Hush Little Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

son’s struggle to find success, his middle son’s struggle to find sobriety, and his younger son’s struggle to find anything of meaning at all.
    “I called Tom,” he says, his eyes still on the carpet, “to tell him I’d closed the deal, but before I could tell him, he interrupted to tell me he was getting another divorce and that I was calling at a really bad time.
    “I couldn’t call Kyle because he’s in lockdown, so I called Jordan, and in the background, I hear him tell his girlfriend to tell me he wasn’t home.”
    He raises his head, his yellow eyes slashed with rage and hurt. “Not a penny, Jillian. Not one red cent.”
    “Sherman…”
    His hand stops me. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t deserve it. I did this. God, country, family. For me it was my ego, my business, a dozen mistresses, then somewhere down the list was my family. I did this, but I’m done paying for it. Sink or swim. They didn’t have the nurture, but by damn it, they have the nature. If there’s a single one of my genes in those boys, they’ll make it. But not on my dime. This is my way of making it right.”
    Right as a two-headed nickel.
    Genes don’t cut it. I’m living proof. I come from one of the world’s greatest men and one of the world’s most tenacious women. Sink or swim, and I’m sinking fast.
    “Two months?” I say, the lump swelling in my throat. He looks better than he has in months, but only because he’s not fighting anymore. In two months, it will be over.
    He stands. “Two months.”
    “You’re sure about this?”
    “This is my last gift to them. They won’t see it that way, but it is. I can’t protect them anymore, and in the end, we’re all destined to disappoint.”
    His sorrow is so complete that it weights the air, and I think I don’t want to live to be old…or rather, I don’t want to live to be old alone.
    I stand and walk around the desk. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say, though I’m completely unsure how I can convince Harris to hand over eighteen million dollars but keep the merger under wraps, knowing the sale will be questioned when it’s disclosed and that the one man who can explain will be dead.
    Sherman lingers half in, half out the door. “I wish I’d had a daughter.” Then he’s gone.
    I check my watch, 5:43. Game’s at six. Gordon’s voice from this morning resounds in my head.
    My phone buzzes. Harris wants an update.

10
    G ordon stands in the dugout door, its frame dwarfed by his size. His hands are relaxed at his side, a congenial mask of encouragement on his handsome face. My glance moves to Drew standing on the mound. His chin, my chin, juts forward in determination. His eyes, his father’s eyes, focus on the catcher’s mitt forty-six feet away.
    Every fiber of my being wishes for a strike.
    Drew sets, his feet come together on the rubber, his right hand grips the ball inside the glove. His thin arm hammers high over his head as his leg rears up, and with all fifty-three pounds, he hurls the white sphere toward its destiny.
    Crack.
    My wish worked, a perfect pitch right down the middle.
    Worked too well. The ball soars into right field, and the outfielder fumbles it, and for a split second, I hate the child. The runner rounds the middle base and heads for third. The outfielder overthrows his cutoff, and the runner scores. The game is over.
    Around me, people shuffle and chatter, the moment that was so important a minute before absorbed into the present like the backwash of a large wave.
    “Hi, Jillian.”
    I turn to see Michelle Garner, an almost-friend, and it takes a second too long for my required smile to find my face.
    “You okay?” she asks.
    “Yeah, fine. Good game.”
    Michelle’s not who I want to see. I never want to see her. Solid, genuinely nice, and with a terrier-like acuity—I try to avoid people like Michelle as much as possible.
    Her brown eyes study me as she says, “Shame they lost. They were so close.”
    I smile and nod.