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“All right, you two need to stop before you say something you’ll both regret,” she interjected, stepping in the middle of the two.
“Jo, this doesn’t concern you. She needs to know that she’s made the biggest mistake of her life,” Cora threw over her.
Jo whirled around to face her sister. “Cora, stop,” she pleaded, but that only seemed to fuel her sister’s anger.
“You know what, Jo? Worry about your own issues with your daughter. Like I said before, this doesn’t concern you.”
Jo reared back at the hurtful comment as she widened her eyes in surprise, unable to comprehend what her sister had just said, but then as if her brain caught up with the implications of her insults, Jo’s eyes registered the hurt she felt.
Cora’s eyes widened in realization. “Jo—”
“All right, that’s enough,” Becky ordered, entering the room with a scowl. “Cora, how could you speak to your sister in such a manner? I raised you girls better than this,” she chided. “I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my home,” she finished, staring pointedly at her oldest daughter.
“Josephine, what I said was out of line. I’m sorry,” Cora apologized, but Jo couldn’t look at her. The hurt was still palpable to her.
“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Jules, can you come with me so we can finish talking. I promise it’s just to talk.”
“Okay,” Jules agreed.
Jo didn’t realize that she hadn’t moved from where she stood until her mother placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Let’s sit, sweetie,” she offered, moving toward the couch.
Jo followed her mother on legs that felt like rubber, and when she made it to the couch, she collapsed on it.
“Are you okay?” Becky asked, her voice laced with concern. “You can talk to me, Jo,” she implored when her daughter still hadn’t opened her mouth to speak. Reaching over, she drew her daughter by her shoulder closer to her.
“I… I don’t know where to start,” Jo admitted tiredly.
“You can start by telling me exactly what Charles got himself in,” her mother said.
At this, Jo whipped her head around to look at her mother with surprise.
“I may not always offer my advice because I want you girls to give me a chance to be there for you without feeling like I’m pushing you, but I normally know more than I let on and what I know is that the accident wasn’t an accident,” Becky revealed.
At this, Jo broke down, allowing the tears that seemed to be ever at hand since last evening to flow down her cheeks. Becky gave her daughter a sympathetic look before drawing her head down to rest in her lap.
“Everything will be okay, sweetie. Just let it all out and let me be there for you. Let me help you,” she cooed, smoothing down Jo’s hair before wiping a few of her fallen tears.
Jo sniffled. “Charles got himself in trouble for losing a client’s retirement fund on an unauthorized investment,” she explained. “He started drinking because he couldn’t get back the money and, on the night… on the…” she couldn’t finish her statement.
“He was drinking before the accident,” Becky stated rather than asked.
Jo could only nod to confirm the spoken words were true. After a full five minutes of building up the strength to continue to confide in her mother, she began again. “The firm had to repay the client. After that, I received Charles’ life insurance policy on a technicality because they had waited over seventy-two hours to test the sample instead of the forty-eight hours that was the standard time. One of the partners and his boss at the firm reached out to me to tell me what he had done. I was devastated by the fact that he had been under the influence, and now I was learning that he had committed a white-collar crime.”
Becky continued to soothe her daughter, creating a calming environment for her to feel comfortable telling her everything.
“I didn’t want to tell Tracy because I didn’t want her to think of her father differently than the man she’d known him to be, and I certainly didn’t want her to blame him for Nick’s death… In the end, she still found out, and now she’s angry at me for keeping this from her, and I don’t blame her.” Jo sighed, defeated.
“Josephine, you did what you thought was best for your daughter. You can’t keep beating yourself up for that,” Becky encouraged her daughter. “Tracy will come around. She just needs time to work through her emotions toward the whole situation, but she’ll come around.” Becky kissed her daughter’s temple as she comforted her. “As for the other situation, it will work itself out. Don’t worry about it.”
Jo reached up and gave her mother’s hand a grateful squeeze. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Anytime, sweetie,” Becky replied.
“Did I ever tell you about the trip your father and I went on to France in 1970? That was before any of your girls were born.”
Jo turned her face up to look at her mother. “No, you didn’t,” she answered, intrigued.
“Well, it was the best and the worst trip of our lives.” She chuckled lightly as her mind seemed to travel to the time in question.
