Free Breaking the Silence by Diane Chamberlain Page B

said, blotting her eyes. “She’s just a little girl.”
    “You’ve raised her to be sensitive and empathetic. That’s not so bad.”
    Laura blew her nose. “Ray raised her to be that way, really,” she said. “Remember, I told you how he taught her about the homeless.”
    “You and Ray raised her together,” Heather said.
    It seemed that Heather would not allow her to say anything positive about Ray without correcting her, but Laura opted to ignore her comment. “If she can’t talk openly with me there, would it be better for me to stay out of your sessions with her?” she asked.
    “For a while, anyway,” Heather agreed. “You can watch from behind the mirror.”
    “Okay.”
    “The thing that still worries me more than anything is all the negative stuff about men,” Heather said. “She makes this hostile face every time she plays with any of the male dolls.”
    “I noticed that,” Laura said. Emma’s disdain toward men had been impossible to ignore during the session.
    “And I’m concerned those feelings have been there for a long time. From before Ray killed himself. They could have a powerful impact on the woman Emma grows up to be.”
    “She was playing at my neighbor’s house the other daywhen her friend’s father came home,” Laura said. “He’s a nice guy, but gruff, and Emma ran out of the house when he walked in.”
    Heather didn’t look surprised by that information. “One thing that’s really obvious to me, although I know you may not be ready to admit to it, is that your husband and Emma did not have a good relationship. When I asked Emma to use the face drawings to describe her dad, she pointed to the yelling face and the angry face.” Heather leaned toward Laura, her brown eyes earnest. “In Emma’s mind, men yell,” she said. “And men kill themselves.”
    “So what can we do?” Laura felt helpless.
    “Well, play therapy can go only so far.” Heather sat back in her seat again. “I have a question for you,” she said. “Something I’ve been wondering about.”
    “Yes?”
    “Emma’s birth father. What can you tell me about him?”
    Laura laughed. “Essentially nothing. I met him one time, at a party, and that was it. Believe me, I’d never done anything like that before. I was upset that night, and—”
    “That doesn’t matter.” Heather dismissed her excuses with a wave of her hand. “But I wonder if there’s a chance he might like to know he has a daughter.”
    “Oh, no.” It was Laura’s turn to interrupt. The idea of tracking down Dylan Geer and announcing to him that he had a daughter was unthinkable. “I’m telling you, he probably wouldn’t even remember me. And I don’t know where he lives. Or even what he does for a living. And—” she laughed again “—I don’t want Emma to have a father who’d sleep with someone the first night he meets them. She’s already stuck with a mother depraved enough to do that.”
    Heather laughed herself. “All right,” she said. “But I’d stilllike you to think about it. I wouldn’t want him involved, either, unless he’s good father material and willing to commit to her. But he just might be someone who could correct her notion that all men are snarly beasts. You never know. It might be worth a shot.”
     
    Laura had designed the skylight room at the lake house herself. It was a medium-size, square room on the second story, its ceiling formed by large, Plexiglas panels. The floor was completely covered in huge pillows, except for one corner where she had her desk and computer. Lying on the pillows, looking up, a person could almost pretend they were outside. Laura’s telescope stood in one corner of the room, ready to be wheeled onto the wide deck that ran around all four sides of the second story, giving Laura the ability to search nearly any part of the sky.
    She had fallen asleep in this room on many nights, and tonight would probably be one of them. She was dressed in her summer pajamas