"Sure." Johnno squeezed his shoulder, then gestured. "You'd best tidy
up your mess down here."
Her eyes were dry. Emma sat, heedless of her wet clothes, on the edge
of her bed. But she didn't cry. The world, the beautiful world she had
built around her father had crumbled. She was lost again.
She bolted up when the door opened, then sank back to the bed when she
saw Johnno. "I'm all right," she told him. "I don't need anyone to
kiss it and make it better."
"Okay." He came in nonetheless, and sat beside her. "Want to yell at me
awhile?"
"No."
"That's a relief. Why don't you get out of those wet things?- He put
his hands over his eyes, then spread his fingers and grinned. "No
peeking."
Because it was something to do, she rose and went to her closet for a
robe. "You knew, didn't you?"
"That your father liked women? Yes. I guess I first suspected it when
we were twelve."
"I'm not joking, Johnno."
So, she wouldn't give him an easy way out. "Okay. Listen, Emmy luy, a
man's entitled to sex. It just isn't something he likes to flaunt in
front of his daughter."
"He paid her. She was a whore."
"What do you want me to say?" When she stopped in front of him, wearing
a white terry-cloth robe, he took her hands. She looked pitifully young
now, her hair wet and sleek around her head and shoulders, her eyes dark
and disillusioned. "Should I tell you the nuns are right, and it's a
sin? They probably are. But this is real life, Emma, and people sin in
real life. Brian was lonely."
"Then it's all right to have sex with a stranger if you're lonely."
"This is why God saw to it that I wouldn't be a father," Johnno
murmured. He tried again, the best way he knew. With the truth. "Sex
is easy, and it's empty, no matter how exciting it is at the moment.
Making love with someone is a whole different experience. You'll find
that out for yourself. When feelings are involved, I guess you could
practically say it's holy."
"I don't understand. I don't think I want to. He went out, found that
woman and paid for her. He had cocaine. I saw it. I know Stevie . .
. but I never believed Dad. I never believed it."
"There are all kifids of loneliness, Emma."
"Do you do it, too?" She set her jaw.
"I have." He hated admitting a weakness to'her. Strange, but until that
moment when he had to confess his own flaws, he hadn't realized how much
he loved her. "I probably haven't missed much. The sixties, Emma. You
had to be there." He laughed a little, and drew her down beside him. "I
stopped because I didn't like it. I didn't like giving up my control
for a quick buzz. That doesn't make me a hero. It's easier for me. I
don't have the pressure Brian does. He takes everything to heart, I
take everything as it comes. The group's what's important to me, you
see. With Bri, it's the world. It always has been."