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“He said as much downstairs. I knew it then and I know it now. I just didn’t care.” Her mother exhaled heavily. “Please don’t believe his lies for another second. Please?”
“Okay,” Lia said, smiling through tears. “August told me to tell you a week ago. I should have listened to him.”
“Why didn’t you? And don’t say it’s because you didn’t want to hurt me. You know there’s more than that to it.”
“I...” Lia looked down at the floor. “I never told anybody. Not until August. It was just too humiliating.”
“My poor baby.”
She collapsed into her mother’s arms and cried.
Mum stroked Lia’s hair like she had a million times before. The daughter did the crying-her-heart-out and the mother did the comforting-with-all-her-might. The whole thing was horrible and awful and sad, but Lia thought it was almost worth it. She’d told her mother all her secrets and when Mum now said, “I love you, my darling,” Lia could believe—because now her mother knew the real her. And Lia knew who her mother was, too. A weird, half-wild, wonderful woman.
“I love you, too, Mummy.”
“You forgive me?” she asked.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lia said.
“You forgive me, anyway?”
“Yes,” she said. “If you’ll forgive me.”
“For what? Not telling me when you should have four years ago? Or running an escort agency with your friends under our noses?”
“Um...both.”
“All right,” her mother said softly. “I will, however, have to ask you to kindly cease and desist all illegal activities. If you end up in prison for pandering, I’m going to age very quickly overnight, and then I really will never forgive you.”
Lia laughed between her sobs.
“No more crying now,” her mother said. “David’s not worth it.”
“He was crap in bed, wasn’t he?”
“Total crap. Or are these tears for August?”
“August,” Lia whispered.
“What happened? He seemed mad about you.”
“He’s, ah, going back to Greece.”
“That’s what planes are for.”
“It’s family stuff,” she said. “I can’t be part of it. He’s gone for good.”
“I’m so sorry, my darling,” Mum said, wiping the tears off Lia’s face with her own bare hands.
“Now, that’s what I want to see.” Those words were spoken by her father, standing in the doorway of Lia’s suite. “Genuine remorse and tearful contrition. Ashes and sackcloth would also be appreciated.”
Gogo trotted into her room then and sat at Lia’s feet. He didn’t care if she was in trouble. He knew who put the kibble in his bowl every day.
“Sorry, Daddy,” Lia said.
“Sorry? You’re saying sorry? You’ve been running an escort agency with your friends for the past three years and I get a ‘sorry’?”
“I’mverysorry?”
