The Sins of the Mother (8 page)

“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.

“That’s true,” he agreed about the fishing. “Phillip and I talked about it this morning. We’re on the same plane to Nice, by the way.”

“I hope your mother put us in coach,” Sarah said with a worried expression as he put his paintings away carefully and turned off the studio lights. He would have to make the decision about which paintings to show when he got back. He didn’t have time tonight. “I hate it when she spends all that money on business.” And Sarah flatly refused to travel in first class. She said it was immoral, and she didn’t want Alex to pick up bad habits or forget what really mattered in the world.

“I think it’s pretty safe to assume she did business or first,” John said gently, trying to warn her. He knew his mother. She wasn’t going to send them in economy to France. She wanted them to be comfortable and well cared for all along the way. And then he laughed, thinking how different his wife was from Phillip’s. “I’ll bet Amanda is complaining that Mom didn’t charter a plane for us. She says it every year.”

“That’s insane,” Sarah said with a look of strong disapproval. But that was typical of Amanda. Sarah put up with her, but her sister-in-law managed to annoy her every year. “I wouldn’t take a private plane. Your mother should give that money to the poor.”

“Don’t worry, she does.” Sarah knew it, or she wouldn’t even have gone on the trip. The whole concept of spending that kind of money went totally against the grain with her. She couldn’t even imagine, and didn’t want to, what Olivia must have paid to charter the boat. The thought of it made her shudder.

They walked through the kitchen on the way back to their bedroom, and saw Alex and all his friends outside. More had dropped by, it was turning into a party, and there were half a dozen kids playing water polo in the pool. She stepped outside the back door and reminded them not to play rough, and when she came back in, John was eating a slice of pizza, and she helped herself to one as well. That was going to be dinner, she still had to pack for her and Alex. She knew John would take care of himself.

“Stop worrying about them, they’re good kids,” he chided her, and she looked serious.

“I don’t want one of those good kids to get hurt. They play too rough. Every year some kid we know gets hurt in a pool. Not here, thank you very much.” She worried about their son, and everyone else. One of her students had become paralyzed in a pool accident the year before. It happened, and she didn’t want it happening to them.

“They’re just having fun.” Alex loved everything athletic and was on the swimming team at his school. He played soccer and lacrosse, had joined the basketball team, and was a natural athlete. At seventeen, he was still more into sports than girls, which in some ways was a relief to them. There had been no dramas, failed romances, or broken hearts. He just loved hanging out with his friends, and brought them home as often as he could. Sometimes there were a dozen of his friends, and half a dozen of her students, in their kitchen, sprawled across their living room, or barbecuing in the backyard. They ran a kid-friendly house. This was the life they chose to live.

When they got back to their bedroom, Sarah looked at the empty suitcases in dismay. She had no idea what to put in them—she never did. John laughed at her and pulled her down on the bed. He slid a hand under her T-shirt and fondled her full breasts. He loved her body and everything about her, and he gently started pulling off her jeans. She stopped him immediately and leaped off the bed to close and lock the door.

“There are kids in the house,” she reminded him, and he laughed.

“When aren’t there around here?” They had only managed to have one child, but other people’s children were underfoot all the time. John never came home to an empty house. It was full of life and laughter, and young people everywhere. It was the home he wished he’d had as a boy. Friendly and informal, with parents around most of the time.

As soon as she had locked their bedroom door, Sarah came back to the bed, and they began kissing in earnest and exploring each other’s bodies. Their clothes were off in a matter of minutes, John turned off the light, and they gave in to unbridled passion. It was a long time before they lay sated and panting, and clung to each other like survivors in a storm.