Hesaw the bruises and demanded to know what had happened. He ended upscolding my brothers for not protecting me. When they sneered, he wasvery firm ...n making them entirely responsible for protecting me atschool.I thanked him with an embrace. I wanted him to smell my hair, which Ihad washed and sprayed with some of my mother's preparations.My brothers kept their promise to him, but they hated me for it. Butthat did not concern me. They had never been my friends, let alone mybrothers. But. Trish, at thirty-nine, was the youngest. Apparently satisfied in her marriage she talked the least. These women all looked up to Aggie, thinking she was the best adjusted and had most of the answers.This day clarified for Aggie that Carla and Bev were fed up with their husbands. Her experiences in her own marriage had long ago proven how difficult being married to a man of the cloth could be. Quick flashbacks of her own hurts and disappointment made her smirk at how she had solved the impasses.. Lewis hadopted to have everyone sitting at his conference table, and I could seethat the seat at the head of the table had been reserved for me. On oneside of the table sat Mr. Lewis and Carter. They looked as if someoneelse had just died. Their faces were somber and their shoulders slumped.This wasn't a good sign.On the other side of the table, Lieutenant Carpenter looked as ifsomeone had just crapped on his ice cream cone. Sitting next to him wasa man several years his junior, but the man. And we love it.We're so close that sometimes it almost feels like masturbation.It all started not long after our 19th birthdays. I had just dumped my stupid boyfriend Karl for cheating on me with some slut called Damonique. What the fuck kind of name is Damonique? Like her parents wanted a boy so they could call him Damon, and then when it turned out to be a girl they just stuck an 'ique' on the end?Anyway, I was crying and being pathetic and the boys were trying to comfort me and so there we.