important to me, you see. With Bri, it’s the world. It always has been.”
She could still see him, her father, with his head bent over the line of white powder. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“No.” He leaned his head on hers. “I guess not.”
The tears came now, hot and fast. “I didn’t want to see him like that. I didn’t want to know. I still love him.”
“I know. He loves you, too. We all do.”
“If I hadn’t gone out, if I hadn’t wanted to be alone, none of this would have happened.”
“You wouldn’t have seen it, but it would still have been there.” He kissed her hair. “Now you just have to accept that he’s not perfect.”
“It’s not going to be the same, is it, Johnno?” On a sigh, she leaned against him. “It’s not going to be quite the same ever again.”

Chapter Eighteen

New York, 1982
W HAT DO YOU think he’s going to say?” Marianne hauled her suitcase out of the cab while Emma paid off the driver.
“I imagine he’ll say hello.”
“Come on, Emma.”
Emma pushed back her hair as the late evening wind tugged at it. “He’ll ask what the hell we’re doing here, and I’ll tell him.”
“Then he’ll call your father and we’ll be dragged off to the gallows.”
“They don’t hang in this sute anymore.” Emma picked up her own suitcase, then drew a deep breath. New York City. It was good to be back. This time, she intended to stay.
“Gas chamber, firing squad, it’s all the same. Your father’s going to kill us both.”
Emma paused with her hand on the knob of the lobby door. “Want to back out?”
“Not on your life.” Marianne grinned, then scooped a hand through her cap of red hair. “Let’s do it.”
Emma strolled in, pausing on her way across the lobby to smile at the security guard. “Hello, Carl.”
“Miss—why, Miss McAvoy.” He set down his late-evening pastrami sandwich and beamed at her. “It’s been over a year now, hasn’t it? You’re all grown-up.”
“A college woman.” She laughed. “This is my friend Miss Carter.”

“Nice meeting you, Miss Carter.” Carl brushed crumbs from the sleeve of his uniform.