Honeysuckle Summer (The Sweet Magnolias #7)(72)
“How’d you cope with that?”
“Thankfully I was prepared. Mostly, I tuned her out, even though the tears were killing me. I felt like the worst kind of big brother ever for forcing her to do this.”
“But you had to know in your heart you were being the best kind of big brother.”
“I tried to remember that, but it was hard with tears streaming down her cheeks. I really, really hate it when people cry, especially when I’m responsible.”
“Ultimately, though, you got her to go?”
He nodded. “By then she was sulking and not speaking to me at all. The look she gave me when she walked into the office came pretty close to breaking my heart.”
“Any idea how the session went? Did Carrie say anything afterward? Or did you speak to Dr. McDaniels?”
“I have a follow-up with Dr. McDaniels tomorrow. We all do, in fact. I guess I’ll find out more then. Carrie’s still not speaking to me. She’s freezing out Mandy, too. The doc says that’s normal. Right now, Carrie obviously thinks we’ve all ganged up on her. We’re the enemy.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too, but it has to be this way. Even I can see that. It’s better than sending her to the hospital or a treatment center. I tried to make her see that, but she told me there was nothing wrong with her, that I was just being mean and freaking out over nothing.”
He looked so miserable that Raylene found herself moving closer to him on the sofa. She reached out and touched his cheek. It was the first time she’d let herself initiate any contact. She saw surprise register in his eyes.
“It’s going to get better,” she assured him. “There may be some rough patches. There certainly were with Annie. I can remember back then Ty was just about the only one who could get through to her. Everyone else was her enemy, even Ronnie, and she adored her dad. It just about killed him to be tough with her. Maybe you could talk to him sometime, and see how he dealt with her anger.”
“Believe me, I will speak to him. I need to be reminded that we will get through this. It helps to see how close Annie and her family are, even after all they went through. That gives me hope.”
Raylene squeezed his hand. “I’m just coming to realize how important hope is,” she said. In fact, even though it was hard won, hope was just about the only thing that got her through some difficult days. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she wouldn’t lose it now.
Carter checked at least once a week with the prison to see if there was anything new on Paul Hammond’s possible release date in August. Though officials had promised to alert him before any release occurred, he wasn’t inclined to take chances. Parole hearings could be delayed or moved up. While he wouldn’t mind the former one bit, he wasn’t about to risk having the date come up faster than he was anticipating.
In the meantime, he’d been doing more research into Hammond’s background. Today he’d driven over to Charleston on his day off, left the girls to shop at a mall and done a little investigating around the hospital where Hammond had worked as an orthopedic surgeon. What he’d discovered had alarmed him even more.
It seemed Raylene hadn’t been his first victim, just the only one he’d married and the only one who’d reported him to police. Most of the women he spoke with thought she’d been incredibly brave, though some had openly declared it to be social suicide.
“She’ll never be welcome back in Charleston, not by that crowd,” one of the nurses said candidly. “In that social world, wives either suffer in silence or they leave. They don’t create a scandal. Their attitude is pretty disgusting, if you ask me. It means the men just keep getting away with it.”
Carter agreed. He couldn’t imagine a world where anyone turned a blind eye to abuse. “What about Hammond? Will he be welcomed back?”
“Not here,” the nurse said fiercely. “And I can’t think of a woman who’d let him treat her or allow him to touch her kids. The men might stick by him.” She shrugged. “If it were up to me, he’d lose his license to practice, but I don’t know what the medical board will decide.”
Though Carter wanted Hammond to lose everything, he worried that if Hammond wasn’t welcomed back into that same world with open arms, it would fuel his rage against Raylene.
By the time he picked up the girls a couple of hours later, Carter was more concerned than ever about the danger Hammond might pose.
“How come you’re so quiet?” Mandy asked, giving him a questioning look as she climbed into the front passenger seat.
“I just have a lot on my mind,” he said. “How was your shopping trip? You don’t seem to have a lot of bags. Does that mean my credit card didn’t get a workout?”
“Carrie wouldn’t shop,” Mandy said with disgust.
“I don’t need any clothes,” Carrie countered, settling into the backseat.
Her sour, defensive tone was the same one with which Carter was becoming all too familiar. She’d been this way ever since she’d started seeing Dr. McDaniels. Clearly, she hadn’t yet forgiven him for making her continue to go. So far she’d been refusing to go to Raylene’s as well, obviously counting her among the enemies. He’d hoped the outing to Charleston would help, but it obviously hadn’t.