The Nine Lessons Read Online Free PDF Page A

surprising, but there are certain things about the past that really bother me. In particular, the fact that you quit golfing before you really understood the game.”
    “You kicked me off the team, for crying out loud!”
    London waited momentarily for me to cool down. “Be that as it may, I think you’ve reached a point where it’ll be important for you to understand golf better than you do. It will be important when you’re a father.” I laughed at the absurdity of what he was saying, but he kept right on talking. “So here’s the deal. You allow me to give you nine golf lessons—one for each month of Erin’s pregnancy—and each month I’ll bring a new stack of scorecards from the chest. By the time the baby’s born you’ll know everything there is to know about your mum, and hopefully you’ll have learned a thing or two about golf as well.” He crossed his arms to match mine, and stood there stiffly waiting for my reply.
    My heart sank. “Golf? If I don’t golf with you, then my mother remains a mystery?”
    He tipped his head slightly in response.
    I considered the proposition from every angle I could think of while he grabbed a putter from my old golf bag. There was at least one thing I didn’t understand. “Why?” I asked at length. “I get to learn about her, which is good for me, but what’s in it for you? I can’t fathom you doing anything that doesn’t benefit yourself.”
    London shifted uncomfortably and leaned on the putter. “I get nine rounds of golf—on you. You’re paying.”
    “But you have a club membership,” I said, “so that’s not really a benefit to you. You can already golf as much as you want, whenever you want.”
    He took a brief moment to think, and in that moment I saw worry in his eyes that perhaps he’d lost the upper hand in our negotiation. “Well,” he fumbled, “I get a second chance to teach you things I’ve always wanted you to learn, and so that’s a benefit to me.”
    “That’s a stretch,” I countered, “but even if that were the case, it still wouldn’t be an equitable trade. Not only would I get your journal entries, I’d also be learning something about golf. For you, golf knowledge is priceless, which means I’d be getting two things of value—knowledge of Mom and knowledge of golf. And you? You’d get nothing more than the burden of trying to teach me something that I really don’t want to learn. As I see it, you’re getting the short end of the stick.”
    Red splotchy patches were beginning to appear once more on his face. He hadn’t counted on me thinking this through as much as I did, and it obviously irked him that the deal was taking so long to close. “That’s enough!” he said. “What are you, a bloody lawyer? This isn’t a life or death decision. It’s very simple. Do you want to read my bloody scorecards or not?” He tossed the golf club at me hard enough that I had to drop the small bundle of cards I was holding in order to catch it. I stared at the steel shaft in my hands for several seconds, handling it like a snake that might suddenly bite and open up old wounds that were still not fully healed.
    “Fine,” I muttered. “Nine golf lessons.” I tossed the putter back at him and picked up the scorecards. “And then I’m through with your silly game once and for all.”
    A wry smile formed across London’s lips, as though he’d just gotten away with something very clever. “Fair enough,” he said.
    I truly did not relish the idea of making a fool of myself on the golf course again—I’d had enough of that as a kid. But the chance to learn about the woman who, I hoped, once cherished me as her own—the same woman who saw something of value in my father—was too tempting to pass up.
    We agreed to meet the very next afternoon to play what would be my first round of golf since “Coach Witte” cut me from the high school team thirteen years earlier. Due to the very late hour, London drove me home and