Free Ripper by Isabel Allende Page A

Blake Jackson liked Alan Keller and hoped that his affair with Indiana might end in marriage. His daughter needed some stability in her life, a levelheaded man to protect and care for her, he thought. She needed a second father, since he was not going to be around forever. Alan was only nine years younger than Blake, and he clearly had a number of irritating quirks that, as with anyone, would probably only get worse with age. But compared with the men in Indiana’s past he was Prince Charming. He was the only one Blake could really talk to about books, or about culture in general. Indiana’s previous boyfriends—beginning with Bob Martín—had all been jocks: strong as a bull and about as smart. His daughter did not usually appeal to intellectuals, so Alan’s arrival had been a godsend.
    As a little girl, Amanda had pestered Blake with questions about her parents; she was much too intelligent to believe the fairy-tale version told to her by her grandmother Encarnación. Amanda had been only three years old when Indiana and Bob split up, and could not remember a time when they had all lived under the same roof. In fact—despite Doña Encarnación’s eloquence—Amanda found it difficult to imagine her parents together at all.
    The fifteen years since her son’s divorce had been agony for Encarnación, a devout Catholic who said the rosary every day and regularly prayed to Saint Jude—the patron saint of hopeless causes—lighting votive candles in the hope the couple would be reconciled.
    Blake loved Bob Martín like the son he’d never had. He could not help himself: he found himself moved by his former son-in-law’s spontaneous displays of affection, his utter devotion to Amanda, his loyal friendship for Indiana. But he did not want Saint Jude to miraculously bring them back together. The only thing they had in common was their daughter. Apart, they behaved like brother and sister; together, they would inevitably have come to blows.
    They had met in high school when Indiana was fifteen, and Bob twenty. Officially, he should have already graduated, and any other school would have thrown him out when he turned eighteen, but Bob was the captain of the football team and the coach’s blue-eyed boy; to the other teachers he was a nightmare they tolerated only because he was the finest athlete to play for the school since its founding in 1956. Good-looking and arrogant, Bob aroused violent passions in the girls, who plagued him with propositions and threats of suicide, while inspiring a mixture of fear and admiration in the boys, who bragged about his sporting prowess and his daring pranks but kept a wary distance, since, if his mood changed, Bob could knock them down with his little finger. Indiana, who had the face of an angel, the body of a grown woman, and a tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve, rivaled the football captain in popularity. She was a picture of innocence, while he had a reputation as the devil incarnate: no one was surprised when they fell in love, but anyone who hoped she would be a good influence on him was sorely disappointed. The opposite happened: Bob went right on being the bonehead he had always been, while Indiana plunged headfirst into love, alcohol, and pot.
    Soon afterward, Blake noticed that his daughter’s clothes suddenly seemed too tight, and she was often in tears. He questioned her relentlessly until finally she confessed that she hadn’t had her period in three or four months, maybe five—she wasn’t sure, since she’d always been irregular. Blake buried his face in his hands. His only excuse for missing the obvious signs that Indiana was pregnant, just as he had turned a blind eye when she stumbled home drunk or floating in a marijuana haze, was the fact that his wife, Marianne, was seriously ill, and he spent all his time taking care of her. He grabbed his daughter by the arm and took her first to a gynecologist, who confirmed that the pregnancy was too far advanced to