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creditors hadn’t been able to touch was Gordon’s IRA. It wouldn’t amount to much, given the penalty for cashing in early, but if she were very, very careful, it should be enough for her and Neal to squeak by. Their son wouldn’t have to drop out of college, and Lila would have a little time to establish a career of some kind. What sort of career she had no idea. The only salaried job she’d ever held had been back in college. What would her résumé even look like, if she had one?
    Company wife (1988–2008)
    Twenty years’ experience in planning parties and entertaining at a high level. Responsible for managing several homes, making travel arrangements, and, most recently, acting as legal adviser.
    Mother (1990–present)
    Served two years as president of the Buckley School Parents’ Association and eight years as chairman of the school’s Book Fair Committee. Organized fundraisers for the Knickerbocker Greys and Madison Avenue Presbyterian, where son attended kindergarten. Reasonably skilled at basic first aid, sewing costumes, baking large quantities of cupcakes, refereeing, and SAT tutoring.
    Daughter (1966–2006)
    Acted in the capacity of unofficial diplomatic liaison during parents’ divorce. Saw mother through final (and protracted) illness and, prior to that, a nervous breakdown and several rehabs. Provided emotional (and occasionally financial) support to father through his second and third divorces, as well as the subsequent squandering of his fortune on said ex-wives, until his death in 2006.
    Sister (1966–present)
    Skilled at corresponding with peripatetic brother, who, when last heard from, was embarking on an expedition to the Galapagos Islands.
    Thinking of Vaughn, Lila pulled from a box a batch of his old letters, tied together with string. They were from all over the globe, addressed to her in her brother’s slapdash hand: Bombay, Marrakech, Abidjan, Lima, Mombasa, Ho Chi Minh City. The most recent one—they had stopped coming regularly once e-mail had become the preferred mode of communication—was from two years ago, postmarked Anchorage, Alaska, where her brother had been based while filming a documentary in the Aleutian Islands. Lila settled back on her heels as she riffled through them, indulging in a small, ironic smile.
    Their parents had despaired of her twin brother’s ever settling down and pursuing a “real” career, whereas in their view Lila had fulfilled her destiny (and their aspirations) by marrying Gordon and producing a grandchild. Until recently Lila had shared that view, but it seemed laughable now. Vaughn, on the other hand, had attained something far more worthwhile than any material success. He was doing what he loved; he was living a life that wasn’t some castle in the sky. She envied him for that, and at the same time a small part of her was resentful over the fact that, while he’d been off traipsing around the world, she’d been the one cleaning up the family’s messes. It had been left to her to deal with the fallout from their parents’ ugly divorce and their father’s equally ruinous second and third marriages. She’d had the job of caring for them when they’d become ill as well—first their mother, who’d died of cancer, then two years later their father, who’d succumbed to a heart attack. Any support Vaughn had provided had mainly been from afar.
    Still, hadn’t he been there for her when it had counted most? Following the virtual overnight collapse of Vertex, when Gordon and several other senior officers had been charged with falsely inflating stock prices, among a host of other crimes, her brother had flown in from Botswana to be at her side. She’d been on the verge of collapse herself, besieged by reporters and the flow of increasingly dire news. Her normally solicitous husband was too frantic with his own worries to soothe hers, and her