name, she’d be breaking the teens’ trust. She set the teakettle on the stove and turned to the table.
Kelly held Wren to her shoulder. Tess couldn’t see from here if Wren’s eyes were open, but the baby didn’t appear to be squirming. “If you’d been me,” Tess said, “and you suspected at least one of the boys might be ready to have unprotected sex, what would you have done?”
Kelly’s expression hardened. “I would have told them to stop. Teens shouldn’t be having sex.”
“I doubt that would have been effective.” Tess couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice, but Kelly was too wrapped up in her own misery to notice.
“They have no concept of how sex can ruin their lives.” Kelly blinked, fighting tears. “They’re too young. They think love will last forever. They don’t understand the consequences. They think they know everything, but they know nothing.” She lost her battle, and Tess watched the woman whom she’d disliked so thoroughly fall apart. “You have to make them understand how hard life can be. They think they’re in love, but they have no concept of what love is. They don’t see what a trap sex can be. How it can destroy their lives. You have to . . . They have to stop before that happens. You have to tell them.”
Wren began to cry. Tess picked her up and tucked her back in the sling. Kelly buried her face in her hands, and Tess put it all together. “That’s what happened to you.”
“The town scandal,” Kelly said bitterly.
“You were trapped.”
“People still haven’t forgotten. After all this time. All my charity work. The women’s alliance. The school board. All of it.”
“And yet you wouldn’t give Ava back for anything.”
Kelly swiped at her running nose with the back of her hand. “She’s the most important thing in my life.”
Tess handed her a tissue. Now she understood Kelly’s strident support of abstinence sex education. She’d been a pregnant teenager. Tess did the math in her head. Ava was only fifteen, so Kelly was only a few years younger than Tess, although she looked older.
Kelly stared across the room. “I was the most popular girl in high school. I wasn’t one of those mean girls, either. I was nice to everybody. I was happy. And then I wasn’t.” The mass of diamonds on her wedding band caught the light as she blew her nose. “I was home with a baby while Brad went to college. I don’t want that life for my daughter. I want her to get an education and find a career so she learns how to be her own person.”
“You want her to have the chances you didn’t get.”
Kelly’s eyes clouded, as if she were far away. “I’m disappearing. Every day, I get smaller.”
This wasn’t what Tess had expected, but then she’d heard more than her share of strange confidences over the years.
Kelly twisted her wedding band. “Getting smaller and smaller until I’m afraid I’ll wake up some morning, and I’ll be so small that Brad won’t even know I’m there.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth and shot up from the table. “I have to go.”
Despite the grief this woman had caused, Tess pitied her. “You can talk to me if you’d like. I’m the town pariah, remember? Your secrets are safe.”
The teakettle whistled, and Kelly slumped back into her chair, as if she didn’t have the energy to do anything else. “I don’t have any secrets. Forget what I said. I’m being stupid.”
“You don’t sound stupid.” Tess turned off the kettle and posed the question she’d been trained to ask. “Do you feel safe at home?”
“What do you mean?”
“Has your husband ever hurt you?”
Kelly’s red-rimmed eyes widened. “Are you asking if Brad abuses me? God, no.” She bit out the words. “Brad is perfect. I’m the one with the problem.”
Tess dropped the tea bags in the mugs. “I doubt he’s perfect. Not if you’re afraid he’ll squash you.”
“I’m not afraid. I told you. I’m being stupid.” She fell silent.
Tess brought the tea to the table one cup at a time, not pressing her.
Kelly gazed around the cabin. “Sometimes I imagine living here. There used to be an iron patio set in the back, a little table and two chairs. My grandmother and I had tea parties. She . . . She made me feel like the most important person in the world.” Her eyes lost their focus, as if she’d drifted far away. “I imagine Ava coming to