by Lian Dolan
“Did you even read the book?” Tricia asked, pretty sure of the answer. “Do you have any idea of what’s even in it?”
“I didn’t have time. I was finishing my painting and planning this party. And anyway, the news is full of reunited children and sperm donors. These stories happen every day now. Seriously. Let’s tell ours. Why not?”
Cap stepped in. “Maggie, dear, in this case, we really don’t have the right. Or, should I say, rights. This book belongs to Allegory Publishing. The estate owes them this manuscript. Of course, you can tell anyone you’d like about Serena, but I do think it’s wise to consider the timing for all involved. And, of course, you should consider Serena’s wishes. She has many people in her life affected by this admission.”
“I’m sure she’s relieved for it to be out there.”
“I’m sure she’s not,” Liza said. “I’ve gotten to know her over the last few days and I can tell you that she is a private person.” No one could make Maggie feel more regretful than Liza. She could pare down all of Maggie’s big ideas to tiny whims.
Cap came to Maggie’s rescue. “You’ve made these copies and the people in this room should read the memoir before handing it over to Allegory. We should all know what’s in the book for many reasons, but certainly so that we can anticipate any repercussions. I believe that’s the best course of action. And, Maggie, thank you for finding this. You did a wonderful job at that.”
Cap had a way with Maggie; he was the Crazy Whisperer. “I guess. But I do think Serena should get a chance to read the book along with us.”
“Oh, so now you’re really concerned about Serena, after you outed her as a Sweeney,” Liza said. “She deserved consideration, Maggie.”
“So, let her decide what happens next with the book,” Maggie suggested, having a limited grasp on the importance of the memoir.
“No.” Tricia couldn’t hold back. “Serena is not one of us. She has no say in this.”
Just then the dogs came bounding into the room. Everyone turned and saw Serena standing in the doorway, face fallen. She announced, “The dogs seemed upset by the fireworks. They wanted to come in. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Serena . . .”
Serena wasn’t having it. “No need to explain, Tricia. I get it. I’m not one of you—that’s for sure. I don’t laugh easily. I don’t have the same memories. I don’t tell stories like you all do. For the past few weeks, I’ve tried to understand where I might fit into your lives, but never once have any of you asked about where you might fit into my life.”
Maggie started to protest but Serena was not done. “I’ve had a rough few months, too. My whole world has flipped upside down and inside out, but here on Willow Lane, you seem mainly concerned about how this all looks for you, for your family and your father, without a single expressed concern for me. I have a professional reputation to protect, too. I sit on the boards of several charities. I have a father in Florida right now and he has no idea about what’s coming—that one of those lovely party guests may blow his whole world apart tonight!”
Then Liza tried to jump in, but Serena was angry and in no mood to listen. “You have your lives and each other and your magical iconic parents. Now that you’ve found the manuscript, the legal and financial troubles will fade away. Yes, I figured out that the advance is gone, the house sale will barely cover the tax bill, and there is no grand William Sweeney Estate. But don’t worry, because once this book comes out, Bill Sweeney will be a hero again and you will always be his daughters. I have none of that. So, you’re right. I’m not a Sweeney sister.” With that, she exited the library and bolted down the hall toward the front door.
“Nice, Tricia,” Liza sneered. “Serena, wait.” Liza bent down to grab one of the manuscript bags and headed out the door to catch her. The dogs went with her.
Maggie piled on. “Way to go, Tricia.”
“I meant legally, Maggie. Serena has no say in anything to do with Dad’s intellectual property legally, either the memoir or anything else he’s ever written. Sure, we can be cordial and let her read it ahead of publication, but she doesn’t get to, quote, decide what happens with Snap,” Tricia tried to explain. “I know consequences aren’t really your thing, Mags, but there are a lot of question marks about this manuscript. For starters, it could be badly written, a crappy half-effort to fulfill the contract. Or damaging beyond belief to Dad or to Mom. Have you thought about that? There is a scenario by which we don’t hand over the manuscript to the publisher and instead we pay back the advance from the sale of the house to protect Dad and the family. That would be a decision you, me, and Liza make. Not Serena. That is all I meant.”
“It didn’t sound that way. Not to me and obviously not to Serena. It sounded truly bitchy.”
“Stop it, Maggie. This is all you. You created this scene tonight. Your sense of drama wanted a production, when a normal person would have kept this news inside the family. What’s the rush to let the world know what a lousy father and husband William Sweeney was? His flaws are known to the world—the drinking, the gambling, all the things that male artists get away with because that’s part of the package. But screwing the neighbor and then abandoning the child you fathered isn’t at all charming. I’m not advocating whitewashing the truth, but I, for one, would like to know what the truth is before flaunting our flaws to Tim the Line Cook.”
“Serena’s right. You don’t care about her at all.”
“Yes. You’re right. I’m the thoughtless one.” Tricia knew what she really wanted to say but held back, because there were some words and phrases the sisters never used with each other, as if crossing that line was the gateway to permanent disharmony.
“Let’s all take a deep breath,” Cap advised. “The good news is that we have a manuscript we can evaluate. We should all read it and then decide the best way forward. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
Cap continued, “And now we have to do damage control with your guests. This secret won’t stay secret for long now. This is an irresistible truth and it will get out.”
