Blessing in Disguise by Eileen Goudge

Author:Eileen Goudge [Goudge, Eileen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2297-3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“I don’t know, Jack, it just doesn’t feel right some how.” Grace lowered her head and tucked her hands in her coat pockets as a chilly blast came tunneling down Eighth Street. “One minute I’m telling Ben about Nola being my sister, and the next minute he’s dating her.”

They were heading home from Theatre 80 on St. Marks Place, where they’d seen The Lady Vanishes. Grace adored Hitchcock, but her own life’s suspense had kept her from enjoying herself. Her thoughts kept turning to Nola and Ben.

Why hadn’t Ben said anything? Grace wondered. Why was he being so cagey?

“Does there have to be a reason?” Jack asked lightly. “She’s an attractive woman, and he’s interested—I don’t see what’s so strange about that.”

She suddenly felt annoyed with him ... for being so casual about all this, and for seeming so impervious to the cold wind that was chilling her through layers of mittens and stockings and boots.

“I’m not accusing Ben of anything,” she said. “I’m just saying it seems a bit coincidental, that’s all.”

“Haven’t you had enough Hitchcock for one evening?” Jack said with that certain laugh of his that she knew was meant to humor her. But then, seeing that she was serious, he added, “Okay, do you want to know what I think? Leaving Ben out of it for the moment, I think you’re still pretty conflicted about Nola. Your father, too.”

Jack was right, she thought. She still had not gotten over feeling angry at her father. No matter how many ways she looked at it, or how she tried to justify it, he had deceived them.

“I was just wondering,” she sighed, “what he got from Margaret that my mother wasn’t willing or capable of giving him.”

“Maybe she needed him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Your mother, from everything you’ve told me, is pretty self-sufficient. Maybe your father liked being needed.”

Grace turned this over in her mind. “You may be right,” she said slowly. She scooped her hair out of her face, but the wind only blew it back. “I’m not sure my mother ever needed anyone but herself.” She held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong—in a lot of ways, that was admirable. I always knew I could count on my mother, that things would be taken care of, that she was in charge.” Not just in charge of big things—like helping Daddy campaign for re-election—but making sure that drapes got dry-cleaned, the garden fertilized, school vaccination forms sent in promptly, rubber taps put on heels of new shoes to keep them from wearing, and, each Christmas, that everyone from their elderly postman to the kid who delivered their newspaper received a loaf of Netta’s currant pound cake along with a crisply ironed ten-dollar bill. “Oh, Margaret was capable, too, I’m sure—around the office, that is. But, from what Nola says, she really depended on Daddy. She needed him in a way that my mother simply couldn’t have, even if she’d tried.”

Jack was silent for a beat or two; then he said, “Okay, but I doubt your mother will buy that theory.

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