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“I will do it again,” Aubrey said and then turned to her dad. “Lucy can’t read.”
Alexis pushed her sister and stated before he could get anything out, “She has dyslexia. She can read, just not well. Lucy had no idea what was written on that bottle, Dad. She has no idea what is written on the papers on your desk. She has severe dyslexia and reads at a second grade level at best. Mostly, she doesn’t even try anymore. She memorizes things so she doesn’t have to read them.”
“She proofread documents for me, Alexis.”
“Probably just like I do, Dad. I don’t. You’re a perfectionist, and there is never an error. I just send them out,” Aubrey admitted, not even caring that it was a part of her job to proofread the documents.
“No, she had them read to her by the computer. Sera took her headphones the day she came in. All computers have the option; it’s in the settings. Phones too. The week she was on bed rest, she had books read to her. I saw her,” Alexis explained.
“Emma told you this?” he asked her.
“Yeah, kind of. I spent some time at Lucy’s house with her sisters. There were a lot of stories,” Alexis admitted.
“How is she?” Leo perked up. He wanted to know everything about her.
“I don’t know. She doesn’t come out of her room and mostly doesn’t let anyone in. I never asked to go in,” Alexis admitted.
“Okay, say I believe you, which I really don’t. She graduated from high school. How is that possible if she can’t read?” He folded his arms over his chest.
Alexis and Aubrey exchanged looks again. “She never graduated from high school. She dropped out in the tenth grade because they were going to make her repeat it. She got her GED later, but Cliff said that in reality, Maby did. She took the test for Lucy so Lucy could have a GED for job applications. Lucy doesn’t do tests.”
Instantly, his mind went to her sadness about the test for band and admitting that she hadn’t even took it because she wasn’t good at tests. He leaned back in his chair. Lucy intently playing his guitar floated through his mind.
“These shirts are her work. She didn’t want you to know,” Aubrey jumped in and pointed to her and Alexis’s shirts. “But everyone else does. A few years ago, she had a screen-printing business for a few months, but it failed. They kept all the mistake shirts, and everyone always wears them. There are a lot of them. Everyone always chalked it up to Lucy not spelling well, but she didn’t have to spell; she had to copy. All her clients told her what to put on the shirts. Still, most got misspelled anyway because spelling wasn’t Lucy’s issue.”
“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” Leo asked the two. Lucy could read; she had read most of his documents while proofreading them. His mind rushed to her calendar, her entirely unreadable calendar.
“I guess it isn’t something you want to tell your boss. And she’s always been embarrassed by it. Her sisters didn’t know about it until recently.” He knew it was the reason Alexis didn’t want to tell him about it. She didn’t want Lucy to look bad to him.
“Or her boyfriend, Dad. I saw the type of guy she usually dated, and they wouldn’t care one way or another if she could read or not. She’s always hidden her inability behind her personality. Being the life of the party and dumb, until you,” Aubrey added.
“She isn’t dumb, girls,” he stated firmly.
“She also didn’t try to hurt Amelia. She made a mistake,” Alexis said. “A dumb mistake. Are you going to let one dumb mistake cost you the woman you love?”
“I don’t …” He couldn’t even finish, because he did love her. He had since she had nervously agreed to marry him for her kids. She had put herself behind him, his kids, and her kids by agreeing to be his wife. Her only request was that he pretend to love her. Not even for herself, but for her family. It was that woman he had fallen for.
Aubrey leaned forward and squeezed his knee. “She came out of her room today because she has an appointment with her doctor. Maybe you want to go to that.”
“I don’t think she wants me to be there,” he admitted. He had said too much.
“You more than Harper. She’s the one who’s taking her this time,” Alexis stated and cut a look at her sister.
That snapped him out of whatever he was thinking; she was in danger. Again. “Fuck! I can’t let her be alone with that woman. Where?”
“St Mary’s. The appointment is in an hour,” Alexis called after him, but Leo was already out the door.
No way was he letting Harper have another chance at hurting Lucy.
