The Widow's Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

that could have melted a bucket of diamonds.
    “Listen, you,” she said slowly, tonelessly. “Keep that…that…tart from my boy.”
    The muscles in my jaw tightened and I made a vague sound in my throat. But before I could form words of protest, Alice had stormed off, spouting something about a “chip off the old block.”
    Now, it was true that my daughter’s wild-ass reputation left something to be desired, but Mrs. Winter’s virulent reaction left me more puzzled than angry. It didn’t fit the gentle and dignified woman I’d known since grade school and who, until that moment, had expressed only admiration for Anne’s courage in combating addiction. It was all the more shocking because Alice was normally the epitome of Junior League propriety; a gentle lady who, when not soliciting money for Haitian orphans or slinging hash with volunteers at the City Union soup kitchen, could be found organizing bingo parties at the local assisted living center.
    It simply wasn’t fair. Now that Anne was off drugs, she’d lost that alien, strung-out demeanor; and while she still retained the aristocratic bearing and hint of a plummy accent from her Mayfair London upbringing—all thanks to her British grandparents—the last vestiges of Sloane Ranger snobbery were gone. Equally lost, I fervently hoped, was her affinity for hell-for-leather risk taking.
    Whether Alice’s cosseted son was mature enough to handle the female Bevan spitfire was another thing, however.
    The last time I saw Mark Winter was during his junior year in college. He’d had the easy manners of a young man rather full of himself, but not obnoxiously so. In some ways—looks particularly, but also by his knack for guileless charm—Mark reminded me of a young Cary Grant before the actor encountered Mae West.
    As an adolescent Mark had never given his parents the misgivings that Anne had supplied me with in buckets, but for the longest time he had a lazy attitude that bugged the hell out of them. It was never my place to say anything. I figured the ever-demanding attitude of Tim Winter had a lot to do with it. Once the boy left for college, he apparently shed the mopiness, excelling in his studies while serving as president of his fraternity and lettering in baseball.
    Such attributes, noble as they are, don’t exactly prepare one for dating a firecracker with
Vogue
model looks who had nearly married Robert “Long Bob” Langston, a notorious Hollywood libertine.
    I hoped to see if the young man was not only in the running for my daughter’s affections, but also up to the formidable task of corralling her.
    —
    Green Hall sits in a flat plain on the west side of campus. Built in the late seventies, it’s a five-story glass and limestone building of nondescript architectural significance that has none of the charm of the law school’s former nineteenth-century Corinthian-columned home atop Mount Oread. The newer structure’s one saving grace—in my eyes at least—is that it stands next to Allen Field House, a college basketball Mecca.
    The student lounge was packed with students sprawling on chairs and sofas when I entered. I spotted Mark among a tense group gazing at a bulletin board with the latest test results. He was one of the few who looked genuinely pleased.
    He was exactly as I’d remembered him from two years earlier; a little fuller in the face perhaps, but just as handsome. Like Michelangelo’s David, he was broad in the shoulders and long in the flanks, with a mop of curly hair cut slightly long. His large brown eyes, dark eyebrows, and long dark lashes gave him a slightly roguish look. His upper lip was slightly narrower than the lower one, so when he smiled, which seemed to be often, you got the full dental assault.
    Having seen what he wanted, Mark broke away from the cluster of students gathered around the board and made his way toward me with an outstretched hand.
    “It’s great to see you, Mr. Bevan.”
    “And you, Mark.