She was embarrassed, but said, “I don’t really know anyone in Los Angeles. I guess it doesn’t matter that much what they think about me.”To Jake it mattered and he had groveled, but Carly was surprisingly quick to forgive him. If only he could forgive himself. If only he had it to do over, he swore he’d never violate his daughter’s trust again.Jake pawed through his huge pile of mail, sorting all the materials from manila envelopes he’d received the last two weeks. The first batch was all from the Pacific Northwest in response to the original Tribune printing of the “condom” column. The second batch was from all over the west, from Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and lots from California. Those had started coming in a week later, after syndication prints. The response was phenomenal. While an inner voice said “don’t be a fool; leave it alone,” he felt compelled to come back to this subject that had buried him in reader responses.He jotted down a rough outline of items he wanted to address, then hunkered down in his chair and rattled off a lot of words quickly, as if firing from a bunker.
