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“Yes. We have a wonderful therapist on staff.”
“She’s also Mo’s daughter,” Zane said.
Mo nodded. “We ultimately strive to offer privacy and peace for healing to the women who walk through our door.”
“It’s certainly comfortable here. Do children come too?”
“Yes. Families are welcome. We don’t turn anyone away.”
They talked a few more minutes and then stood. Mo led them to the door. “Thank you for stopping by. Please be sure to give your sister and mom my best.”
“I will.” Zane kissed Mo’s cheek.
“It was very nice meeting you,” Sophie said.
Mo put her hands on Sophie’s shoulders and squeezed. “The pleasure was all mine, sweetie.”
As soon as the door swung shut behind them and he and Sophie were on the street, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shirt. He wasn’t sure if she was comforting him or needed his comforting, but he stroked her back all the same.
When she stepped away, she picked up his hands and led him to a bench. They sat, and she looked her fill at his face, touching his forehead, nose, cheeks, and mouth with eyes that held true caring. It unsettled him at the same time it drew him to her like a bear to honey.
“Will you tell me what happened to your family?” she whispered.
He’d brought her here to share something he’d never shared with anyone else. Bryce and Danny knew, yeah. But they didn’t know the details, the deep, confusing feelings he chose to keep buried. Lately he’d thought he might drown in his memories if he didn’t get some things off his chest. He wanted to be the ambassador for SHE, and he wanted to start with a clean slate.
“My dad was a son of a bitch.”
She blinked like she knew that part.
“He was… He was verbally abusive to me growing up.” His mom had tried drilling that into his head for years. Telling him he wasn’t stupid, that the problem lay with his father. “I didn’t think of it that way, though. He told me I had shit for brains and I believed him.”
“Oh, Zane.” She squeezed his hand.
“To escape him, I surfed. I got better and better the more time I spent in the water. The ocean was the only place I felt any peace, and when an endorsement deal came up that allowed me to leave home, I did.”
“How old were you?”
“Not quite seventeen. The summer before my senior year of high school.”
Her eyes widened.
“I never got my diploma. Never went to college. Which didn’t do my confidence in the smarts department any good.” He held his breath. Waited for the warmth in her eyes to disappear, the caring to fade.
Didn’t happen.
“John D. Rockefeller dropped out of high school two months before he graduated. And Abraham Lincoln never went to college. Two very smart men, Zane. A formal education isn’t an indication of intelligence.”
He smiled. Just a little. She did the same back.
“After I left, my dad decided to take things out on my mom.” He pulled his hands away, the tension in his fingers so strong he needed to flex them. Sophie didn’t shrink away, but she took a deep breath and sat taller, a sign she could handle whatever he said next.
“It was mostly verbal attacks, but one night she said something my father didn’t like and he hit her. She grabbed Julia and left. They ended up here with Mo.”
“But she went back.”
“Yeah. She didn’t tell me about any of this until the bastard died. He didn’t hit her again, but words can be just as painful.”
His stomach twisted with hate for his dad and what he’d done.
