The Lost Years Read Online Free PDF Page A

while she’s still functioning pretty well. But my guess is that with Lillian in the picture, Dad got a specialist to convince Mom it would be too much for her. She gets really upset about it sometimes.”
    “Does she know about Lily?” Alvirah asked bluntly.
    “Can you believe that Dad used to have her out to the house for dinner with some of the others who go on the annual dig? I never guessed that they were involved, but then Mom found a couple of pictures of the two of them in Dad’s study. She showed them to me, and I told Dad to keep that woman out of the house, but sometimes my mother still asks about her, and when Mom does, she gets angry.”
    In the past year or so they had regularly driven out with Mariah to visit Jonathan and Kathleen, and Mariah was right. Kathleen, even with her ongoing memory loss, would often bring up the trip to Venice.
    All of this was on Alvirah’s mind when the Queen Mary 2 pulled into New York Harbor. By now Jonathan is in his grave, she thought. May he rest in peace.
    Then with her infallible sense for coming trouble, she added, “And please help Kathleen and Mariah.
    “And please, God, let them find that Jonathan was killed by an intruder,” she added fervently.

6
     

     
    A ll day Greg Pearson was burning to tell Mariah how he could understand her pain and wanted to share it with her. He wanted to be able to say how much he would miss her father. He wanted to tell her how grateful he was to Jonathan, who had taught him so much, not only about archaeology, but about life.
    When Jon’s colleagues and friends were telling stories about him, about how helpful he had been in personal ways, he wanted to share his own story that he had confided to Jon, about what an insecure kid he had been. I told Jon that I was the guy in high school who stopped growing at five feet six when the other guys soared up to six feet two and six feet three, he wanted to say. I was a skinny weakling, the poster boy for nerd of the year. There wasn’t a team I tried out for that I made. I finally got to be five feet ten inches when I was in college, but it was too late.
    I guess I was looking for sympathy but I didn’t get any. Jonathan had just laughed.
    “So you spent your time studying instead of throwing basketballs in the net,” he said. “You’ve built a successful company. Get out your high school yearbook and look up the guys who were the hotshots in school. I’ll bet you find that most of them are scraping along.”
    I told Jon that I’d looked up a few of them, especially the ones who gave me a hard time, and he was right. Of course some ofthe guys are doing fine, but the ones who were the bullies haven’t amounted to a hill of beans so far.
    He made me feel good about myself, Greg wanted to say. Besides sharing his incredible knowledge about ancient times and archaeology, he made me feel good.
    Greg would have stopped there. It wouldn’t have been necessary to add that he’d told Jonathan that despite his success, he was still painfully shy, an outsider at parties, lacking the most basic skill at small talk, or that Jonathan’s suggestion had been to find a vivacious, talkative woman. “She’ll never notice that you’re quiet, and she’ll do all the talking at parties. I know at least three guys with wives like that, and it’s a great match.”
    All this Greg was thinking as he followed Mariah out of the country club. He held back until a valet brought Father Aiden’s car and the caregiver was helping Mariah’s mother into the black limousine that the funeral director had provided.
    Then he went up to her. “Mariah, it’s been a terrible day for you. I hope you understand how much we’ll all miss him.”
    Mariah nodded. “I do know, Greg. Thanks.”
    He wanted to add, “Let’s have dinner soon,” but the words froze on his lips. They had started dating a few years ago, but then when he persisted in calling her, she had hinted that she was seeing someone else. He had