The Game of Denial Read Online Free PDF Page B

She looked as radiant as if she had given birth to him. I didn't know beforehand, but she had collected baby pictures of me and Ron along with hers and Gerard's. She would hold you for hours and compare you to those pictures."
    "What about the rest of us?" Fran urged Joan to continue.
    Joan took a deep breath and absently ran her fingers through Morgana's hair. "Fortunately for me, Martine won the next two coin tosses. Actually, it was almost more difficult for me to see her suffering during delivery than it had been to deliver myself."
    "Did Mama call you names, too?" Charmaine asked.
    "Oh yes," Joan said. "Quite a few. But they didn't sound so bad in French."
    "Why did you stop having children after me?" Meg asked. "Saving the best for last no doubt," she said using a superior tone.
    Charmaine shoved her sister and snorted. "I saw you after you were born, honey. You looked like a corpse. Like they scraped the bottom of the gene pool. Anyone would have called it quits after that."
    Even though she had to smile at Charmaine's comment, Joan said, "You were beautiful to us, darling. Basically, I decided four was enough. I was just getting the business off the ground. We were having a child every two years at the pace we were going and the business was making it very difficult to continue. Mama finally agreed." Joan gently hugged Morgana. "This little one needs to lie down."
    Tucker stood and lifted his daughter from Joan's arms. "I'll put her down for a nap and we can continue with our walk."
    "I'll sit with her while you're gone," Joan said.
     
     
    AS THE GROUP made their way back toward the guest house, Evey stepped out of a stall and watched them walk away. She had enjoyed listening to Joan's story. It was obvious how much she loved the children she and her partner had produced and how much in love with Martine she had been. Joan Carmichael was nothing like the woman Evey had imagined. She admired how easily Joan was able to speak about her emotions, how unashamed she was to reveal that side of herself to her children. And she wondered what such an intense, long-lasting, and vibrant relationship between two women must be like. She hadn't thought about such a thing in many years.
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
     
    EVEY LEANED ON the rake she used to clean out the horses' stalls and watched Joan run easily down the drive toward the main road. She had already been up and working for nearly an hour when she saw Joan leave the house. Joan had been relatively quiet throughout dinner the evening before. She had complimented Evey for the delicious meal and then spent the remainder of the evening listening as Fran and Brad described their plans for the wedding. Occasionally she had laughed lightly as her other children made a point of telling Brad every silly thing Fran had done as a child. Charmaine even managed to produce a few embarrassing pictures of a naked baby Francesca.
     
     
    Joan passed the pictures to Evey, who again saw the look of sadness that passed over Joan's face. She took the small stack of pictures gently, reverently. Brad sat next to his mother on their well-used early American couch and leaned over to look at the pictures with her.
    "Hey! I recognize that butt," he said with a leer at Fran on his other side. "It hasn't changed a bit."
    Fran slapped his arm and blushed.
    "Are you blushing, Frannie?" Charmaine asked.
    "Shut up, Charmaine. Just remember, I've seen your little naked baby pictures, too," Fran said as she lifted a warning eyebrow toward her older sister.
    "If you're interested I'm sure I have more recent naked pictures of myself."
    "You hussy," Fran said.
    "What's a hussy, Daddy?" Morgana asked.
    Joan nearly choked on the coffee she had just sipped. "You're up, Tucker," she said.
    Tucker cleared his throat as Morgana turned toward him. Charmaine leaned back in her chair, looking smugly at her brother. "Yeah, Tuck. I can't wait to hear this," she said.
    "A hussy, honey, is a young woman who