brownies. The brownies I asked you to bake for Jase. And it wasn’t a gopher. It was me. I got into them. Dug through the pan with my fingers.” She held her hand up and glared at it. Then she smacked it onto her leg. “That’s why I hid them above the refrigerator. No one was supposed to see them there. I planned to at least salvage the ones around the edges, the ones I hadn’t touched, and give them to Jase. The way you expected me to, Kenz. But then I saw the photograph.”
She shifted her gaze to Brother Jase. “Rachel was so pretty. Dainty looking, like Kenzie. I got…jealous. And I wanted the feeling to go away. So I took the rest of the brownies and ate them.”
Suddenly Kenzie remembered the trash bag Lori had carried out of the church. “Is that what you had? Not a dirty empty dish but the brownies?”
Lori nodded. Her chin quivered. “They fell out of the pan on the way home, but that didn’t matter. I ate them out of a trash bag. Like some starving homeless person would’ve done. Except I don’t have an excuse, because I’m not homeless, and it’s pretty obvious I’m not starving.” Her sad tone turned hard. “How could I be starving when I eat all the time?” She balled her fists and banged them on her thighs. “All the time, Kenzie!” Tears rolled.
Kenzie got up, hurried to her bathroom, and grabbed the box of tissues from the back of the toilet. When she returned, she saw that Brother Jase had moved to the sofa beside Lori and sat with his hand between her shoulder blades. Kenzie put the box in Lori’s lap and went to the stool.
Brother Jase pulled out a tissue and pressed it into Lori’s hand. “Lori, can I ask you something?”
Lori wiped her eyes and nose. “I guess.”
“Did someone mistreat you when you were a child?”
Lori’s eyes went wide. She drew away from Brother Jase. “No. Of course not.”
Kenzie huffed. “Lori, tell the truth.”
Lori glowered at Kenzie. “I am. Nobody hit me or…or hurt me.”
“Maybe not physically, but someone did hurt you.”
Lori hung her head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Brother Jase glanced at Kenzie, sympathy in his eyes, then faced Lori. “Yeah, when someone hurts us, we don’t want to talk about it. We don’t want to acknowledge it. Maybe because we blame ourselves, like we think we did something to deserve it, and it embarrasses us to admit it. Maybe because we want to pretend it isn’t real, and by not talking about it, we can keep it hidden.”
Slowly Lori raised her head and looked at Brother Jase. “How do you know that?”
A sad smile formed on his lips. “Because that’s how I felt when I was little. My mom didn’t take care of me, so I figured I wasn’t worth taking care of. Then the state took me from her, and I went to different foster families. But none of those places were really my home. Just someplace to be. I felt pretty worthless. Empty, you know?”
Kenzie battled the desire to cry. She’d never been mistreated, but constant worry about failing to follow the rules of her sect had left her feeling hopeless. Uncertainty about her standing before God had carved a hole in her heart and sent her seeking to plug it up with perfection. Until grace washed away her fears and filled her life.
Lori nodded. “Yeah, I know. When I get that way, I…I eat.”
Brother Jase smiled. “To fill yourself up?”
Lori hung her head again. “Yeah.”
“But it doesn’t really help.”
Lori’s chin bounced up. “It sure doesn’t. Not for the long haul.”
Kenzie gazed at Brother Jase in amazement. On the phone, he’d said he didn’t know how to help, but clearly he did. His understanding had soothed Lori and erased her tears.
Brother Jase eased backward and slid his arm across the back of the sofa, no longer touching Lori but staying close. “When I was in seventh grade, my school counselor diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Most of my life was out of my control, so I controlled what I could. Everything had to be in order, as perfect as I could make it, you know? My books stacked alphabetically in my locker, my shirt tucked in just so, pencils lined up on the edge of my desk, that kind of thing. When I was scared, I refolded all my T-shirts so they were all the same