The First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith Read Free Book Online Page A

father had objected to my marriage, but I wouldn’t listen to him.
    Then my lawyers didn’t want me to sign the power of attorney, but I did. And I never should have let him take Carla off the respirator.
    It was all my doing, my fault.
    You see, I’ve never felt important to my family. Stuart was always the favorite. I was a good girl, quiet in school, like you, but not smart like you. No one ever noticed me much. Then I got rather pretty and then there was Gil.
    Gil wasn’t always the way he is now. When wefirst met, he was handsome and ambitious, not hard. He had energy that was irresistible. And he loved me. Of course, he loved my money and connections and his Jaguar more, I used to think, but never could allow myself to believe.
    Dad didn’t really want to take him into thefirm, but he did. We gave him his start. Without the Swann family there would be no Gil Griffin, but perhaps I am wrong about that. Men like Gil will always find someone to help them.
    Atfirst things were perfect. Gil loved me, and I loved him, and it was all I ever wanted. Then, one day, I accidentally scratched Gil’s Jaguar while I was shopping in town. When he found out, he was furious. He hit me without even speaking, and when I fell on the floor, he stood over me, screaming about what I had done to his car.
    Then Carla was born and things began to get worse. Gil had hated me pregnant.
    I was hurt and upset, but I did look so big, so distended, that I just waited until after the baby. Even then, Gil seemed distant. He was distant to Carla, too, from the very beginning. Some men just don’t like infants, I thought. I should have done something, but I didn’t know what. So I put off doing anything. I’m great at that.
    And then, when Carla was three, I got pregnant again. I was afraid to tell Gil, but lfinally did. He went insane. He smacked me, hard, across the face.
    Not once, but several times. But then again, we both just tried to ignore it.
    And I did, for a while.
    After that, he was nicer than he’d ever been to me, nicer than I imagined anyone could be. And so, when he asked me, almost a month later, to abort, I was shocked. I was three and a half months gone by then, and I wanted the baby. I had no idea that he wanted no more children. I refused. But he begged me, and then he threatened me and then he begged again. He was relentless. And in the end I gave in.
    Nobody knew. We just said I had miscarried.
    And there were many more beatings after that. Here’s the strangest part, I didn’t leave and I didn’t tell anyone. I was too ashamed. And I am to blame, because whenever he came back and said he was sorry, we made up. He’d say he’d been drinking too much, or the pressure of the firm or the pressure of the family had been unbearable. And I chose to believe him every time. As my daughter used to say, that was then and this is now. I said it, too.
    And when Gil was made a partner, I thought everything would finally be all right.
    But I was wrong. Once he was partner, he was unstoppable. He’d been managing my money, and then most of my family’s, and made them fortunes, but it wasn’t enough. He started those big takeovers, then got into all kinds of deals to finance them. My father and brother fought him. But the money was irresistible, and Gil got the other partners to turn against my dad. And the worst thing was, when my father came to me to ask me to vote with the family, I turned against him, too.
    It broke my father when that happened. The stroke was just the finishing touch. Stuart hasn’t spoken to me since then.
    I think you know the rest, Gil moved up to president and sold the firm out three years later to Federated Funds, and it became Federated Funds Douglas Witter. The Swanns were obliterated. He came to mefirst and askedfor a power of attorney. By then I really didn’t want to put all my shares and my portfolio in his hands, but when I said no, he made my life impossible. There was only Gil. I chose him