The Sins of the Mother

by Danielle Steel

  The e-mail to Olivia’s youngest daughter, Cass, reached her in London at three o’clock in the afternoon. It came through on her BlackBerry as she was sitting in a meeting, planning a concert tour for one of their biggest clients. Cassie Grayson glanced at the e-mail and knew instantly what it was. She saw the first photograph of the boat, and without reading the details, she closed the e-mail again. She wondered why her mother still bothered to send the invitation to her every year, since she had never gone. For fourteen years, she had refused. She was not going to be bought off by a vacation in a château in France, or on a fabulous yacht. She no longer cared. She had left the States at twenty, when her father died, and made her own good life in England. She had gotten into the music world, in production, made her own money, and wanted nothing from any of them, particularly her mother. As far as Cass was concerned, Olivia had missed her chance. She didn’t care what her grandmother said whenever she saw her, Cass always said the relationship with her mother was over for her. Cass had no memories that included her, only her grandmother and her father. Olivia had been too busy building her empire then to spend time with her. With the others, she had still made some meager efforts to come home from the office at a decent hour. When Cass came along, unexpectedly, seven years after John, it was too late. For both of them, mother and child. They had been the busiest years of her mother’s life, and Cass had no need or desire to give her a second chance now.

  Cass was happy with her life. She had a business she worked hard at and had built herself; she had friends, and she had lived with a man she loved for the past five years. For Cass, with the exception of her grandmother, her relationship with her family had ended when her father died. She had always blamed her mother for not being there when it happened. After a massive heart attack, he had hung on for two days. Cassie had been convinced he was waiting for his wife to come home. It took them a day to reach her in the Philippines, and two more days for her to get home and he had died just hours before she arrived. Cassie remained convinced that her mother’s coming home in time would have saved him. It was the last straw for her. She never forgave her mother, and three months later she was gone. She had seen her brothers and sister only a few times since. She had nothing in common with them. She thought Phillip was a pretentious stuffed shirt. She couldn’t stand his wife, who seemed like a bitch to her. She had nothing against Sarah and John, but she had nothing in common with them either, and poor Liz was so insecure and frightened to compete with their mother that she could barely breathe. It depressed Cass just thinking about them, and she did so as seldom as she could.

  The only one she maintained a close tie to was her grandmother, whom she saw whenever she had business in the States, and occasionally she flew over just to spend an afternoon with her. Granibelle hadn’t changed. She was still the same wonderful, loving woman she always had been, and she always begged Cassie to open her heart to her mother again. Cassie just listened and said nothing, rather than argue with her grandmother about it, or upset her.

  Despite her feelings about her, and mostly to please her grandmother, Cass did see her mother once or twice a year. They had lunch sometimes when Cass was in New York, or when Olivia had business in London. The lunches were stressful and brief. Neither of them knew what to say to each other. Olivia had no idea how to make up for the past, and would have liked to. Cass shared nothing with her, and told her nothing about her life. She had never even mentioned Danny Hell. What Olivia knew about him, she heard from Liz, who had read about it in the tabloids. The only thing Olivia did know about Cass was that she had an enormously successful business, and that Cass had mentioned several times that she never wanted children. She said she was too busy to have them, and didn’t want anyone to have a childhood like her own. The point had been made, many times.

  And so had her refusals to join them for family vacations. As far as Cass was concerned, the Graysons weren’t her family anymore. Phillip felt the same way about her, and made no effort to see her. He hadn’t seen her in at least ten years. John felt sorry for her, but awkward about the position she had taken and didn’t want to upset their mother by seeing her. Liz missed having a sister, and would have loved to talk to her and have her get to know her girls. But they had all begun to think there was too much water under the bridge. The only one who had never given up on Cass coming back into the fold was Maribelle. She told Olivia never to stop seeing her, and to stay in touch as best she could, and one day Cass would come home. Olivia no longer believed that, but she invited her to their summer vacations every year, and continued to have lunch with her whenever she could.

