Mixed Blessings by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

you." As he said it, he looked down at her, puzzled.

    "Who are you, by the way? Mrs. Coleman? Or Miss Graham?"

    "I hadn't thought about that. I'm not sure that at my age I could change it. Forty-two years as Graham is a little hard to wipe out in a single afternoon. She saw something sad but resigned in his eyes then.

    "But on the other hand . . . maybe in another thirteen years . . .

    tell you what, why not go for the big time?"

    "Coleman?" He looked amazed and touched. It had been an extraordinary day in their household.

    "Mrs. Coleman," she said softly. "Pilar Coleman." She smiled at him, looking like a young girl, and he kissed her again and then led her back to their friends in the midst of celebration.

    "Congratulations, Pilar," her mother said, as she smiled at her over a glass of champagne, which she held in a graceful hand. Elizabeth Graham was still beautiful at sixty-seven. She had been practicing neurology in New York for nearly forty years, and she had no other children. Pilar's father had been a justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and had been killed at the height of his career in a plane crash, while Pilar was in law school.

    "You surprised us all today," her mother said coolly, and Pilar smiled at her. She had matured enough over the years not to take the bait or lose her temper when her mother goaded her, which she seemed to do fairly often.

    "Life is full of wonderful surprises." Pilar smiled at Brad, and over his shoulder at Marina. Since the first moment they'd met, when Pilar came to Santa Barbara, Marina Goletti had been like a mother to her, and it meant a lot to Pilar that it had been Marina who performed their wedding. She was one of Brad's colleagues on the bench, but she had been Pilar's friend long, long before that. They had worked together in the public defender's office for six months, and then Marina had become a judge. But by then, she was already a dear friend, and a substitute for the mother Pilar had never been close to.

    Pilar's relationship with her mother had always been strained, and it was no secret to anyone that Pilar had almost never seen her parents.

    They were busy with their careers, and Pilar had found herself sent away to boarding school at the age of seven. She was brought home on holidays and "grilled," as she had described it to Brad, about what she had learned, how fluent was her French, and would she please explain the reason for her most recent math grade. They were strangers to her, although her father had at least made some small effort during their vacations. But even he had very little to say to her, he was far too involved in his work, as was her mother. She had made it clear to Pilar at an early age that what she did with her patients was far more important than any involvement she might have with her only daughter.

    "I could never 'understand why they had children," she had told Brad from the first. "I was never sure if I was a mistake, or just an experiment that hadn't worked out for them. But whatever I was, it was always clear that I was not exactly what they had wanted. My father was relieved when I went into law. I think it was the first time he was actually reassured that they hadn't made a terrible mistake having me in the first place.

    They didn't even bother to come to my graduations before that. And of course my mother was furious that I wasn't interested in medicine, but I can't say she ever made it very appealing." In effect, Pilar had grown up in schools. She had once jokingly said to one of her law partners that she was institutionalized, just like some of the people she had defended who had grown up in prisons. And for whatever reason, the coolness of her parents' relationship, their indifference to her, and the politics of her own times had made marriage unappealing to her, and having children something she would never even consider. She didn't want anyone to live a life like hers, and she had no idea how to bring a child up