“That was my goal all along,” Maggie said as she sashayed out of the room.
Cap looked at Tricia. “This will work out.”
“I’m not trying to make a saint out of him, Cap. But I don’t want him to be trashed. Or our mother.”
“I understand. And Serena?”
“I know we have an obligation to her, but we don’t owe her our entire past. Maybe my father did or her mother, but it’s not up to me, Maggie, and Liza to provide context to her life. It’s possible there’s a future that includes Serena, but she has no right to our past.”
“I’m going to speak to the guests again.” Cap picked up one of the bags with the manuscript inside. “A little beach reading. Should we meet Monday morning with our notes and plan our next steps? I’ll have coffee at the office.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there.”
Later, Tricia sat in the library alone, listening to the nonstop booms of the grand finale. She knew that she had lied to Maggie. Sure, the law was on her mind, but not entirely. Serena wasn’t one of them.
Liza caught Serena in the driveway, about to throw her car in gear and pull out of Willow Lane. The fireworks boomed in the distance, only partially visible over the roof of the house. Serena lowered her window to talk. “Please, Liza, don’t even try to apologize.”
“I can’t. You’re right. We haven’t spent a minute thinking about your life. We’ve been self-absorbed brats. We need to do better.”
“I think it’s best if I take a few days for myself.”
Liza knew Serena was right, but still, she had an agenda. “Take the book. Read it and call me. Tricia doesn’t speak for all of us,” Liza said, leaning into the window and tossing the bag in the back of the Range Rover. “Please come to the gallery opening tomorrow night. If you decide you’d like to really go public with this information, you can announce it to the crowd.”
�
��I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Please, Serena.” Liza meant it.
Serena’s phone buzzed and out of habit she looked at it, despite the heaviness of the moment. “My God, no.”
“What?”
Serena looked at Liza with familiar eyes. “My mother’s here. She’s at the Winthrops’.”
Chapter 19
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Raj walked straight to Tricia and opened his arms. The pair were the same height, so Tricia nuzzled her head into Raj’s neck. He ran his hand down her back, pulling her in tighter. Tonight she’d worn this long blue dress, soft and flowing with a slit up the front because Maggie had insisted she “get out of those sad white jeans.” Raj couldn’t take his eyes off her and her strong, slim shoulders, her tan legs. They had been together for five nights now, but it felt like five years.
They followed their night in the rowboat with dinner at the waterfront place in Westport, sharing their life stories with each other. Tricia told Raj about her mother, why she started running and what kept her running, and her doomed relationship with Blair and losing the baby. Raj told stories about his two sisters, his brother, and his million “cousins” in their extended Indian family in Maryland. The lines blurred between when the talking stopped and the touching began. The last three days, they had done everything together but archive.
Raj was in love. He had felt a strong attraction since their first meeting and debated the ethics of it in his mind for weeks before Tricia knocked on the door of the boathouse. She wasn’t a colleague or a client. He wasn’t her boss, nor she his. She was simply somebody’s daughter, and that shouldn’t pose a professional problem, he decided. Once he had settled the question in his mind, he moved forward in the only way he knew how, by connecting intellectually. He admired Tricia’s strategic mind, her confidence, and her dry sense of humor. And the long curve of her back, the way her small gold hoops looked in her earlobes, the scent of her skin after a sail. It had only been five days, but Raj didn’t want to let Tricia go.
Tricia felt the same way, but her emotions were complicated. Was this part of the grieving process? Or was this the relationship she’d been waiting to find her whole life? It seemed too good to be true and in Tricia’s limited romantic experience, if that was the case, heartbreak was around the corner. Raj was thoughtful, well-read, and comfortable in his own beautiful skin. He was competent on all fronts, from his professional tasks to ordering in restaurants to tracing her cheekbones in exactly the right way. Tricia saw competency as an aphrodisiac. She hoped whatever this was with Raj wasn’t a product of heightened emotions, but the real deal. She had to think that her father had a hand in this, befriending Raj at the library, bringing him to Willow Lane, offering the boathouse to him for the summer. Her father had never been that generous with any research assistant or grad student before. But Tricia wanted to believe Raj was for her.
Raj let go of her. “Quite an after-dinner speech. That was unexpected.”
Tricia shook her head. “Poor Nina and Devon. They got the full Sweeney Show. Are your friends appalled or thrilled?”
“Both. But mainly they are terrified, because Cap told us in the most gentlemanly way possible that he would sue us to kingdom come if we told a soul about Serena. I thought he was going to throw our phones into the Long Island Sound. He’s a very good lawyer. I’m not sure we should even be keeping company.”
“Oh, is that what we’re doing?”
They kissed, because they couldn’t get enough of each other. Tricia wanted the entire mess to go away—the book, the estate, Serena—and escape with Raj to some sort of seaside bungalow in Maine or the Cape where they could have sex, do the New York Times crossword puzzle together, and sit on a porch overlooking the water in the evening, drinking wine and fantasizing about going to bed early. But it was because of the mess that she’d found Raj, so she knew she had to stay. She kissed him deeper and then whispered, “Lock the door.”
“Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent. This night needs some kind of spectacular nightcap.”
Liza headed toward the kitchen. She was always on the cleanup crew at every event, and Willow Lane was where she learned to finish the job. Somebody would have to do the dishes tonight and her guess was that Maggie had already ditched the party with Tim. Or Gray. But she heard talking, laughing, and dishwasher loading happening down the hall. She peeked through the door to see Maggie was organizing leftovers, David and Connor were busing dishes and making jokes, and Devon and Nina were washing pots and pans. For once, it was good not to be needed. Liza took the dogs outside through the French doors onto the slate patio.
Gray was there, straightening up the porch furniture. “There you are.”
“Here I am.” Liza looked at Gray because he was something to look at. She had watched him all night long, sipping sparkling water as he talked to David about design and Nina and Devon about their program in comparative literature, genuinely interested in their stories. He wandered over and helped Tim with the grill and pulled out the chair for Liza when she went to sit down at the table. The Gray who broke her heart never put others first. This new Gray was humble.
He reached down to pet Jack, then smiled at Liza as he said, “Is it true? What Maggie said.”
“As far as we know. DNA tests and all.”
“How did that happen?”
It was such an obvious question, it made Liza laugh. “Believe it or not, we don’t really know. I mean, beyond the birds and the bees bit. Serena wasn’t ready to get the specifics from her mother yet, and we only found out a few days after my father’s death about Serena. It’s all new to us. Maybe the memoir will tell us.”
“Are you okay with it?”
“I don’t have a choice,” Liza answered, then changed her mind. “Actually, I do have a choice and I’m fine with it. I’m letting go of a lot of things these days and perfection is one of them. Could be a messy family tree isn’t the worst thing in the world. Could be it’s the way life goes.”
Gray took a step closer, until he was face-to-face with Liza. “And is that a new Liza thing?”
“Could be.” Liza wasn’t stepping away. She could feel the linen of Gray’s shirt against her arm. She had to admit, it had been a long time since she’d felt electric physical attraction. Years, in fact. She and Whit had regular physical contact, but it wouldn’t fall into the hot-and-bothered category. Liza knew a spark was missing and in the middle of the night, when she lay awake thinking about Whit’s leaving, she rationalized that it was 90 percent about sex and 10 percent about emotion. Feeling this, feeling something like what she felt right now, was intoxicating. She lifted up her chin to Gray.
Gray kissed her. It wasn’t the careless kiss of her teenaged years that she remembered. It was deeper, stronger, more mature by all measures. Gray’s rough hands slipped down Liza’s bare back as she leaned into his body. He still made her feel reckless. She wanted to be ready for this, but she wasn’t. Slowly, she pulled away. “I’m sorry.”
“No need for that.” Gray smoothed her hair, letting his fingers linger on her neck. “I know it’s probably too soon after Whit leaving and all.”
“What?”
“Too soon. Rebounds are never a great idea. I should have waited.”
“How did you know about Whit?”
Gray shrugged. “Ran into a couple of his squash buddies at the gym. They mentioned that you two had split.”
Liza paused and breathed deeply. Whit had lied to her. He had planned this and told his pals at the Racket Club it was happening. And they told their pals. The man who thought photos of art openings in the local paper was too much publicity was wandering all over town announcing to people that his marriage was over. Liza ran through the timeline in her mind. He must have told these people before he had informed his own wife. Liza could hear Tricia’s voice in her head, “Control the flow of information and you control the situation.”
Liza had lo
st and she was humiliated. “I wasn’t aware that our separation was public knowledge. This is news to me. I need a minute.”
“Oh. Now, I’m sorry. Liza, I didn’t know that you didn’t know.”
“How could you? Not your job to know about me. I don’t know what I was thinking out here. I am a mess. Please, excuse me.” She called to the dogs and went inside. She needed to wrap her head around the fact that her failure was out there in the world for all to see. She thought about all the familiar faces who’d be at the gallery tomorrow night, people that she and Whit had known their whole lives. Neighbors. Classmates. His parents. Whit had hightailed it out of town and she was stuck holding the truth.
She heard more laughter from the kitchen and stopped short. She couldn’t face the people in that room right now; she couldn’t face anyone. David and Connor could find their own way home. She went to open the library door to get her copy of the manuscript. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to pick it up until after the opening. Now, after a double whammy of disappointments by the men in her life, Liza wasn’t sure she wanted to read it at all. For some reason, the library door was locked. Probably Tricia hunkered down and halfway through the book by now, determined to beat Serena to the end, Liza thought. Fine, let her be the first to read it.
Like her father had so many times, Liza slipped out without a proper goodbye, taking the dogs and a flashlight. She’d walk home alone.
“I’m pretty drunk. Can I crash here?” Tim slurred in Maggie’s general direction as she wandered through the living room looking for the last dirty dishes to collect. He was propped up against a wingback chair in the corner, barely standing. “Your friends brought all that expensive beer. I guess I had too many.”
Maggie looked at Tim, who was listing to the left. “Ya think?”
“C’mon, Mags. I did a good job with the tri-tip.” He started to lurch toward her like he was making a move.
