“Laura tells me you’re not going to fight for Cora.”

Justin dropped the contract he’d been reading and looked up at his mother’s words. He was no idiot. When his mother walked into his office unannounced and made a statement like that, it meant she planned to lecture him. He wasn’t going to get a damned thing done until she’d said all she planned to say. The faster he let her get it out, the faster he’d get her out of his office so he could get back to work.

He dropped into his chair and watched as his mother settled into the chair across from him. There was a time Martha Kensington wouldn’t have been caught dead in anything other than full makeup, hair, and a thousand-dollar suit. Now, she sat in front of him in jeans and a T-shirt that said “Professional Grandma at Work … Stand Back.”

There was also a time when he and his mother were barely on speaking terms. Even when they had talked, he wouldn’t describe their relationship as loving. Justin hadn’t grown up in a family where parents hugged and kissed the kids or said words like, I love you. He’d grown up in a house where outward appearances were what mattered. His mother had been a person he didn’t very much like.

The woman in front of him was different. Not a wholly new person, but she was changing. In the past three years, she’d done a lot to make up for the things she’d said and done in the past.

She looked at him as though she expected a response and he had to replay her words in his head to try to catch up to her. She’d said something about fighting for Cora.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Cora Walker has decided to date. Everyone knows it,” she said, as if she had to explain that. In Evers, you didn’t have to explain much of anything to anyone. News flew around town like wildfire almost before it happened. “Laura said you’re not going to fight for her.”

“Mom, there’s nothing to fight for. Cora and I are friends.” He picked up the contract and began skimming the pages again.

He could see his mother out of the corner of his eye. She couldn’t completely hide her past persona. She sat stiffly in her chair, back ramrod straight as though she could fend off the world if she held herself just so. She’d spent a lot of years that way, cutting herself off from feeling anything.

When Justin’s brother Patrick died and it came out that he’d been abusing Laura, Justin and his mother had said things to each other that could never be taken back. He’d known his mother had been aware of the abuse Laura suffered and she’d done nothing to help. In fact, she’d helped to cover it up. The fact Laura and his mother had a relationship now was something that floored him.

He and his mother were closer than they’d ever been, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still a lot they had never dealt with. The issues they’d never addressed could fill all of Texas and half the surrounding states. They’d left the world they had once inhabited behind, for the most part, but there would always be a wall between them that he didn’t think they could knock down.

She surprised him when she pressed on. It wasn’t like her to talk about personal issues with him, but she didn’t drop this the way he thought she would. “Laura has a theory about your feelings for Cora and why you haven’t acted on them.”

He knew exactly what Laura’s theory about him and Cora was, and he didn’t want to discuss it with his mom.

“I have to tell you, I think Laura is right. She’s pretty intuitive when it comes to this kind of thing.”

Laura was caring and loving and giving. All the things their family wasn’t. He’d always thought it was a miracle Patrick had been able to get her to marry him.

Justin went back to the start of the page and tried reading it again. He wasn’t absorbing much of it, despite the fact his eyes were traveling over the words.

His family had never been one for hugs and kisses and soft words. His dad had talked at his brother and him, more than with them. They’d been taught about the expectations of the family and groomed to meet those standards. If his parents had said “I love you” to him more than once or twice in their lives before this past few years, he didn’t remember it.

“Justin.” His mother’s voice was almost a whisper. “Please.”

He looked up and froze at the look on his mother’s face. She was uncomfortable. He could see it. She didn’t want to talk about this any more than he did. But more than that, he could see determination in her eyes.

She looked down for a minute before meeting his eyes. “Don’t interrupt me because I need to get this out and I don’t know if I can say this more than once.”

Justin nodded, waiting.

“What you and Laura have done with this place is amazing. Every day, you’re helping to reach out and teach people about abuse. You’re helping to get women out of situations they can’t get out of easily. You’re teaching women that reaching out for help shouldn’t bring shame or embarrassment. I couldn’t be prouder of the work you’re doing here.”

Justin opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what, but something. His mother leveled him with a look.

“The thing is, Justin, I don’t think you’re learning the lessons you need to be learning here. You need to forgive yourself for what you see as your failures in what happened Laura and me.”

Justin felt a painful lump swell and clog his throat. It seemed like it might cut off his air. His mother had never confirmed what he feared. That his father had hit her the way his brother hit Laura. He and Laura had talked a lot about what she went through, but with his mother, it was the kind of thing they all knew happened, but they’d silently agreed not to go there.

She talked now, and it seemed as though each word cost her. He knew talking about what she’d been through was crucial, but it killed him to hear it.

“Your father wasn’t like Patrick was with Laura. I’ve talked to her and I know she went through hell with Patrick. She was living with violence every day. Your brother was sick, Justin, and by the time I realized it, I had walled myself off in a cell of alcohol and pills.”

She seemed to go to another place as she spoke. “Your father wasn’t violent in the same way Patrick was. I thought your father loved me. I loved him with all my naïve heart when we were first married.”

She took a steadying breath. “When he hit me the first time, I started the cycle of making excuses for him, of blaming myself for not being perfect, not being what he needed. I don’t need to tell you about that part. Your work here has taught you what can happen to a woman in that position. There was so much shame. It never occurred to me that it was your father’s fault, that maybe he’d been taught by his father to handle things that way. It never dawned on me that I had any choice other than to cover it up and hide my shame from the world.”

Justin felt the rage he had for his father swell inside him. It ate at his chest, clawing into him with such force it was physically painful. But alongside the rage for his father was more anger and hatred for himself. He’d let this happen. He hadn’t seen what his mother was going through. What kind of son doesn’t see this?

