grow up to be something like a nuclear physicist. So, there you go. Hearing your mother say that had to sting, but not spending time with you is her loss.”
Emma glanced over at the exact spot where Jeffrey had stood. Could it have really been just this morning? It seemed like the visit had happened years ago. “It did hurt to hear her say it again, but not as much as it did when I was about twelve years old. Down deep I think I knew it even as a toddler. Pretty often, days went by when Mother didn’t even come into the nursery. Daddy popped in every evening, but he only stayed a little while. When I was little, he’d read a book to me. When I got older, he would play a board game with me. He’d grown up in foster care, so he can’t have had many role models when it came to being a dad.”
“What happened to his parents?” Josh asked.
“They died when he was a little boy. He had no living relatives, so he was put into the system, but at least Daddy tried.” She sighed. “I told her something this morning that”—she paused—“I was hoping she’d react differently to. Rebel would have shown sympathy, but Mother . . .”
“Want to talk about it?” Josh asked.
“Yes, I do, but it’s bad,” Emma said. “And I’m afraid it will affect our friendship, and I don’t ever want that to happen.” She began to wring her hands together. I have to stop this, she thought. He needs to know why I am so scared of relationships.
“Can’t happen.” He smiled.
Just those two little words and his smile filled her with the confidence to go on. She took a deep breath and spit out the story of the rape and the nightmares, and even told him how she thought that she’d killed both guys. She kept her eyes on her beer bottle and didn’t look up at him until she finished. When she finally did glance his way, he had taken his glasses off and was wiping away tears with the back of his hand.
Other than Sophie and Rebel, no one had ever shown her that kind of empathy. She could tell that what he felt wasn’t pity but sincere, and it warmed her heart so much that she reached over and took his hand in hers. “Thank you for listening and for not looking at me with disgust right now.”
“I’m so, so sorry that you had to endure that, Em.” He laid his free hand on top of hers. “But most of all, I’m sorry that you had to carry that around with you all those years. I wish I had known you then so you would have had someone to talk to about it.”
“I should have called Sophie, but I just thought if I didn’t admit that it happened, then it would go away.” She liked the feel of his hand on hers. “I wish I had known you then, too, Josh. We’re so much alike that it would have been nice to have had a friend like you.”
“You’ve got me now.” Josh freed his hands from hers.
“Thank you.” One more little obstacle conquered. She liked to be touched by a man, even if it was just holding hands.
He worked on his glasses with the tail of his T-shirt and then put them back on. “Hey, I almost forgot. You told us to get you a pay-as-you-go phone, but I just got you one like mine and put you on my plan.” He pulled the phone out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “I took the liberty of setting it up to the Wi-Fi we’ve got here at the park, and”—he ducked his head—“I made a playlist so you can have music while you work.”
When she took the phone from him and his bare fingers touched hers, it excited her. The warmth of his hands on hers, even in a simple gesture like a brush, was so different from anything she’d felt from a man in the past, and she liked it—a lot.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, “but you didn’t have to do something like this.”
“You need a phone when you go out there”—he motioned with a flick of his wrist toward the outside—“to scout for new ideas. Want to listen to the music I put on there? Or would you rather go down to my trailer and listen to records?”