Read A Family Affair: Winter: Truth in Lies, Book 1 for Free Online Page B

college, senior prom, further still to family trips in Vail, Palm Springs, even middle school. But she could only snag scraps of memories, a half-formed picture of a girl in braces and pigtails, a blue spruce brilliant with lights and ornaments, a black dog named Jesse.
    Fourteen years of good-byes, promises to be home for Sunday dinner, returning with smiles and warm embraces, and all the while, going to   her . How had she not known? How had she looked into her father’s eyes, listened to his words, and not been able to see the truth?
    Did he really love me? And Mother, what about her?
    They were his family, but had he really loved them or merely felt duty toward them—obligation—as one does to an old pair of tennis shoes, scuffed and ripping at the seams, that should be tossed out on garbage day but somehow never make it there. Instead, they get relegated as something else—garden shoes, lawn mowing shoes, anything to avoid being discarded completely. Maybe that’s what he’d done, relegated them to “something else,” a lower position, in order to avoid the costly, damaging choice of permanent separation.
    She thought of all the days he’d been with Lily Desantro, all the years he’d let his real family believe he was somewhere else. Her father was the only one she’d ever truly counted on, the standard for everyone else in her life: friends, boyfriends, business associates, even, and she hated to admit this, her mother. Had it all been a grand lie?
    Christine drove the remainder of the trip replaying the conversation with Nate Desantro. Part of her wanted to go back to Chicago, forget about the cabin and Magdalena, and most of all, Lily Desantro. The other part worried that the woman would not be so easily forgotten. What if she showed up in Chicago asking for Gloria Blacksworth?
    Her mother would never be able to handle this. The thought of the two women, face to face, gave Christine renewed strength to drive back to Magdalena in the morning, confront Nate Desantro again if she must, though she hoped Lily would answer the door. Then Christine could tell her about the will, the enormous amount of money that would be hers, uncontested, and all she had to do was forget she’d ever heard the Blacksworth name.
    It was early afternoon when she reached the cabin. She’d stopped off at Henry’s Market, a small grocery store that wasn’t much larger than a 7-Eleven, and picked up a quart of skim milk, four raspberry yogurts, a box of Multi-Grain Cheerios, a bag of red licorice, and a small bottle of Palmolive Dish detergent. She’d almost asked the wrinkled man at the counter if he knew Charles Blacksworth.  You probably saw him about once a month , she’d wanted to say.  He came to stay in the cabin up the road. Of course, you’d remember him if you saw him...medium build, silver hair...distinguished...very polite.
    What if they were all mistaken, what if he really had been living in the cabin and only visited the woman once in a while? The shopkeeper would recognize him, wouldn’t he? She could find out, give herself hope that maybe he hadn’t lied about everything. But in the end, she’d said nothing.

Chapter 5
     
    Harry answered the phone on the second ring. “Hullo?”
    “Uncle Harry? I’m sorry. Were you asleep?”
    “Chrissie.” He glanced at the woman lying in the middle of the bed, full breasts pointed skyward. “No,” he reached for his robe. “Of course not.”
    “I went to Magdalena today.”
    Harry stuffed one arm into his silk robe, then the other, letting the belt hang loose, exposing his nakedness. What time was it anyway? He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Seven-thirty. He needed a drink and he needed to take a piss.
    “Did you see her?” He closed the bedroom door, kept his voice low.
    “No. I saw her son, though.”
    “Hardass. What’d he have to say?”
    “That...that...”
    “Tell me, Chrissie. What happened?” He poured himself a double scotch, neat,