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to call out and heard you say birth-control pills and overheard by mistake, couldn't I? I could have seen you were acting suspicious as hell the last couple of days and I might have caught you in a couple of lies and I might have found out you were seeing this punk Greg when you were supposed to be at your friend's house — I mean, there's a hundred ways I could have found out. When you lie all the time you can expect to get caught. No?"
    "Greg's not a punk. Don't call him that."
    "Oh. I think he's a punk, all right. I think that is precisely, exactly, and absolutely what he is. A snot-nosed, lying, sneaking, no-good little punk who is about to get his butt in some serious trouble for molesting a fourteen-year-old girl. AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?"
    "You don't have to scream. I'm sitting right here next to you, Dad."
    "You little lying whore!" And before he could control himself he lashed out at her, backhanding her and hearing her head crack against the window on the passenger side, hitting her a lot harder than he meant to, slapping her involuntarily, lashing out at her before he could think to stop himself, slapping his errant daughter, slapping Pat, slapping her lover Buddy, slapping the stewardess who had touched him on the plane, letting all his anger and rage and frustration whip out at his little girl.
    "I HATE YOU," she screamed at him between sobs. It was a slap he could never take back. Not the smack with the back of his hand or the tooth-rattling headache. That was nothing. It was what he called her. No matter how much she would ever want to, she knew that would be the one thing she'd find the hardest to forgive.
    "Do you know the kind of thoughts I had about you on the way down here? The things I thought about while I was parked over across from the clinic waiting for your to get your little slut pills so you could give yourself to that — that boy? It was like realizing for the first time that I'd never known you. You were a total stranger living under our roof. My roof," he corrected. "And now I'm going to have to treat you as if you were a stranger. I'm going to have to make rules. Firm rules."
    "I hate you, you know that," she spat, glaring at him with her narrowed cat's eyes, still sobbing and out of control.
    "And I love you, and that's why —"
    "No you don't," she sobbed ruefully, "you lying old bastard," and the word bastard was the last word she spoke to him for a long, long time.
    He went ahead to lay down his new, iron-clad rules, so ridiculous they made his previous constraints seem positively reasonable by comparison. The rigidity he'd shown toward Tiff since Pat ran off to be with her real lover man would appear benign when compared to the stern measures he was going to take to "control" his wayward, delinquent fourteen-year-old.
    Spain continued talking, commanding, when he should have been listening, asking. Instead of understanding or gentle guidance, he was making demands she knew she couldn't swallow. He'd taken a loving daughter and used her as a release for his bottled-up anger. And the harsh abrasiveness of this confrontation slammed the door on her once and for all.
    "How you could do something like this to me when you know this sort of crap is the last thing I need right now and ..." She only heard a blur of words. But wasn't that just like her father? The last thing HE needed. Never mind what anybody else needed. He could go to hell for all she cared.
    She'd tried so hard to give him extra love when Mom had left. The little extras. Worked so hard to be home for him. Clean up after him. Feed him nourishing meals. Do all the things her mother had done around the house. She tried to talk to him, and he didn't want any part of it. When she was solicitous and sympathetic, he'd responded by pulling himself inside the shell of a shattered ego where she couldn't get at him. Now this.
    They rode in silence for another half-hour and each kept their own raging counsel, sitting there unspeaking,