This Life: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

However, for more than
a decade she’d dreamed of everything she could do with a building like the
Wishman Spears. This was an opportunity she simply couldn’t let pass her by.
    Only one aspect of
seizing this opportunity troubled Blake: she’d be forced to spend a few days
away from her mother.
    Jacinta Bertrand was a
fiercely independent woman. Some mothers of daughters who become wealthy would
gladly take up a life of luxury at their offspring’s expense. Not Jacinta.
Until July 4 of the previous year, she kept her job as a nurse at South Miami Hospital , leased a modest
apartment, and did all her own cooking and laundry and shopping. Her only
benefit from Blake’s success, which she accepted only after the most
impassioned argument mother and daughter ever had, was that Blake hired a maid
to clean Jacinta’s apartment three times per week.
    Everything changed when
a drunk driver collided head-on with Jacinta’s car on her way home from work.
Jacinta barely survived, and more than half a year later she still had months
of physical therapy ahead of her.
    “I wonder if the
Wishmans would consider coming to Miami to close the deal. That way I wouldn’t have to leave Mom.”
As the Fisher Island ferry pulled away from
its Miami harbor dock, Blake tied
on a silk kerchief to keep the wind from slapping her long hair all over her
face.
    She’d been thinking
aloud when she spoke. Matt, the bodyguard assigned to protect her tonight,
answered anyway. “Looks to me like your mother has the best medical care money
can buy. I think she’d be all right if you go to New York for a few days.”
    “I know her nurses are
the best. I hired them myself. But she’s my mother, not theirs.”
    Matt slanted a sly grin
at Blake. “They’re getting paid a lot better to take care of your mother than
they’d be to take care of theirs.”
    Blake rolled her eyes
at him, but couldn’t help smiling afterward. “Probably true, but I’ll feel
better if Mom says she doesn’t mind.”
    When the ferry docked
at Fisher Island , Blake strolled past
two of the Olympic-standard tennis courts, a five-star restaurant, and part of
the nine-hole golf course designed by P.B. Dye. Peacocks wandered the island
freely, and one of them gave voice to a call as Blake and Matt walked by it.
    A peacock’s call sounds
like a woman screaming, and this was only Matt’s second time guarding Blake.
Matt nearly jumped out of his skin, and trailed after Blake grumbling inventive
profanity the rest of the way to the condo Blake rented for her mother.
    “ Hola , Señora
Bertrand,” the housekeeper greeted them after Blake rang the doorbell. The
housekeeper, Riza, was second-generation Cuban-American, like Jacinta Bertrand.
“Your mami has just had her dinner, so the nurses must be bathing her now. Have
a seat in the parlor and I’ll call you when they’re done.”
    “ Gracias ,” said
Blake. She led Matt into the parlor, and they sat looking out the large window
at the sunset over the Atlantic , until Riza called Blake’s name.
    “I should only be a few
minutes, Matt.”
    “Take your time.” Matt
flashed his smartphone at her. “I’ll just browse news and sports until you’re
ready to go home.”
    Blake nodded and left
the bodyguard to entertain himself. She climbed the stairs to the second floor
and paused at her mother’s open bedroom door. Though it was February, the air
conditioning whispered from the ceiling vent. Jacinta liked to sleep in a cold
room, burrowed under a thick pile of blankets. A lamp on the bedside table
glowed its dimmest setting, which meant the room was dark except for a circle
of thin shadows that revealed Jacinta’s head resting on her pillow.
    “Come on in, mija ,”
Jacinta called to Blake. “I promise not to die of a surprise visit from my
daughter.”
    Sitting in one of the
bedside chairs, wrapped in a heavy quilt, the night nurse gave Blake an
encouraging smile. “It’s true, the old dear is tougher than you