Catching Genius Read Online Free

I’d had a small piece, my trust fund, which I’d used to buy and furnish our home and set up college funds for the boys. Mother was still wealthy by anyone’s standards, but it was not the kind of wealth that could ignore a home nobody used and could be sold for a hefty profit.
    â€œBecause I’m tired of paying the property taxes, the insurance, the caretaker. It just sits there, nobody uses it.” She turned her chair to face me, her beautifully preserved cheekbones in high color. “Do you have any idea how much the electric bill is? Your sister won’t get those damn books out of there, so the humidistat has to run all the time, and Tate’s fee is double what Len’s was and I don’t have any idea what he does for it. For all I know he’s living there.”
    Her irritation at Tate, son of the home’s original caretaker and the first friend I’d made on the island, was false. She loved him like one of her own and kept in touch with him often enough to make me slightly, and silently, jealous. Tate had been scarce during my family’s visits to the island, for which I’d always been grateful. I didn’t want to relive teenage crushes with my husband and sons there, but I kept in touch through Mother and felt closer to him than I felt to Estella, so he was the nearest thing I had to a sibling now.
    â€œWhy don’t you rent it out?” I asked, beginning to feel panicky.
    Mother waved her hand in dismissal. “I’m not going to get into that. Renters will ruin the place. It’s time to sell. That area has jumped in value over the past few years.”
    â€œSell it to us,” I said. “It will be an investment for us. Luke would love it.”
    â€œSweetheart, Bob’s looked into it and he thinks we can get over two. I’m not sure you’re in a position to take that on.”
    â€œTwo million?” I asked incredulously.
    She shot me a wry smile. “Well, I wouldn’t be doing it for two hundred, and frankly, that’s not much for beachfront property these days.”
    Defeated, I turned toward the windows. The dazzlingly bright sun was diffused through the thick tinted glass, and I could gaze out at the water without having to shield my eyes. The sound of the waves was diffused too, muffled by the hurricane-strength concrete and steel of the building.
    When I was younger, Mother would periodically leave Big Dune to travel to New York. She said there was no decent shopping in Florida, but she always had the same pained look for days before she left, and I knew it was because of the pounding of the waves, the relentless whoosh and crash that got into her head. Here she could have the cachet of beachfront property without the invasive voice of nature.
    â€œWhat’s the problem, Constance?” The resignation in her voice was heavy, more pronounced than it needed to be.
    â€œI just . . . I guess I’d always thought about being there with the boys. It’s a surprise, that’s all.”
    â€œYou haven’t been there with the boys for years.”
    â€œSo your mind is made up? I have no say?”
    She looked surprised. “It’s my house, Connie. I wouldn’t expect to have a say if you chose to sell your home. Now, if you want the boys to see it one last time, you can bring them along when we go to close it up.”
    â€œWhen we go?”
    â€œWell, we certainly can’t allow anyone to go through the house for us, and I can’t do it all by myself. I assumed you would want the rugs and your violins. And of course Estella will come for the books.”
    I snorted and she looked at me sharply. “If you get Estella to come I’ll be there with bells on,” I said. Unfair maybe, bitchy definitely, but undeniably supported by past behavior. Estella didn’t drive, had never gotten her license, in fact. Her boyfriend, live-in life partner, whatever she called him,