Free A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare by Donna Fletcher Crow

perfect if her father was so domineering.”
    Richard wrinkled his forehead. “I’ve heard tell of fathers who only get that way when their little girls start dating. Especially if they take up with playboys like Dirk.”
    Elizabeth nodded. “And you have the feeling she’s tired of him now, Tori? Maybe Dirk doesn’t want to be thrown over. Maybe he’s got some notion of scaring Erin into marrying him so he’ll get her money.”
    “Well, he looks like he has plenty of his own.” Tori bit her lips. “Of course, you never know.”
    Elizabeth nodded. “We really don’t know much, do we? Richard, why don’t you try talking to Dirk. Gregg, you see what you can learn from Larry.” And I’ll watch, you, Gregg, she concluded mentally.
    At that moment Victoria slipped her hand into Gregg’s on the table, just as Elizabeth’s own still rested in Richard’s. The intimate gesture reminded Elizabeth that there was a young woman here whose future concerned her far more than Erin’s. And that the search for truth they had discussed earlier could mean a lot more to her sister’s future than the one they were pursuing at the moment. She sought a way to turn the conversation without seeming too obvious. Then the line from Pericles came to her: “We must keep searching for ‘truth can never be confirmed enough, though doubts did ever sleep,’” she quoted, then looked at Richard.
    He took up her meaning. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s have another round of pastry.” He signaled the waitress. “And while we’re indulging, Gregg, you can tell us how you’re coming with your own search for Truth.”
    There was a slight movement as the hand that held Tori’s gripped tighter. “Well, I haven’t had much time.”
    Elizabeth looked at the couple across from her. Tori looked so young and innocent in her white cotton dress, her long black hair pulled back in a mother of pearl clip; and Gregg, his azure eyes looking even clearer than usual above his blue, open-collared shirt, his appealing hesitancy clearly a part of what made him so attractive to her sister.
    Richard, however, was not one to be put off so easily. He dealt with Gregg as he would have with a reluctant student. “I’ve found that most people purport to place a high value on truth, but it’s really a lackadaisical effort. Most people just accept popular culture—absorb what the media spews out as philosophy. Very few people have a real program for reading and examining and asking, ‘what does this mean to me?’”
    Gregg rubbed his forehead in a manner that showed Richard’s shot had gone home. “The trouble in looking for values is whose values are you going to accept? Whose truth?”
    Richard grinned as if he had been waiting for that one. “Yes, many of my colleagues in education use that as an excuse for not teaching values—the cry of ‘whose values?’ As if there is no objective truth.”
    Tori jumped to Gregg’s defense. “Yes, but really—try to look at it from the viewpoint of someone who hasn’t grown up always believing in absolutes. Where do you start?”
    “Look to the lives of people to whom the search for truth was important. People who found a personal Truth that changed their lives. Truth should mean something in a person’s life. Don’t waste time on the lives of nihilists or on the lives of people for whom what they found didn’t matter to them.”
    Gregg nodded, looking more serious than Elizabeth had seem him look before. “So who do you recommend?”
    Richard thought for a moment. “Start with people who started where you are. People relying on their own intellectualism or working for superficial success who then found deeper meaning.”
    Elizabeth held her breath, hoping Gregg wouldn’t be insulted by Richard’s implication that he was shallow. But if Gregg caught the inference, he took it placidly. “Like who?” he asked.
    Again Richard thought. “Well, some of my favorite are Pascal, St. Francis, C. S.