Woman in Black by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page B

off to join a commune when he was just six. “I don’t even know who my father is.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
    â€œAren’t you at all curious?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “Not really. You don’t miss what you never had to begin with.” His expression turned thoughtful as he sat idly running his thumb over the edge of his Styrofoam cup. “Though every now and then I’ll be passing a strange guy on the street, someone who looks a little like me, and I’ll think, ‘Is he the one?’ How weird would that be, coming across your own father and not even knowing it was him?” He wore a small, contemplative smile.
    Thinking of her own parents, whom she’d loved dearly but who were the source of much grief and aggravation in her life, it was on the tip of Lila’s tongue to reply, Trust me, you’re better off . But she knew it would come across as insensitive. All she said, when Gordon asked about them, was, “If you’ve read Tennessee Williams, you know the story.”
    Gordon’s upbringing made hers seem idyllic in comparison. As if being abandoned by both his parents weren’t enough, his grandfather had died when Gordon was sixteen, after which his grandmother had had a debilitating stroke. “We couldn’t afford outside help, so it became my job to look after her,” he went on in the same matter-of-fact tone, clearly not wishing to paint himself as any kind of hero. “My brothers did what they could, but I was the eldest, so most of it fell on my shoulders. It wasn’t easy, I’ll admit. I was holding down two jobs at the time while busting my ass to keep my grades up in order to qualify for a scholarship. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It would have been awful, Gran’s being in some state nursing home. At least she got to spend her last days at home, with me and Billy and Keith.”
    â€œYou must have loved her very much.” Lila, moved by his story, wondered if she would have performed as admirably under the same circumstances.
    He smiled, his expression turning tender. “She was the only mother I knew.”
    Lila thought once more, with fleeting sadness, of Rosie, who had been far more than their housekeeper. She’d been like a second mother. “Well, I’m sure she’d have been proud of you,” she said.
    Gordon shrugged once more. “All she ever wanted was for me to be happy. She used to say, ‘Gordie, if playing the banjo on street corners was what you felt you were born to do, I’d be the proudest granny of a banjo player you ever saw.’”
    â€œYou don’t strike me as the banjo-playing type,” she said.
    â€œCouldn’t pick a tune to save my life,” he freely admitted.
    â€œSo what do you want?”
    â€œOh, the usual. To make my first million by the time I’m thirty,” he replied with a lightness that belied the steely intent behind his mild, smiling gaze.
    Later, Lila thought that if she could pinpoint the exact instant when she fell in love with Gordon, it would be that moment, as she’d sat across from him in the cafeteria, nursing her coffee and listening to him talk about his dreams for the future. Dreams shaped out of molten desire, by the anvil of hard circumstances, like those of the great men of history who’d triumphed against adversity. A biography will be written about him someday , she remembered thinking. She couldn’t have known how eerily prescient that thought was, except she’d been wrong in one sense: Much would be written about Gordon at the end, but none of it good.
    Within days they were lovers. By the time they graduated, they were engaged. They were married the summer after graduation. By then Gordon was already on his way up the ladder, recruited by Vertex right out of college and rapidly making his mark. When Neal came along two years later, Lila felt she was leading the