Indelible

"You know how easily you freckle. And your legs are so white. I don't know that I'd wear shorts with legs like that."

Tessa chuckled. "What was that girl's name in Gidget who wore the big hat on the beach?"

Sara gave her sister a "you're not helping" look. Tessa pointed to the bag of biscuits, then to her mouth, indicating her silence could be bought.

"Larue," Sara told her, moving the bag farther away.

"Tessie," Cathy said. "Run fetch me the ironing board." She asked Sara, "You do have an iron?"

Sara felt the heat from her mother's stare. "In the pantry."

Cathy clicked her tongue as Tessa left. She asked Sara, "When did you wash these?"

"Yesterday."

"If you'd ironed them then -"

"Yes, and if I didn't wear clothes at all, I'd never have to worry about it."

"That's the same thing you told me when you were six."

Sara waited.

"If I'd left it up to you, you'd've gone to school naked."

Sara absently thumbed through a book, not seeing the pages. Behind her, she could hear her mother snapping out shirts and refolding them.

Cathy said, "If this was Tessa, I wouldn't be worried at all. As a matter of fact," she gave a low laugh, smoothing out another shirt, "I'd be worried about Jeffrey."

Sara put a paperback with a bloody knife slash down the cover in the "take" pile.

"Jeffrey Tolliver is the sort of man who has had a lot of experience. A lot more than you, and I see that smile on your lips, young lady. You'd best realize I'm not just talking about the stuff going on between the sheets."

Sara picked up another paperback. "I really don't want to have this conversation with my mother."

"Your mother is probably the only woman on earth who will tell you this," Cathy said. She sat on the bed and waited for Sara to turn around. "Men like Jeffrey only want one thing." Sara opened her mouth, but her mother wasn't finished. "It's okay if you give them that thing as long as you get something back out of it."

"Mother."

"Some women can have sex without being in love."

"I know that."

"I'm serious, baby. Listen to me. You're not that kind of woman." She tucked back Sara's hair. "You're not the kind of girl who has flings. You've never been that kind of girl."

"You don't know that."

"You've only had two boyfriends your whole life. How many girlfriends has Jeffrey had? How many women has he slept with?"

"I would guess quite a few."

"And you're just another one on his list. That's why your father is mad about -"

"Don't y'all think it would be nice to actually bother to meet him before you jump to all these conclusions?" Sara asked, too late remembering that Jeffrey was on his way here now. She chanced a look at her alarm clock. In about ten minutes, her mother would be able to see for herself that she was exactly right. If Jill-June Mallard could pick up on it, Cathy Linton would know it the moment Jeffrey entered the room.

Cathy persisted. "You're just not a 'fling' kind of girl, honey."

"Maybe I am now. Maybe I became that sort of person in Atlanta."

"Well." Cathy picked up a pair of underwear to fold, her brows furrowed. "These are too delicate for the machine," she chastised. "If you wash them by hand and dry them on the line, they won't get torn like this."

Sara gave her a tight smile. "They're not torn."

Cathy raised an eyebrow, showing a spark of appreciation. Still, she asked, "How many men have you been with?"

Sara looked at her watch, whispering, "Please."

Cathy ignored her. "I know about Steve Mann. Good Lord, the whole town knew after Mac Anders caught you two behind the Chilidog."

Sara stared at the floor, willing herself not to spontaneously combust from embarrassment.

Cathy continued. "Mason James."

"Mama."

"That's two men."

"You're forgetting the last one," Sara reminded her, feeling a tinge of regret as she saw her mother's expression darken.

Cathy folded Sara's pajama bottoms. She asked very softly, "Does Jeffrey know you were raped?"

Sara moderated her tone, trying to be gentle. "It hasn't exactly come up in our conversations."

"What did you tell him when he asked why you left Atlanta?"

"Nothing," she said, leaving out the fact that Jeffrey had not pressed for details.

Cathy smoothed the pajamas. She turned around for something else to put to order, but she had already folded or refolded everything on the bed. "You should never be ashamed about what happened to you, Sara."

Sara shrugged noncommittally as she stood to get her suitcase. She wasn't ashamed, exactly, just sick to death of people treating her differently because of it – especially her mother. Sara could take the concerned looks and the awkward pauses from the handful of people who knew why she had really moved back to Grant County, but her strained relationship with her mother was almost too much to bear.

Sara opened the case and started to pack. "I'll tell him when it's time. If it's ever time." She shrugged again. "Maybe it'll never be time."

"You can't expect to have a solid relationship if it's founded on secrets."

"It's not a secret," she countered. "It's just private. It's something that happened to me, and I'm tired of…" She did not finish the sentence, because talking about the rape with her mother was not a conversation she was ready to have. "Can you hand me that cotton top?"

Cathy gave the shirt a look of disapproval before handing it over. "I've seen too many women fight to get to where you are and give it all up in a minute for some man that ends up leaving them in a couple of years anyway."

"I'm not going to give up my career for Jeffrey." She gave a rueful laugh. "And it's not like I can get pregnant and stay home raising babies."

Cathy absorbed the remark with little more than a frown. "It's not that, Sara."

"Then what is it, Mama? What is it you're so worried about? What could any man possibly do to me that's worse than what's already happened?"

Cathy looked down at her hands. She never cried, but she could go silent in a way that broke Sara's heart.

Sara sat on the bed beside her mother. "I'm sorry," she said, thinking that she had never been so sick of having to apologize to people in her life. She felt such guilt for bringing this on her otherwise perfect family that sometimes Sara felt like it would be better for her to just go away and leave them to heal on their own.

Cathy said, "I don't want you to give up your self."

Sara held her breath. Her mother had never come this close to voicing her true fears. Sara knew better than anyone how easy it would be to just give in. After the rape, all Sara had been able to do was lie in bed and cry. She had not wanted to be a doctor, a sister, or even a daughter. Two months passed, and Cathy had pleaded and cajoled, then physically pushed Sara out of bed. As she had done a hundred times when Sara was a child, Cathy had driven her to the children's clinic, where this time Dr. Barney had made things better by giving Sara a job. A year later, Sara had taken a second job as county coroner in order to buy out Dr. Barney's practice. For the last two and a half years, she had struggled to rebuild her life in Grant, and Cathy was terrified Sara would lose all of that for Jeffrey.

Sara stood up and walked to her dresser. "Mama…"

"I worry about you."

"I'm better now," Sara said, though she did not think she would ever be fully whole again. There would always be the before and after, no matter how many years distanced her from what had happened. "I don't need you to look after me, or try to toughen me up. I'm stronger now. I'm ready for this."

Cathy threw her hands up. "He's just having fun. That's all this is to him – fun."