  When she got back to her office, Cass sent the same response she did every year, declining her mother’s invitation. Her answer was always brief and clear: “Thank you, no. Have a nice trip. Cass.”

  Olivia saw the message on her own BlackBerry after the New York Times interview. She read it, and closed the e-mail. It came as no surprise, but it hurt anyway. A little piece of her died every time her youngest child rejected her. She knew why she did it. She understood. She didn’t blame her, but it made her heart ache anyway. And then, with a sigh, with the message sent and received, both women, whom Maribelle said were so similar in some ways, went back to work. Better than anyone, Maribelle knew them well.

  Chapter 4

  Amanda had four suitcases open and was filling all of them when Phillip came home from the office, the night before they were to leave. In addition, there was a hanging bag perched in a doorway, a special bag for shoes, and a Louis Vuitton hatbox sitting on the floor with several hats already in it. Phillip looked at the scene in their bedroom with dismay.

  “How long did she invite us for? A year?” he asked, looking at his wife blankly. “I just counted seven bags.”

  “And one for toiletries,” she reminded him, “now that you can’t take them on the plane.”

  “That’s a relief,” he said with a wry look at her. “I thought maybe you’d take ten. We’re only up to eight.” She always overpacked.

  “I can’t just wear blue jeans and a T-shirt on a boat like that,” Amanda said with a look of annoyance, as Phillip set his own suitcase on their bed. His wardrobe needs were less complicated. All he needed were some khaki trousers, white jeans, one pair of blue jeans, some shirts, a blazer, running shoes, flip-flops, a pair of loafers, two bathing suits, and one tie, just in case. That would cover anything that came up, from dinner in a restaurant to swimming at the beach. It would all fit in one bag.

  Amanda looked at him in irritation, as he tossed his clothes into the suitcase. Ten minutes later, he was finished, and she was still only halfway through the process, with silk dresses, cotton cover-ups, and half a dozen new outfits. She had no intention of wearing the same clothes every night. Nor would her mother-in-law, she knew. Liz and Sarah were another story, and in Amanda’s opinion, both were always badly dressed, although Liz’s daughters usually looked cute.

  “This isn’t a contest, you know, as to who can take the most clothes. My sister never brings more than one bag.”

  “That’s because she wears her children’s clothes.” And looks ridiculous, she wanted to add, in things like bathing suits that only teenagers could wear. And Sarah was always a mess. She still wore the same style bathing suits she’d had when she got married eighteen years before and weighed ten pounds less. She still wore clothes she’d had since she was a student. She looked it, and she loved buying clothes in thrift shops, which seemed disgusting to Amanda. She couldn’t understand why anyone married to a Grayson would do something like that. She had gone to Saks, Barney’s, and Bergdorf’s to buy new clothes for their trip. And she had bought three new hats. She never went out in the sun, except heavily protected, slathered with sunscreen, in a big hat. It was why she didn’t look her age. At forty-four, she was on real time now, but so far so good. She went to the dermatologist regularly and had weekly facials to exfoliate her skin. And several times a week she applied a mask at home. Amanda had no intention o
f aging prematurely, or being badly dressed.

  “Did you eat?” Phillip asked with interest. He was starving, and Amanda wasn’t planning to cook dinner. She never did.

  “I had a salad at the office before I left,” she said, folding another sundress into her bag. Phillip knew that if she had changed four times a day for two weeks, she still couldn’t wear all the clothes she was bringing, or even the ones she’d bought. “Do you want something to eat?” she asked with a look that said she hoped not. Her facial expression was clear. Kitchen closed. They were leaving on a trip. And they had to get up at dawn the next day.

  “I’ll make myself a sandwich in a minute,” he answered. “I think John and Sarah are on our flight,” Phillip commented, and looked pleased. The two brothers got on well, although they were very different.

