With a cry, she rushed up to the cabin, and flung open the door, and then stopped with a start, inside. Her mother lay sobbing on Lani's cot, completely naked, her dress thrown in a corner of the room, her eyes red and swollen as she turned quickly to see her daughter standing in the doorway.
"Oh God, Lani, what… what happened to you?"
Lani was suddenly aware of the impression she must be making, her own naked body standing motionless in the doorway, scratched and bruised from her wild flight, and rushed to her mother with a cry of shame.
"Oh Mother, I'm wicked! You were right… Bob is a monster, horrible… I don't know how I never saw it… Can you ever forgive me for what I said to you?"
Ann opened her arms to her daughter, and Lani melted into them like she had so many times before.
"Lani. I… I don't understand… what happened?"
"I can't… I can't talk about it…"
"You must, dear, you must," Ann said soothingly. "You have to get it out of you."
Lani raised her head to her mother's and saw the concern and love there, and gained the courage to tell her mother what had happened. She described her horrible session with Bob and Moses, from the time she left her mother by the Pool until she ran off into the woods. As she did, Ann hugged her daughter tenderly to her breast, her heart going out to her in compassion as she realized that they'd both been the innocent victims of the same, sinister man.
Her hands caressed her child's soft back and shoulders as Lani moaned out her story, and Ann hugged her instinctively, smelling the young, sweet hair and feeling her daughter's firm, round breasts against her own swelling mounds, nipples against nipples. Her own eyes brimmed with sympathetic responsiveness, and she was at a loss to know what exactly to say.
"I'm not fit to live," Lani concluded, tears in her eyes.
"Yes, you are, darling," her mother cooed. "You're the best girl a mother could ever want and… nothing you've done could make you unfit… nothing."
"You… you really mean that, Mother?" Lani whimpered.
"Lani, I love you more than anything in the world, and when I thought I'd lost you today, I wanted to kill myself. You're my light, my life…"
"But I've been so bad, so sinful!"
"I've… I've had to think a lot about sins, dear," Ann said ruefully, tenderly kissing the tear stained cheek nearest her, still running her hands over Lani's soft warm back. "I've had to somehow come to terms with myself, too, you know. I'm… I'm like you said, unworthy of being called a mother. I let you down so badly…"
And with the tears beginning to well up in her own eyes, Ann forced herself to tell Lani the terrible tale of her experience with Moses that evening, leaving out nothing, desperate to cleanse herself, to confess to her daughter as Lani had done to her. And when she finished, both mother and daughter were crying, locked in each other's arms as though they were trying to find in each other the answer to their own doubts and fears. They lay on the cot for a long while, silent and rocking together in mutual love, rebuilding the faith and trust they had had for one another over the years. The minds of both were whirling with private thoughts of guilt and remorse, which only served to cement their common bond further. Finally Lani was able to stop crying, and she blinked and drew away from her mother just enough to wipe her swollen, red rimmed eyes with the back of her hand.
"M-mother, can I talk to you?" she asked in a soft whisper.
"Of course, Lani!"
"I mean really talk, Mother. I… I don't think that I've been mature enough before for us to do that, but after what's happened to both of us, maybe we can be closer than just mother and daughter."
Ann stared at her lovely daughter, into the other's pain-flecked eyes, and decided the time had come for her to drop all the barriers, be honest and frank. She had no moral righteousness to preach anyway, not after this evening, and she vowed to open herself up to her daughter completely. In a strange way, all the hurt and fear she had gone through were beginning to turn out for the better, she thought, and as she looked at her daughter, she seemed to feel calmer and more loving than ever before. Unified. In perfect communication now, she and Lani would find a way together without false barriers or hidden questions.
"Darling child," she said contritely, "after what you walked out on this afternoon, with me fucking…" she swallowed at the word, but managed to say it… "fucking with your boyfriend…"
"He's not my boyfriend," Lani spat vindictively.
"Bob, then. Well, I don't feel in any position to give advice. I am just overwhelmed with your willingness to consider me an equal, a friend." She gazed at her daughter's angelic face, so similar to her own.
"No, Mother, no, I must have your advice. I… I'm so confused and miserable. And you've had so many other men…"
"Oh no, Lani, you're mistaken! I haven't at all! In fact," Ann blushed slightly, at the intimacy of her revelation, "I haven't ever even slept with a man except… except your father… until today."
Lani's eyes grew wide with amazement.
"Mother, you're kidding! Really?"
Ann smiled ruefully.
"Yes, it's the truth. Oh, I had some friends, some men after Tom and I were divorced, but… but I never let it go very far."
"But why?" Lani asked in disbelief. "That's been more than fifteen years! I didn't think it was possible! How could you go so long without being loved?"
Ann drew her daughter to her, almost sadly.
"I was loved, dear… I was loved by you." She lowered her eyes to Lani's naked body. "And I guess… I've never admitted it… but I guess I was just scared… scared of giving myself after… after your father."
"That must have been a pretty bad scene," Lani said compassionately, becoming aware for the first time of the tremendous burden her mother had carried for so long.
"It was…" Ann admitted. "It was more than bad. It was hell. Sometimes I almost went mad, crazy. I can see it now, and it was silly. It's all been a terribly neurotic, sinful waste. When I think of all those years…"
It was Lani's turn to comfort her mother, and she did so, taking Ann's trembling hand and pressing it to her smooth rounded breasts impulsively. "You mustn't think of that, Mother, you mustn't!"
"I can't help it though! Today, Bob, Moses, it's all come back to haunt me. I… I've been without sex so long… I mean real sex… I just couldn't control myself today. I didn't want… I tried to stop it, but then everything was too strong. The thought of having a man… of being filled up inside again after all those years…"
Lani looked gently at her trembling mother, loving her more at this moment than ever before, feeling infinitely close to her simply because that artificial barrier between parent and child had in one tumultuous day been swept forever from between them. She felt she knew her mother better that day than she ever had before, but she knew that there was much, much more to learn.
"Mother, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course, dear," Ann said, drying her eyes, "anything."
"I don't really know how to put this, but… well, I couldn't imagine going so long without love… I mean, well, sex, you know?" Lani was encouraged by Ann's nod of the head, and went on. "Well, if you never had any men, in all that time… I mean… how did you… You must have gotten very frustrated."
Ann smiled almost wearily, hoping her daughter would never experience just how frustrated she'd gotten. She answered her daughter with a simple nod of the head.
"Well," Lani went on, "what did you do? I mean how did you handle it?" Lani watched as her mother's eyes turned away from her, and stared intently at some undefined point on the wall opposite them. She knew her mother was embarrassed by her question, but Lani had to know. It would bridge that last gap, and make her mother more human to her than anything else could.