A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [127]
“Yes. It makes me forget.”
Erica looked at April and nodded. “What does it make you forget?” she asked softly, using the approach Matt had suggested they use if they found her able to talk.
Blair’s gaze then moved from Erica to April and the smile slowly left her face. “What my daddy did to her.” She pointed at April. “That’s Connie’s child. Latonia.”
Though taken aback, April followed the older woman’s thoughts. Blair thought she was her mother. Nana had always told her she looked like a younger version of her mother.
“What did your daddy do to her?” Erica asked softly.
“He hurt her. I saw him. Karen saw him. We should have stopped him, but we didn’t. I pleaded with Karen to stop him but she wouldn’t. She never liked Connie’s daughter and said she was getting what she deserved. It was ugly.”
Blair seemed to be staring into space as if she was remembering. “I couldn’t take it anymore so I ran away. I was driving too fast and couldn’t slow down. I lost control. I—I…”
She placed her hands over her face and Erica reached out and gently pulled them back down. “It’s okay, Aunt Blair. It’s okay.”
Blair then looked at April. “Will you forgive me, Latonia? I should have stopped him, but no one can stop him when he gets that way.”
An hour later after taking turns reading nursery rhymes to Blair, April and Erica followed the men out the door. Brian pulled Erica gently to him. “Don’t worry. I have a feeling that between you and April she will continue to be taken care of.”
Erica nodded. Yes, between her and April, Blair Delbert would always be taken care of.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Erica knew everyone was watching her when she picked up the phone to call her mother. It was time to bring the lies and deceit to an end and it would start with this phone call.
What she was about to do had been Matt’s idea and it seemed like the perfect way to bring Karen Sanders’s years of manipulations, evil and control to an end. Erica had no qualms about what she was to do and felt it was totally justified. Her mother needed help and she would make sure she got it.
She had returned to the lake house with everyone to find her father there, waiting for her. In tears she had walked out of Brian’s arms into his and, just as she’d done when she was a child, she had cried on him. The main question that had been on her mind when she’d met her father’s gaze was how he had endured living with her mother all those years.
He had taken her outside to sit on the porch to explain it to her. “At first it didn’t matter. I never knew love, and you can’t miss what you never had. I knew just what kind of marriage I would have before I wedded your mother. I wasn’t looking for love and neither was she.”
He’d reached out and taken her hand in his. “Then you were born and any thoughts of getting a divorce dissolved from my mind. I just wanted to be the best dad I could be to you. To be there whenever you needed me.”
Erica had nodded. “And you were.” She hugged her dad, feeling sorry for ever doubting him.
“You’re ready to do it, Erica?” April asked softly, pulling her out of her reverie.
She nodded her head. “Yes, I’m ready.”
She glanced at her watch. It was close to eleven o’clock as she began dialing her mother’s phone number. Her mother was probably still up, working crossword puzzles or playing a game of solitaire.
“Hello.”
Erica swallowed. The sound of her mother’s voice sent cold chills through her body at the thought of all the things her mother had done, the lies she had told. The people she had hurt.
“Hi, Mom, this is Erica.”
“Erica, I’m glad you called. How was your date today with Griffin? You have to tell me all about it. How long have you been home?”
“I’m not home yet, Mom. In fact, Griffin and I are still together.” She glanced across the room at Griffin, who had his arm around April. “Griffin and I have made a few decisions about our lives.”
“Really? Have you?”
“Yes. And we’ve decided to fly to Vegas tonight and do something we should have done long ago.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Erica could hear the excitement in her mother