  “With all the money your mother spends on a boat like that, you’d think she could charter a plane to get us there. Flying commercial is such a nightmare these days.” She said it as though she had spent her entire life on private jets, which was not the case. She had never been on one in her life. But she would have liked to.

  “That would be ridiculously expensive,” Phillip chided her. “I’d rather spend it on the trip, not getting there,” he said sensibly, ever the financial caretaker, keeping an eye on the bottom line.

  Phillip went to the kitchen to get something to eat, and when he came back, Amanda still hadn’t closed her bags. She looked as though there were a method to her madness, but the key theory seemed to be “take everything you own.” And Phillip couldn’t figure out what she’d do with it once she got there, other than look overdressed on the yacht. But she did it on land too. She had had twelve bags the previous year for their vacation at the château whose name she could no longer remember.

  “Your mother always likes what I wear,” she said, looking miffed. “You can close them now,” she said, as she waved grandly at her bags. It was a reminder to Phillip of what the trip would be like: Amanda showing off, wearing her new clothes, and looking down her nose at his sister and sister-in-law, because she thought they were boring and badly dressed. Amanda had never made any effort to fit in. She thought Phillip was the prize, but the others were of no interest to her, and it showed. He didn’t dare tell her to be nice to the others, which would set her off. She was usually warmer to him on the vacations, when she felt like it, but only when they were alone in their room. She didn’t like public displays of affection, and neither did he, but even he had to admit that a yacht like the Lady Luck offered interesting romantic possibilities, even if Amanda was not a romantic person. Phillip knew that everything in life was a trade-off and he liked the fact that she had a big career. And he had always tolerated her lack of effort around his family, although all of them were pleasant and polite to her.

  Amanda liked being the center of attention, and was unhappy when she wasn’t, but that was Phillip’s mother’s role. She had chartered the boat for them in the first place, and it was her birthday at the end of the trip.

  It was midnight by the time Amanda was finally fully packed, and she expected Phillip to move her bags to the front hall. When he tried to, he found they weighed a ton.

  “What are you bringing? Rocks?” he asked her.

  “No. Shoes,” she said innocently.

  “Don’t forget the brochure said that you can’t wear shoes on the deck.”

  “I won’t,” Amanda said as she went to run a hot bath.

  Phillip was so excited about the adventure of the trip and the time he would share with her that he got amorous with her when she came to bed. But Amanda wasn’t interested. She said she was tired and had to get up too early the next day. His passion would have to wait until they got on the boat. Even on the eve of their departure, Amanda was as unavailable as ever. But this time it didn’t excite him, it made him feel mildly depressed as he turned his back to her and went to sleep.

  Predictably, all was chaos at John and Sarah’s house the night before they left. John came home late from the office, and Sarah had final papers to correct, and a million e-mails from her students from a summer class she had just taught. And Alex had invited ten friends over for pizza and to use the pool. There were suitcases all over the place and nothing was packed. Sarah knew she’d be up all night washing towels after Alex’s friends left. She had made him promise to at least bring them in to her, so they were dry in the morning when they left for the airport. Always frugal, she had let their weekly cleaning person off for the two weeks they’d be gone, and she didn’t want to come home from Europe to mildewing towels.

  She hadn’t even thought about what to pack—it would be whatever came out of the closet first. And John had just gotten a letter, inviting him to participate in an art show at Princeton in October, and he was in the room he used as a studio, going through his recent work. He wanted to be sure he had enough for a solid show. The moment anything came up to do with his art, he forgot everything else.

  Sarah went to the back of the house to find him, and saw him frowning at several paintings he had leaned up against the wall. He needed twelve pieces of recent work for the show. He didn’t even hear Sarah walk into the room and looked up in surprise when she did.

