Fireside by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

It’s not that I didn’t love your father,” she said. “I did. Very much. We enjoyed life and I had no idea how much we were living beyond our means. Sometimes I think that’s what killed your father. The stress of it. The strain of pretending.”
    “I never knew.” Kim shut her eyes, trying to conjure a picture of her father, always so distinguished and reserved. The two of them had always had a turbulent relationship. This only made him seem more distant, as though she’d never even known him at all.
    “In settling his affairs, it all came to light,” said her mother. “I’ve had to take measures in order to cover his liabilities. I had to…liquidate some things.”
    The quaver in her voice caused Kim to feel a clutch of apprehension. “What things, Mom?”
    “Well…everything.”
    Everything. That was inconceivable. They had a home in Manhattan and a weekend place on Long Island and a condo in Boca Raton. There was an extensive stock portfolio. Wasn’t there?
    “Are you sure?” she asked.
    “That was what I asked the lawyer and the probate judge. There was a subprime second mortgage on the apartment, about to balloon to twelve percent. The house in Montauk and the condo in Largo were in foreclosure. Our equities and savings were nonexistent. I own this house free and clear, because my parents left it to me, but that’s the extent of it.”
    “Mom, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She felt betrayed now by two men she’d trusted, two men she thought she knew.
    “Nor did I.”
    “Are you sure? While Dad was alive, you had no idea?”
    Her mother’s smile was tinged with bitterness. “None. I feel so foolish for keeping myself in the dark about our finances.”
    “You weren’t foolish, Mom,” Kim said. “You had every reason to trust him. But…are you sure taking in boarders is the answer?”

    “Believe me, I left no stone unturned. But, Kim, just think of it. I majored in women’s studies a hundred years ago. I’ve never had a career and I have no marketable skills. I had to do something desperate or I would have fallen in arrears and been forced to sell Fairfield House.”
    “I can’t believe Dad left you like this. How could you not have known?”
    “Because,” she said, getting up from the table, “I didn’t realize I should have been looking.”
    “You should have told me sooner.”
    “Yes. It just seemed so cruel, though, to burden you with this. It was bad enough your father died so suddenly. I didn’t want to add this to your grief.”
    “What about your grief?”
    “I beat it into submission with anger and resentment,” Penelope said simply.
    Kim wasn’t quite sure whether or not her mother was joking. After all she’d heard this morning, she wasn’t sure of anything.
    “Richard was a master of deception, of making people see what he wanted them to see.”
    That was true, Kim reflected. Everyone, across the board, had the same opinion of Richard van Dorn—that he was a refined and monied individual. In Manhattan, they had lived in the “right” area and she had gone to the “right” schools. They’d taken luxurious vacations, and her parents had hosted and attended the sort of parties and events that were written about in the society columns the next day. Her parents belonged to exclusive clubs, took part in charity fund-raisers. How had he managed to hide the fact that he’d run them into a world of debt?

    How her father would have hated this, she thought. He would have despised the idea of his wife taking in tenants, opening her home to paying strangers. Maybe he should have thought about that before driving himself into debt and then dying and leaving all the humiliation and heartache to his wife, who never did anything but believe in him. Except her mother did not appear to be humiliated. Rather than spiraling into despair like a latter-day Jane Austen character, Penelope van Dorn had embraced the new project.
    Racing in a taxi to the airport last night,