The Sins of the Mother (7 page)

“Oh my God!” she said, and then sat down heavily at her desk to read quickly through the rest. It was more than a little overwhelming, but she knew Alex would be thrilled, and John probably would too. Their summer trips were fun but always harder for her. Her parents had been serious liberals and activists, her father had been a professor of biology at UC Berkeley, her mother had taught women’s studies when it had become popular as a subject. Her father had been one of the early supporters of the civil rights movement, and they knew that John had money, but they had never fully understood how much, or what it meant. Neither had she. Fortunately, she and John shared the same political views, and the same philosophies about life. They gave away most of John’s income every year, to philanthropic causes, and they wanted their son to have good values that were not based on personal wealth or a fascination with money.

They had chosen to live in a small house and spend their time in the academic community. Alex knew that his grandmother had money, but he had no sense of how wealthy she was, or that his father would inherit a fourth of her vast fortune one day, or that he already had a great deal of money. They were careful to see that none of it showed. John drove a Toyota for his commute into the city every day. Sarah drove an ancient Honda she had bought from a student for a thousand dollars, and when Alex wanted a mountain bike, they had made him get a job after school and pay for it himself. Sarah didn’t want their son corrupted by the more-than-daunting Grayson fortune. Their summer vacations were like trips to Disneyland for them, and for years Alex had been young enough not to make any connection between the rented châteaux and villas and what it cost to rent them. But the yacht Olivia had chartered and that Sarah was reading about in the e-mail was a different story. It would be hard to explain that to Alex. And as far as Sarah was concerned, Olivia should have been giving away the money to people who needed it, not spending it on them for a fancy Mediterranean vacation. The only thing that ever made her more comfortable was John’s assurance that The Factory donated vast sums every year to worthwhile causes. But clearly this year’s summer vacation had cost Olivia a fortune.

Sarah felt guilty just looking at the pictures of the boat and knowing they would be on it. She wished her mother-in-law had decided to do something more modest, but she knew how important these trips were to her, and that she wanted to provide only the best for her children and grandchildren. It was a well-meaning gesture, but Sarah disapproved anyway. She suspected her husband would enjoy it, and love the opportunity to go fishing and sailing with his brother. They were like two kids when they got together away from the office. And at forty-one, John still looked and acted like a boy to her.

Sarah had just turned forty. She had married right out of college. Their initial plan had been to join the Peace Corps together and go to South America, but she had gotten pregnant on their honeymoon, which changed everything. They’d gotten stuck in a small apartment in New York, and John’s mother had convinced him to get a master’s in design and, once he had a family to support, to join her in the business. He hadn’t had the heart to turn her down. And Sarah had eventually gone back to school too, first to get her master’s degree in Russian and European literature, and then her doctorate in American literature. She had been teaching at Princeton for ten years now, and the move to Princeton had been good for them, and they were happily folded back into the academic community. John still dreamed of giving up his job and becoming a full-time artist, but he said he couldn’t do that to his mother. So his dreams of being an artist had been put on a shelf, probably forever, and he had to be content with painting on weekends. He had shown his work several times at a local gallery, and in art shows at the university, where they exhibited work by professors or their spouses. He sold all his paintings every time. It validated him, but was bittersweet. His success at gallery shows always made him wish that he could give up his day job and devote all his time to painting.

Their ease at getting pregnant with Alex, earlier than planned, had led them both to hope that they would have many children. Sarah had wanted four or five, and the blessing of John’s money meant that they could allow that to happen, but an ectopic pregnancy two years after Alex changed all their plans and dashed their dreams. Even with the help of in vitro fertilization, Sarah had never been able to get pregnant again. They tried IVF five times before accepting defeat and conceding. It had been a painful disappointment, but Alex was a wonderful boy and the joy of their life. They had talked about adopting a child from Central or South America, but once they finished their studies, they were both deeply involved in their jobs, and in the end they decided that one child as terrific as Alex was enough for them. And like his cousins, Sophie and Carole, Alex had a wonderful rapport with his grandmother. He looked forward to their summer vacations, and he took the train into the city to have lunch with her from time to time. She had promised him a trip to China with her when he graduated from high school, and Alex talked about it all the time. And Sarah knew as she glanced through the e-mail that he would be ecstatic when he saw the boat his grandmother had chartered for their summer trip.

Sarah sighed as she pressed the reply button to answer. The boat was definitely over the top, and it made her feel guilty to share in such extreme luxury with them, but she also knew that it was going to delight her husband and son. She wrote a hasty note to Olivia, thanking her and assuring her they’d be there; she hit the send button, grabbed the books she’d come home to get for her next class, rushed past the sleeping dog who wagged his tail again, and left the house. And as she walked into her class ten minutes later, the yacht she had just seen and would be traveling on in July was the farthest thing from her mind. All she cared about now was the class she was about to teach, her students, and the academic life she loved. And just as they did every year, they would tell no one about the trip, particularly this year. No one they knew would understand. The world of super yachts, and cruises in the Mediterranean, was no part of their real life. As far as Sarah was concerned, that was Olivia’s life, not theirs.

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

A
manda 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 of aging prematurely, or being badly dressed.