Free Matter of Trust by Sydney Bauer Page B

he showed for her. And that unshakable devotion to her politician spouse had worked appreciably in Gloria’s favour.
    The trick to it was knowing when to turn a blind eye. And Rebecca was very good at that. Perhaps her pathetic upbringing as the fifth of seven children born to a mother who’d spent twenty years as a check-out cashier at Wal-Mart and a father who ran a seedy-looking pawn shop in Jersey City had taught her a thing or two about denying the tragedies of reality.
    Rebecca had it down pat. She ignored the fact that her plain twin daughters were completely devoid of any talent and personality whatsoever; she indulged her son in his sullenness and his extremely poor choice of friends; and she completely overlooked the fact that her husband’s attentiveness ended the moment the cameras stopped rolling and, more to the point, she’d never once protested at his sleeping with her ex-best friend.
    It really was quite remarkable, thought Gloria as she sipped her chamomile tea from a china cup and listened to her son’s wife apologise to the gardener once again. It wasn’t acceptable for her to forget to buy the regular garden supplies, but it was fine and dandy for her husband to continue his twice-weekly routine of fucking that slut. Rebecca would do anything to live up to her self-appointed role of devoted supporter, including denying what she knew to be true.
    Of course, Gloria knew all about denial. She had perfected the art of discerning what matters she should confront and those she should obliterate from any form of acknowledgment many years ago.
    She had learnt it from her grandmother – the beautiful Victoria Vandercamp who was born into money, married for more, and saw the regular payments to her husband’s gambling debtors as part of the deal of being the spouse of a man of considerable means. She’d learnt it from her mother who overlooked her husband’s infidelity in return for his last name of Astor and the country club kudos that went with it. And she’d applied such selective acknowledgment to her own life when, on the very nighther husband had been elected Governor, he had explained, in a moment of honesty and friendship that he was ‘batting for the other team’. He’d honestly believed that she had no clue – and was completely taken aback when she assured him she was quite aware of his sexual preferences and more than happy to continue their little charade as long as he remained discreet and continued his push for Congress. It really hadn’t been that difficult.
    And so, as Gloria sat back in her green chintz armchair, the sun now streaming through the eastern bay windows, and watched her daughter-in-law back down her drive in her BMW SUV to go to the supermarket to buy some more potting mix, she took comfort in knowing that she had stepped up again, this time by removing the only thing that stood between her son and the future that awaited him.
    She prayed, then and there, that despite the emotional setback Chris would inevitably suffer at her action, that he would also be man enough to take the reins and run with them – that he had inherited enough political nous from his mother to realise that remorse was not an option, and enough strength and stoicism from the man who had fathered him to forget the mistakes of the past and keep the truth hidden. Just as she had done all those many years ago.

15
    C onnor Kincaid was having trouble breathing.
    He was in the locker room. It was late. The rest of the team had left over an hour ago and Connor’s back was sore from the numerous slaps of congratulation that he’d received after scoring a free throw to win the game for the Saint James’s Academy home team.
    Connor was good at sports. Not because he tried at them, but because they came naturally to him – like they had his father before him. Connor was tall and lean and good-looking in a dark and brooding sort of way. He was