Free Summer's End by Kathleen Gilles Seidel

touched the chair; her shoulders were back but relaxed. That’s how Amy always sat. Phoebe forced herself to sit up straighter. Hal signaled for the waitress.
    â€œHal has told me that you’re both lawyers,” Gwen saidpleasantly. “My daughter Holly is a lawyer. She works for Brand, Whitfield in New York.”
    Brand, Whitfield. Phoebe knew all about Brand, Whitfield. It was big; it was important; it was white. Their clients were bigger and whiter still. She loathed firms like that. That’s why she was in legal services; she wanted everyone, not just the rich and the white, to have a voice and to have legal protection.
    â€œYour daughter must work hard,” Giles said to Gwen.
    â€œShe does. What about you, Phoebe?” Gwen was speaking to her. “Are you able to keep your hours part-time?”
    Phoebe didn’t want to answer. Gwen was too well groomed, too poised, too glossy. Phoebe didn’t like her.
    You should be sitting here, Mother .
    But of course if her mother had been alive, they wouldn’t be here. Mother hated places like this, the plants artificial, the air all chlorine-scented and stuffy.
    â€œOf course she can’t,” Hal answered. “Our society does take advantage of women who want to work part-time. Many of them work far more than they are paid for.”
    Her father had answered for her. Phoebe felt herself flush. Ian and Amy were the ones who were supposed to cause problems, not her. She was the oldest, the helpful one, the one Mother and Dad could rely on.
    â€œIt’s my own fault,” she said. Just think of her as someone you’re meeting at a party, as someone you might never see again . “I could say no.”
    â€œWhat are your cases like?” Gwen asked.
    Phoebe answered, and then they moved on to talking about children. Gwen made the conversation easy. When it was over, when they were getting up to go to therecital, Phoebe realized that Gwen had said nothing about herself.
    That had never happened with Mother. Mother had always been the center of attention. She hadn’t demanded it; she hadn’t forced herself on people. She simply had been so interesting. Everyone who met her wanted to know more about her. She had such wonderful stories of growing up in Hong Kong and Bermuda, of staying with her parents in lavish hotels in Monte Carlo, using only room service because they were out of cash, waiting for money to be wired from home.
    Mother, please…when are you coming back?
    Â 
    A person did not get to be general counsel of a large public university by being full of hot air. Even to his own wife Giles Smith did not puff off opinions or predictions unless he was very confident. And indeed, shortly after returning to Washington following the senior recitals, Hal Legend called his children to say that he and Gwen Wells were getting married.

Chapter 3
    Jack Wells, Gwen’s son, heard this news in Kentucky. When he was working, Jack wore a beeper clipped to the waistband of his frequently muddy jeans. He didn’t often see his mother’s phone number flash across the beeper’s little screen—she rarely disturbed him in the middle of the day—so whenever she did beep him, he went directly to his truck and called her on his mobile phone.
    Jack had his own business, moving houses. He didn’t move families and their belongings; instead he moved the actual houses, jacking them up onto flatbed trucks and sending them down the highway.
    His organized, methodical sister had been skeptical about this latest enterprise of his. “Jack, you do everything at the last minute. You can’t run a client-based business like that. You’ll drive all your customers insane.”
    She had a point. He wasn’t one to rush out and attend to every little detail months ahead of time. He had learned that about himself when he had owned a hardware store in Wyoming, which was what he had been doing before