His attention snapped back to her. "No," Scotty replied simply.
Beady sighed. "I guess he had his reasons. But … I thought he cared more. I hated him for a while for disappearing on us like that."
"He was an asshole-"
Beady shook her head. "Not really. He just didn't know any other way to be." She was quiet for a while and Scotty was uncomfortable enough that he had nothing to say either.
She drew in a deep breath as if coming to a difficult decision. "Back when that shit went down with the … molestation …" she glanced at her grandmother checking that she was still asleep in her armchair.
Scotty cocked his head and listened with a silent nod. They had never discussed what had happened when she was thirteen. Child protective services had removed her and sent her to live with her grandmother permanently when they had discovered that she had been sexually abused.