The Lost Daughter Read Online Free Page A

brushed the back of his palm with her fingers, didn’t really count it either. No matter how much he loved his daughter, Meghan alone would never be enough for him. He stiffened and made smart cracks when his siblings teased him. He couldn’t defend the choice Brooke had made, and he wouldn’t simply remind them all it was none of their business. “So I didn’t tell you?” he said now to Gerald. “We’re sending Meghan to you for the summer. You can clean up her act, hey?”
    Brooke slipped away from the men. She picked up a platter of chicken wings and wove her way through the crowd. Though she stood taller and blonder—WASPier—than the rest of the O’Connors and most of their friends, she managed to glide almost invisibly. She made small talk about the garden and the church ceremony. Though Father Donnell’s eyes ranged up and down her slim white pants and silk top, their conversation extended only to the climbing roses and the science of pruning. There might have been a time when Brooke seemed an object of mystery to many in the christening party. But it had been seven years, now, since she had come to Connecticut and married Sean. Her quiet accommodation struck most of those who took a barbecued wing from her platter as a little dull, nothing more.
    Everywhere, children darted through legs and cultivated grass stains. Counting Derek, Kate had informed Brooke, there were seventeen kids present under the age of ten. The small plastic climbing structure on a patch of sand in the corner of the garden was swarmed,but Meghan and her favorite cousins preferred the grass and a game of chase among the flowers. “Shouldn’t we get them out of there?” Kate asked when Brooke stopped by the bench where she was sitting with Sean and Gerry’s mother, Matilda, known to all as Mum. Not yet sixty, Mum sat with her hands folded in her lap, a half pint of whiskey in her bloodstream.
    “They’re fine,” Brooke said. “Wing?” She extended the platter and a fistful of paper napkins. Kate shook her head. Gingerly, with a pale thumb and forefinger, Mum reached forward. The edge of bone she pinched slipped away, shot across the platter, and ended on the grass. Mum bent down to retrieve it.
    “No, no, Mum. I’ll get you another. Here.” Quickly Kate plucked a chicken wing and a napkin and cupped them in her hands, prepared to feed her mother-in-law like a toddler if need be.
    “It’s a fine party,” Mum said to Brooke, ignoring the food. “But you should be giving it for your own, you know.”
    “Mum!” said Kate. She glanced apologetically at Brooke.
    “It’s okay,” said Brooke.
    “Five I had, and look how they all turned out. Good young men.”
    “Fanny’s a sweetheart, too,” said Brooke.
    “So have you got another in the belly yet, Miss Brooke?”
    “Mum, please,” said Kate.
    “You want to shut me up, get me another drink.”
    “In a minute. Eat your chicken.”
    Mum took the wing and nibbled. Watching her, Brooke missed her own mother, who had promised to visit before the end of summer. Not that she was close to her mom—the ties that bound them were, in their own way, as tangled as Sean’s to Mum—but at the very least her mom would have no words of advice about family size. The kids were crowding around, begging for chicken wings. Brooke crouched and let them grab, then called after them to toss bones inthe garbage cans, wipe hands on napkins. When she glanced up, Kate was looking thoughtfully at her.
    “We couldn’t have done this without you,” Kate said.
    “I’m happy to share the space.”
    “Not just the space. You planned everything.” Kate sighed. “I thought I could manage with four. Now I’m not so sure. This fellow’s the last, I’ll tell you that.” She leaned toward Brooke. Narrow-shouldered and snub-nosed, Kate had been a bouncy cheerleader when she married Gerry. Childbearing had widened her hips and burdened her breasts. She colored her hair a deep auburn. “They