Free Trilemma by Jennifer Mortimer Page B

they’d put her in when she’d started wandering to the shops in her nightdress.
    Dear Mom. I can still see her anxious face when I came into her room. She knew she was supposed to know me, but the memory of my name was gone. “It’s Lin,” I said. “Your stepdaughter.”
    â€œLin!” she cried, and her eyes relaxed and she smiled happily. “Of course, it’s you. How are you, dear? I like your shoes, are they new?”
    â€œNo, Mom, I bought them a while ago, but they are nice, aren’t they?” I’d said, and gave her the Swiss chocolates I brought.
    â€œThank you, dear,” she said. “I like your shoes. Are they new?”
    The next time I visited there was no light in her eyes at all. She didn’t notice my shoes. She didn’t notice anything at all. I seldom cry, but that day I wept all the way to the airport. Very little of Mom was still there. Her body now grown frail and her mind mostly departed, I felt I’d lost my only family.
    Dear Mom. I took you too much for granted. I wish I’d told you how much I loved you before it was too late.
    It was then I decided to find my sisters, so I wouldn’t have to feel so alone in the world. Vivienne and Alison, did you see me tonight? Did you hear me stake my claim to our father?

    I drag myself out only when my eyelids start to droop. Although I long for the embrace of the crisp white sheets of my bed, I stop at the table and check my e-mail.
    In my in-box are notes from Marion and Ian and from several other members of the staff. Two suppliers obsequiously register their congratulations. A request for an interview from a journalist from a business magazine. Three salespeople wanting to sell me something.
    And—an e-mail from Emmy. The last wisps of alcohol vanish from my brain. Little Emmy, half brat and half sweet kid. Growing up in leaps and bounds, faster than her father could bear. I couldn’t help resenting the hold she had over him.
What’s that hanging off Emmy’s little finger?
I’d ask.
Oh, it’s Ben,
I’d answer.
    Although I admired his devotion to his daughter, I wished he had more for me.
    I open the message.
    Dear Lin, I just heard that you’re down here in New Zealand! I hope you’re going to come and visit. Dad didn’t say what happened, just that you and he had broken up and he didn’t know if we’d see you again.
    Anyway, I just wanted to say hi, and that Dad misses you and I do too, so I hope you can visit us. Maybe you and Dad can sort it out?
    Love, Emmy
    Now, how was I to reply? Insult her with prevarication or hurt her with the truth?

Chapter 15
    In the room the men come and go, talking of ultrafast broadband.
    For my first public event as Hera’s CEO, I wear a dark-gray suit with a skirt that ends just below the knee and a pair of modest heels. No cleavage, no thigh, no toes, nothing see-through and nothing too tight. Definitely nothing that says “fuck me.” Women chief executives do not seek to be fucked.
    There is a crowd around the chief executive of the country’s incumbent Kiwicom. Although run by foreigners and owned by mainly foreign investors, they are still considered “the local” telco. As Tom and I pause at the entrance to the room, a short man with a thick moustache peels away from the group and approaches us. Tom introduces him as chairman of the Telecommunications Forum, but I am so busy basking in my new title I forget to listen to his name.
    Another two men leave the group and join us. Their eyes quickly skim my figure before settling on my face. One is partner-manager for Kiwicom, and the younger of the two is a management consultant specializing in transformations, he tells me. He has a quick line of banter that breaks the ice.
    I practice my executive smile. Although I know these men are not interested in Lin the person, only in Lin Mere, chief executive, it is hard not to enjoy the