The Promised World Read Online Free Page A

infectious. Even Patrick’s coworkers in the math department knew they could never come to Lila and Patrick’s apartment without leaving with an armful of books they just had to read. Strangely enough, these mathematicians did read a lot of Lila’s suggestions. She seemed to have that effect on everyone.
    Everyone, that is, except her brother and his wife. With Ashley,Lila didn’t really make an effort, but with Billy, she tried as hard as she did with anyone, and yet her brother never seemed to get around to reading any of the novels and plays she left for him. Why she read absolutely everything Billy suggested to her was a mystery, but then most of Lila and Billy’s relationship had remained mysterious. They had lunch together alone about once a month; Lila said they spent most of their time discussing “things that happened when we were younger.” He didn’t ask for specifics; he assumed it had something to do with their parents dying. Lila had told him they’d died in a car accident right before she’d started college.
    At the shore house they rented that summer, Lila was determined to make progress on Billy’s latest obsession, a novel called Gravity’s Rainbow. Every free moment, Lila had her nose stuck in that enormous book, including one morning when they were out on the beach, under the three umbrellas it took to shade the group: one for Lila and Patrick, one for Billy and the kids—twelve-year-old Pearl, William, who was five, and ten-month-old Maisie—and one for Ashley, who was taking a nap. The girls’ names had been picked by Billy, literary names, which Ashley had agreed to because they were pretty, but she put her foot down for their son, insisting on naming him for his father rather than some imaginary person. Billy acquiesced, but insisted they call their son William, not Billy.
    It would have been impossible for Billy to read at the beach while watching out for William and little Maisie. He was a good father, or at least he always seemed like a good father from Patrick’s point of view. He didn’t drink; he never hit his kids or even raised his voice to them. Of course, he must have grown tired of running around after them, especially at the shore, where there was always the danger of drowning or getting stung by a jellyfish or at the very least falling down and getting a mouthful of sand. So Lila’s suggestion that Billy let her take care of the kids for a while should have been welcome. She was trying to help. What was wrong with that?
    Over the years, Ashley had alluded to Billy having a temper, saying, “He’ll get mad if we don’t” about minor things like what time they would eat Thanksgiving dinner or whether they would have sparklers on the Fourth of July. Lila rolled her eyes at these claims, insisting her brother had never gotten mad about something so trivial in his life. But here he was, that day on the beach, not only angry with Lila but shouting at her.
    “If you don’t want to read Gravity’s Rainbow, just say so.”
    “But I do want to read it. I told you it was—”
    “ ‘Oh, I like this novel, Billy.’ “ His tone was sarcastic. “ ‘It’s really good.’ “ He picked up William, who was small for his age; Pearl had already escaped to her mother’s umbrella, lugging Maisie with her. “Why can’t you keep track of what’s important?” He came close to his sister and hissed, “Was it really just entertainment, Lila? Is that all it was?”
    “Of course not,” she said. “I don’t know why you’re saying this to me.”
    Patrick had seen his wife flinch when Billy made fun of her voice, and now he noticed that Lila was about to cry. So he stepped in, even though he was nervous, not so much about Billy turning on him—though in truth, over the years, he’d grown a little tired of Lila’s brother’s caustic “wit”—but about how his wife would react to him interfering in her relationship with her brother. He’d never done it before, but then