Eight and a half months after that episode, one blond baby had been born to two brunette parents. She had never cheated on Richard, but her word was not fact, and the Whitakers were sticklers for facts. Perhaps she could have fought the divorce, but the only fact she could have presented to any of them was a picture of herself as a child. A towhead, like Johnny, and like her mother and grandfather, all of whom had turned into brunettes as teenagers. So she could have produced a photograph, and she could even have subjected her baby to a paternity test, but Johnny’s paternity was really only a moot point by then. She knew Richard had been looking for an excuse to divorce her. Faith, love, trust had all gone by the wayside; there was no marriage left to fight for by the time the child was born.

Richard was overly possessive and fiercely jealous-qualities that seemed to come with the male Whitaker genes. Richard, Sr., had at first treated her like a daughter…and later had treated her like scum. It was like turning over a record and finding on the flip side the ugly qualities in the men whom she had once cared for so much, whom she had trusted, who had trusted her…

She hadn’t given Matthew the chance to hurt her as Richard and his father had. Matthew had tried to get her to talk; in retrospect, she could see that for a long time he had tried to help her through the turbulent marriage. Always kind, often there, perceptive and calming… Richard had found it amusing that his formidable older brother had taken a little sister under his wing. But when push came to shove, Lorna had shut Matthew out. She was angry and frightened and young. Mr. Whitaker’s contempt had hurt her to the core; contempt from Richard… Well, the end of the marriage had changed her whole life. To risk contempt from Matthew…it was too frightening, in some subtle way she never defined; she simply refused to lay herself open to it. It was easier just not to speak to him. Perhaps she knew unconsciously that there was some point at which she might completely break apart, splinter into a thousand little pieces…