Dorothy Freemont cold-creamed her face in her extravagantly appointed pink bathroom. She had enjoyed the feel of the sun’s rays caressing her skin on the weekend jaunt to TCI, but she could do with some refreshing, she thought, noting the broken veins on her nose and cheeks.
Chuck was already asleep in his suite. He had polished off a lot of alcohol this weekend and had been quite smashed when they landed in La Guardia. If Des Williams thought pouring drink down her husband’s neck was the way to get into their set he was sadly mistaken. Dorothy pursed her lips. The wife Colette was nice enough if somewhat edgy. In fact she reminded Dorothy of herself all those years ago, when she and Chuck were giving it their all to get ahead. Yes indeed, she had once been as beautiful and pert and blonde as Colette was now, but the ravages of stress, kidney problems and arthritis, and the medication she had to take, had slowed her body down and caused her to put on weight, far more than she had ever carried, and she had seen the younger woman looking at her and wondering how she could let herself go so. Give Colette another twenty years and it would be interesting to see what she looked like in her sixties, Dorothy thought.
As for the husband, he’d hardly noticed her. Des had made the fatal mistake of patronizing Dorothy while schmoozing Chuck, the entire weekend. Only the wife! she could see him thinking. Give her a few beauty treatments and expensive chocolates and she’ll be fine. Jackass! He didn’t get that she was an equal player in all that went on in Freemont Enterprises? Clearly not! And that was a big mistake. Des Williams and his jittery wife, although they did not know it, had just been relegated to the Freemont Z list, Dorothy decided, slathering on more Crème de La Mer before donning a black-velvet sleep mask and retiring to her enormous canopied bed with her little pug Frow Frow.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR
‘What is it?’ Jonathan asked early on Monday morning when his mother handed him an envelope with a card in it. They had finished their breakfast and he was standing on the lawn in the back garden scattering crumbs for the birds. It was a glorious morning. All the cloud and rain and cold from the previous few days a mere memory as a weather front from the south chased away the northern polar air. There was even a touch of heat in the sun and the crocuses sprinkled around the garden in splashes of Van Gogh-like colour opened to its warm caress. The birds were singing and his heart lightened at the sound. His overnight bag was in the hall and he was almost ready to leave for Dublin. He wished he could stay longer but he and Hilary were heading to Wexford and he needed to get on the road.
‘Open it,’ Nancy said, her eyes glinting with pleasure.
‘It’s a book mark!’ he exclaimed when he opened the card and saw what it contained. ‘Oh! There’s a photo of me in the middle. What’s this about?’
‘Read it!’ His mother smiled at him.
‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you through and through.
I chose you to be mine, before you left your mother’s side;
I called to you, my child. To be my sign.’
‘And the other one,’ Nancy prompted.
‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
Plans to give you hope and a future.”’
Tears blurred Jonathan’s eyes. ‘Oh Mam!’ He could hardly speak.
‘I got it done on Saturday morning. You know the small print shop in Castle Mall? I gave them the quotes and your photo and they suggested the book mark. Isn’t it nice? I wanted you to feel good about yourself. God created you and God knows you and that’s all that matters. It was a quote I heard at a funeral recently and I thought it was perfect for you. And of course the one from Jeremiah was one of the readings at Rachel’s wedding, if you remember.’ Nancy was thrilled with herself.
‘Oh Mam, I’ll treasure it forever. It’s the most precious gift I’ve ever been given.’ He enfolded her in a hug.
‘And you and your sisters were the most precious gifts I was ever given and you make me proud and contented. And I know the good Lord is proud of you and never forget that, Jonathan,’ Nancy said steadfastly, if somewhat muffled against his chest.
‘I won’t,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t. And I’ll always try to make you, my sisters and the Lord proud of me.’
‘I know you will and I have no fears for you. You are a WONDERFUL and decent person and let no one tell you otherwise.’ Nancy’s arms tightened around him and they held each other in a loving embrace as the robin and blackbirds sang their song from the branches of the heavenly scented purple Daphne that bloomed so magnificently in the sundrenched garden.
‘Oooh I was like an Antichrist, Jonathan. They didn’t know what to make of me. I would have put my own mother to
