Our Father Read Online Free PDF Page B

children too, don’t you? I know you had a darling baby boy, just a few months old, you brought him to Lincoln one Fourth of July party, years ago when I was still a girl. When we lived with Father. I think your husband was there too …”
    “Yes,” Mary said abruptly. “I have three.”
    “Oh, how wonderful!” Alex gushed.
    Elizabeth grimaced. “What’s wonderful about being a fertile cow?” She lighted a cigarette.
    Mary fanned her handbag, waving away Elizabeth’s smoke. “What’s wonderful, Elizabeth, is that some people have love in their lives.”
    Ronnie watched them, a smile playing around the edges of her mouth.
    Alex’s hands were tightly clasped in her lap. She cleared her throat. “How old are they?”
    “Twenty-eight, twenty-two, and twenty.”
    “Boys or girls?”
    “The two eldest are boys. The youngest is a girl.”
    “Oh, they’re really grown up, aren’t they!” she gushed. Like pulling teeth. What do I have to do to get them to talk to me?
    “Quite grown,” Mary said coldly. She turned to the window. “ That’s wonderful too. No more nannies to contend with.”
    “What are their names?” Alex asked, leaning forward, her face alight, eager.
    “The boys are Martin and Bertie. They’re both lawyers. Tiresome profession. The girl is Marie-Laure. Beyond using the pill, she has not yet decided to grow up. She’s at school. Bennington. My alma mater.”
    “Your alma mater?” Elizabeth sneered.
    Mary bristled. “I went to Bennington!”
    As Elizabeth prepared a sarcastic comment, Alex swooped in, interrupting. “And they’re like us, aren’t they!” she exclaimed in unaccountable joy.
    Elizabeth and Mary looked at her. “Well, we all have different mothers,” she answered their glances miserably. “They all have different fathers, don’t they?”
    “No. Harold is Martin’s father. Alberto is Bertie’s and Marie-Laure’s father.” Not that he ever laid eyes on her. “Two fathers, not three.” Mary fanned smoke away.
    Elizabeth put out her cigarette and stared straight ahead. Alex flushed. She tugged dark glasses out of her purse and put them on. She turned to the window. Stupid. I’m stupid. Damn. Damn. Damn.
    After lunch, they lingered at the glass table in the sun room facing the garden, ruin really—overgrown, ratty anyway in November, the saddest month, Mary thought, because there were still signs of what had been, a few brilliant leaves clinging to dead-looking branches, women clinging onto men who had turned toward death. What made them do that? Patches of vermilion and gold chrysanthemums among the brown stalky mess. When I was a girl, the garden was a wonder, blooming by season, waves of color tended by an army of groundskeepers. Her heart felt stopped in her chest. Was it possible? Could he have gone through everything, was he broke? Was that why everything was so seedy?
    “Why is everything so tawdry!” she exploded. “Why isn’t the garden cared for, the house!” She turned almost tearfully to Elizabeth.
    Elizabeth’s mouth set. “We have to find out. We need to have a meeting.” She looked pointedly at Ronnie.
    “He couldn’t be broke!” Mary cried. “He bought IBM stock in the fifties!”
    Ronnie did not even try to hide her grin.
    Elizabeth turned to her. “If you will excuse us …”
    Ronnie looked at her, uncomprehending.
    “We need to have a family meeting,” Elizabeth said, staring at her.
    Ronnie paled.
    “Ronnie is family,” Alex objected.
    “No she’s not.”
    “She’s his daughter, we all know that. She’s his daughter as much as we are. Even more, really.” She appealed to Mary. “You went away to school when you were seven. You lived mostly with your mother,” she told Elizabeth, “and I never saw Father after I was nine.” Except that one time …
    “What does that have to do with anything?” Elizabeth asked curtly.
    “Well, after he retired , he lived here, didn’t he! So Ronnie saw him every day. None of us