JORDAN: This had nothing to do with my
mother. She’s had to come to terms with what
happened between the two of them on her
own terms. This was about me getting to know
another aspect of who my father truly was
from my own perspective. After his murder, we
discovered just how much time my father spent
in that house with Ida Green. It was as much his
home as the one he’d built in Dallas with us.
JDM: How did knowing that make you feel?
JORDAN: Envious.
the CEO, Texas oil man, or the millionaire, Julian
Gatewood. He was “just” Julian, stripped down
to the barest necessity of who he was at the
core. I think that’s why he loved her. She only
wanted him.
JDM: Did you meet Abby Rhodes in that house?
JORDAN: She was there the day I showed
up. Abby had just bought the house and was
making plans to renovate it.
JDM: Did she know who you were? Did she
know that your father had died in her house?
JDM: Please explain.
JORDAN: The house was so small and so far
removed from the grandeur of my father, and
yet, he preferred being there even more than
at the mansion in Dallas. And I wondered what
could be compelling enough to make a man
like him choose to spend so much time in that
place over everything he’d built in Dallas? What
was so extraordinary about Ida Green to divert
his interests from my beautiful mother and even
his children?
JORDAN: Not then. I explained everything to her
later.
JDM: Moving back to an earlier topic, are you
able to be “just” Jordan when you’re with Abby?
Are you, like your father, stripped down to the
bare necessity of who you are at the core when
you’re with Abby?
JORDAN: Abby Rhodes has my full attention.
And that’s all I’ll say
JDM: How has your opinion of Ida Green
changed since visiting the house and asking
yourself those questions?
JORDAN: I was twenty years old the first
time I saw her. Back then, there was nothing
exceptional about her in my eyes. I found her
unattractive and dowdy, certainly not in the
same league as my mother.
JDM: He loved Ida.
JORDAN: Beauty, in a woman, true beauty,
the kind he likely saw in Ida, comes from the
inside. As a boy, I didn’t understand that, but a
man, I do. I can only speculate that she offered
something rare to him that was missing from his
very rich life. Money can’t buy everything, and I
think that Ida offered those things that couldn’t
be paid for, and that couldn’t be measured in
time or space. In that house, he didn’t have to be
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