In his work at Raise the Veil, he’d read accounts of sons growing to the point where they were able to fight back and protect their mothers. Justin had never once done that. He’d never even known his mother had been abused. She hadn’t walked around with black eyes and bruises, but he could think back now and catalogue her injuries. Catalogue all the times he’d let her down.

He remembered a day when she’d had a large bruise on the side of her face. It didn’t look like a punch, so his child mind had no trouble believing her when she said she walked into the edge of the door when she got up in the middle of the night for something and didn’t turn on the lights.

She’d broken her wrist twice, but there had been good reasons for both incidents. Over the past few years, he’d relived every little scratch or bruise, and every story she’d concocted for each of them.

How had he never heard the fights? How had he not heard her crying?

“Your father didn’t hit me often. He saw it as a lack of control when he did and he never liked to be out of control. The thing was, he blamed every slip in control on me. Your father’s words were always more painful than his punches. If he lost his temper, it was because I had pushed him too far, because I had failed. I wasn’t good enough to be a Kensington. So, I tried harder. I made myself into the perfect Kensington matriarch. I put on the mask and showed the world, showed all of you, what was expected. And when I saw the same thing happening to Laura, I wasn’t strong enough to get her out of there. I was angry and bitter and thought the world owed me something for what I had gone through. I told her to suck it up and put on the face the world expected to see. I tried to turn her into me.”

His mother was very still. “I think on some level, I wanted someone to go through what I’d been through. I know that’s sick, but I think I felt like I shouldn’t have to suffer that alone.”

There was a long, painful silence and he was sure his mother was doing everything in her power not to cry. It was written on her face. When she spoke, the ache and pain carried in her voice. “It is my greatest shame.”

Justin felt his throat constrict and he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to breathe in a minute.

His mother cleared her throat, her face etched with determination as if she could barrel through this. “You didn’t see what was going on because I didn’t let you. Patrick knew, but by the time he figured it out, your father had already warped him so much. I realized he would get hold of you soon and change who you were. That’s when I sent you away to school. I wanted you away from your father, and away from Patrick. I drove a wedge between all of you so that he couldn’t poison you. I did all of that, Justin. You’re not to blame for not seeing what was going on. I was very good at hiding it, so there’s nothing here for you to pay penance for. There’s nothing for you to be punished for. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t grab life with all you’re worth and live it. Find love. Find happiness. You deserve that more than any of us.”

She stood, then, looking down at where he still sat. He should say something. He should reach out and hug her. He should tell her it’s all right. He didn’t.

She paused in front of his desk. “What Laura and I went through was horrible, and I’m glad we’re out of it, but I think you need to realize we weren’t the only victims of it.”

Justin knew all of that intellectually. He knew the victims of domestic abuse included those who lived around it and witnessed it. Knowing that intellectually was very different than being able to accept it in his heart.

“I want you to let yourself live and love. You are nothing like your brother or your father. You could never hurt a woman the way they did. It’s just not in you.” She put her hand on his. “Your heart is too strong for that. It’s why I sent you away all those years ago. I sent you away because I knew you would never keep that secret if you discovered it. You would have stood up to your father for me, and at the time, he was much too powerful and strong for you. He would have hurt you and I couldn’t stand that. I could numb a lot with alcohol and pills, but I couldn’t numb the pain I would have felt if your father turned on you.”

She looked fierce when she said the next words. “It’s one thing to break the cycle of abuse. I know you can do that. But you also need to be sure the abuse doesn’t haunt you forever and strip your life of what it should be.”

He sat frozen, processing what she’d said as she left the room. It was a long time before he could speak, and even then, what came out was a harsh, grating whisper. “I’m so sorry, mom. I’m so damned sorry.”

Two days later, Justin still felt wrung-out from the talk with his mother. He had gone home, taking the rest of the day off. He’d been in no shape to work or see anyone. His mom was right. He hadn’t fully dealt with any of what his family had been through.

Now he sat at his desk, wondering where this all left him. Yes, his mother was right. Yes, he’d been punishing himself for the wrongs he believed he’d committed, the failures he had taken on as his own, even though, if anything they belonged only to a young boy who couldn’t have known any better.

But that didn’t mean he could run right out and change. It was hard to move on from what you thought you needed to do and be for so many years. He’d though he couldn’t have happiness and love. That he didn’t deserve it. Shaking off that feeling wasn’t going to come overnight.

Besides, Justin thought, as he watched the scene unfolding out his office window. Cora was walking down the front path of the building to a waiting Ethan. She was happy. She was with Ethan, and she was happy. She’d made it clear that Ethan was who she wanted. Justin wouldn’t do anything to disrupt that now.

His phone rang and he turned to lift the receiver to his ear.

“Justin Kensington,” he said into the phone, still watching the spot where Cora had been.

“You haven’t been to a Sunday dinner in over two months.” May Bishop’s voice came through the phone without preamble.

May was Laura’s new mother-in-law and unofficial matriarch of the town. Almost everyone in town had been ordered to come to Sunday dinner at one time or another. Justin was on the list of people who were expected to make an appearance more routinely than not. He’d failed at that lately.

“Sorry, May. I’ve been—”

“Busy,” she finished in a tone that said she wasn’t buying it. “I’ll tell you what. You swing by the ranch this afternoon to have tea with me and I’ll forget all about it.”

“Uh, tea?”

“Tea,” she said, and hung up.