Life and Other Inconveniences(13)

“Okay, but forewarned is forearmed. She’s not the nicest person.”

“So you’ve said before.”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. That she’ll . . . approve of you.”

“Because I’m your bastard child?”

“Exactly.”

“So we’re not in the will, then?”

“We’re not,” I lied. Better to have Riley surprised than disappointed. Pop was right. I didn’t trust Genevieve one bit.

“Will I get to see my dad, too?”

I hadn’t talked to Jason about this yet, but it was more than time that Riley meet her half brothers. Four times, a trip had been scheduled, and four times, it had been canceled; three because his boys were sick, once because a snowstorm had locked Chicago down. “Sure,” I said.

“This is kind of fabulous,” she said.

“You think?”

“Yeah! I mean, sure, she’s a nasty dinosaur, but does she still live in that house with the name?”

“Sheerwater, and yes, as far as I know.” I sat down on her bed.

She grabbed her laptop and Googled it. “Holy crap, it’s beautiful! There’s a pool, and the ocean is right there! Dude. It’s amazing.”

“Yes.”

“Sheerwater. Do we get to live at Sheerwater? I could get used to living in a house with a name.”

“It would just be for the summer, honey. And I don’t know, but I think so.”

My daughter looked at me, her extraordinary blue eyes so expressive. “I’m sorry she’s sick,” she said gently. “Are you sad?”

She took my hand, and a lump formed in my throat. In fifteen months, my daughter wouldn’t be living here anymore, and everything would change. These little moments, these small but huge gestures of love, would be rarities.

“No, not really,” I said. “She wasn’t . . . we weren’t close, you know? She did her duty and made sure I knew I was a burden.”

“Will your father be around?”

“I doubt it.” Riley had met my father—once, when she was three. He’d been in Chicago for a Bruce Springsteen concert and decided to come see us. He’d been shocked when I answered the door with a toddler in my arms. I honestly think he forgot I had a baby.

Riley lay back on the bed. “So she wants us to come. That’s kind of cool. I’ll finally see the famous Genevieve London up close and stay in a house with a zillion rooms that overlooks the ocean.”

“You sure you want to?”

“Heck, yeah, Mom! It’ll be fun!”

I pretended to ponder that one. “Fun. I’m not seeing the fun here.”

“Oh, come on. You can rub my wonderfulness in her face.” She grinned.

I smiled back, the knot in my heart loosening a bit. “That’s the only reason I want to go.”





CHAPTER 4


    Genevieve


It always infuriated me when people said Garrison died of a broken heart. As if, had I also loved our son Sheppard, I, too, would’ve done the right thing and died when we lost him.

I did not.

I wanted to, however.

But someone had to raise Clark—the other son, as I started to think of him. Clark, whom, truth be told, I had never loved quite as much. A mother isn’t supposed to admit that, but in my case, it was true.

Clark, never as charming or intelligent or handsome, remained alive, growing pudgy, pale and sullen after Sheppard . . . went away. We couldn’t say he had died, because no body was ever found. We couldn’t say kidnapped, because there had been no evidence of that. He just vanished.

Clark remained. He became an adolescent with all its sticky horrors, then a college student who would only serve to disappoint . . . first in his education (one must work exceptionally hard to be expelled from Dartmouth), then in his marriage to that tragic woman. I worried for my granddaughter after she died. Emma—such a common name—was too much like April, her mother, always wanting approval, too moody, too reliant. Not enough like a true London. Not her fault, really, with Clark as her father, but still. One hoped the superior genes would win out.

Sheppard, on the other hand, would stay forever perfect. My true son. As much as I wanted to love Clark the way I loved my older son, it never happened. The Missing—it was a dark, powerful creature and thus deserved its capital letter, let me assure you—the Missing wouldn’t let me.

It’s been fifty-five years since I’ve seen my beautiful boy, but I can picture his face so clearly—his clear, shining eyes with their long blond lashes, the dimple in his right cheek, his hair so lightened by the summer sun that it was nearly white. Seven had been a magical age, though the same was true for each year of Sheppard’s brief time with us. At seven, he still curled against my side at night as I read to him, while Clark, two years younger, played on the floor, making all sorts of irritating mechanical noises as he pushed his trucks around. The week before Sheppard went away, the teacher took me aside to tell me how polite he was, how kind and bright.

She was right. He was. He was the loveliest boy in the world.

He had the makings of a fine athlete even then, and clumsy Clark would try to keep up. Sheppard would wait for his little brother, reaching out a hand, boosting him into a tree, steadying the bike. So kind. One of the things I loved most about Sheppard was his generosity. Clark worshipped him, and everyone agreed Clark was a very lucky little boy to have such a fine big brother.