Love, Marriage And Family 101. Anne Peters

over to the window. He was breathing heavily as the veil of red fury slowly receded from in front of his eyes. Never could he remember having been this angry. He shoved a trembling hand through his hair, inhaling deeply and struggling for a modicum of calm before facing his daughter again.

      “Things are going to change around here,” he finally said when he trusted himself to be rational. “You are going to act like a civilized human being…”

      “Yeah,” Corinne drawled, her voice and expression full of contempt. “Like you just did, right?”

      “Oh, no, you don’t”. Mike glared at her. “You’re not going to turn the tables and lay a guilt trip on me for manhandling you just now. Granted, I lost my temper, but you’d push even a saint to mayhem with your stubbornness and rotten attitude. And it’s going to stop.”

      “Pfuh.” Lips twisted, her arms once again folded across her chest, Corinne turned her face aside as if bored.

      Mike had to silently count to ten to keep himself from exploding all over again. He knew that if he hoped to get anywhere with her, it wouldn’t be by shouting. On the other hand, he had no intention of letting her off the hook. She had become a liar, a thief and a truant He intended to put a stop to those practices before they became ingrained.

      He walked to the shelf, took down the porcelain cat and brought it over to her. He set it on the table. When she refused to look at it, he firmly but not roughly took her chin and forced her face around.

      “There was two hundred dollars in that jar,” he said. “Now there’s seventy. I want to know what happened to the rest of it.”

      “How should I know?” Corinne muttered. But she wouldn’t look at him, and her face flushed a deep red. The sight of it filled Mike with relief. It proved to him that she still had a conscience, that she wasn’t too far gone to be reached.

      “Look at me,” he ordered, still holding her chin.

      She complied with deliberate slowness, defiance blazing from her eyes.