  “I just don’t know,” he muttered. Sarah’s hair was wild and frizzy and all over the place, she was wearing cut-off jeans as shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top, and wishing she had lost the five extra pounds she’d been complaining about, before the trip. Now it was too late, but she knew that John loved her just the way she was. They had been madly in love with each other since college, and married for eighteen years. “What do you think?” John turned to her with a worried expression. “I’m not sure this new thing I’ve been doing is fully developed yet. I wish they’d given me more time before the show. I’m not ready.”

  “You always say that,” she reassured him as she came to stand behind him and put her arms around his waist. “You have a fantastic talent, and you always sell all the work in every show. It may not look ‘fully developed’ to you yet, but it will to everyone else. And I like this new turn your work has taken. It’s strong.” His palette had gotten bolder. He was a very good artist, and it had been his passion all his life. Design was what he did as a job. Painting was his love. And Sarah of course. She was the love of his life. Alex was the product of that, but Sarah was its source. They adored their boy, but John and Sarah had often admitted to each other that they felt like two people with one soul. They felt blessed to have found each other.

  “And you always say you love all the work.” He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her. “How’d I get lucky enough to find you?”

  “Blind luck, I guess. I don’t mean to be disrespectful of the concerns of a great artist, but if we don’t pack, we’re going to be walking around naked on this fancy boat your mother chartered.” Her angst over what to take every year, and what was expected of her, kept her from packing until the last second. That and the fact that she worked hard at Princeton, was constantly available to her students, and hated thinking about clothes, particularly in the rarefied world his mother lived in. It was on another planet from their comfortable, easy life. She loved the way they lived, even if their house in Princeton was beaten up and old. It suited them. Most of all, it suited her.

  Because he had grown up in it, John was able to travel in his mother’s lofty circles, and was just as happy in their bohemian academic life. Sarah had never set foot in that other world until she’d married John. Her parents were academics, and so were all their friends. She couldn’t remember seeing her father in a tie, and her mother wore Birkenstocks when they went out. So did Sarah usually, but she knew the kind of effort she’d have to make for Olivia. It used to traumatize her, and she’d been terrified she’d make some terrible social faux pas, or use the wrong fork at his mother’s elegant dinner table. Now she knew John didn’t care and loved her no matter what.

  Olivia had been brought up with the niceties of life even when they’d been poor. Her
mother had inherited beautiful silver and china from her family, even though they’d lost their money. Sarah knew nothing about that world. And John was intelligent, gentle, and charming wherever he went. Sarah had fallen in love with him instantly when they met in college. She had no idea who he was, or the enormity of the wealth he came from. He was a simple, unpretentious, down-to-earth person and kind to everyone, rich or poor. Unlike his brother, Phillip, who Sarah thought was a snob. Their mother wasn’t, but she was so powerful and successful that the world was at her feet. It had been heady stuff to absorb, and Sarah had to exist in that world with him only once a year, on the summer vacations, or once in a great while for dinner, at Olivia’s Bedford home. But fortunately, she rarely entertained and was gone most of the time. All Sarah cared about was that John’s fortune provided them security, that they would never lose their house, and that Alex would be fine when he grew up. The rest was gravy as far as she was concerned. And she needed very little gravy in her life. She loved her husband, though not his world.

  “I get neurotic every time I have to pack for these trips,” she confessed, but he knew it anyway.

  “You’re gorgeous and I love you,” he said, turning around to kiss her. They held each other for a long moment, and Sarah sighed. Life with John was pure bliss. “I don’t care what you wear. And neither does my mother. She just wants us all to have fun. I think it’s going to be great this year.” He and Alex were excited about the boat, even if it sounded daunting to her. At least at the châteaux her mother-in-law had rented, there was history to think about. The yacht was all about money, and a lot showier than what Sarah would have liked.

  “You just want to go fishing with your brother,” she said, and John grinned and looked like a kid. He still seemed like a student to her, and not a forty-one-year-old man with an important job. He was totally unassuming and very handsome. And he thought she walked on water, and had a brilliant mind. She was an extremely intelligent woman, and she admitted to being an intellectual snob.