Iron Lace Read Online Free PDF Page A

guesses.”
    This answer interested her immensely. She poured milk into her cup and stirred. “What do you know, Phillip?”
    “Not much yet, since I haven’t had time to do research. Gulf Coast Shipping is one of the city’s oldest and most well-established companies. I believe it was your ancestors who started it, not your husband’s, and that you were largely responsible for making it a million-dollar enterprise.”
    “That, like everything else, is only part of the truth. Henry kept our heads above water for the first years of our marriage.” She laughed. “A good thing for a shipping company.”
    “Henry was your husband?”
    “Yes.”
    “You had two children. Your youngest son is the state senator Ferris Gerritsen, and your oldest, Hugh, was a Catholic priest who was killed last year in Bonne Chance.”
    She wasn’t smiling now. “Yes.” She waited for him to say more about that, but he didn’t.
    “Do you have grandchildren?”
    “A granddaughter. Her name is Dawn.”
    “Does she live nearby?”
    “She’s in England now, on an assignment. She’s a journalist, too, a photojournalist.”
    “Oh? What’s she covering?”
    “British musical groups, I believe. She’s in Liverpool.”
    He was jotting down notes. He hadn’t turned on the tape recorder, as if he knew they were only marking time.
    “Other living relatives?” he asked.
    “Only some very distant ones that I haven’t seen in decades.”
    “And that’s about all I know.” He looked up, squarely meeting her eyes. “Except that your son has consistently taken stands against integration, and he’s popular with his constituents because of it. There’s talk he may run for governor in the next race, and if he does, he’ll probably win.”
    “That could happen. Or something might happen to prevent it.”
    “Would you prefer one over the other?”
    “Yes.”
    “Which one?”
    “The one that’s best for Louisiana.”
    “And the hedging begins.”
    She nodded. “Perhaps that’s because I don’t want to talk about Ferris. I suppose it might seem as if he’s the key to my asking you here. You might even believe that I’m trying to prove to the world that I’m not like my son. But that’s not what this is about at all.”
    He tapped his pen against the stenographer’s pad in front of him. “Okay,” he said at last. “What is it about?”
    “You haven’t asked me anything about my parents.”
    “Is that where you’d like to start?”
    She wanted to tell him that she didn’t want to start at all,but that would require as much explanation as her life story. “No, I suppose it begins with my grandfather. His name was Antoine Friloux, and he was a Creole gentleman in the classic mold. With one exception. He was a talented businessman in a class that viewed work as something that others should do. Grand-père Antoine began Gulf Coast Shipping, although it was called Gulf Coast Steamship in those days. He was a rich man who became richer with every investment he made.”
    He waited for her to go on, and when she didn’t, he turned on the tape recorder. “He was your mother’s father?”
    “Yes. Perhaps if he’d had a son, none of what I’m about to tell you would ever have happened.”
    Phillip settled back in his chair, propping his pad on the table’s edge. “And why is that?”
    But she didn’t answer directly. As she had hoped, the story seemed to grow inside her, and she knew, for the first time, that she would be able to tell it all.
    “There’s something you need to know,” she said.
    “What’s that?”
    “In order to understand my story, you have to understand the story of a man named Raphael.” She looked up at him and waited for his answer.
    “And who was he?”
    Again she didn’t answer directly. “Our stories are entwined, mine and Raphael’s. I can’t tell one without the other.”
    “All right.”
    “Have you seen much of Louisiana, Phillip?”
    He shook his head.
    “At the very south of