Chapter 3
With her usual determination and discipline, Halley finished the rough first draft of
her book three days before Thanksgiving. It had gone more smoothly than usual, which
always worried her and made her wonder if she had left something out, some vital piece
of a character’s history, some plot twist she’d written in the outline and had forgotten. It
happened sometimes, although she was meticulous with both the outline and the draft.
The books needed very little editing. They were very clean, even in first draft, which
wasn’t always the case with writers. Some were slapdash or careless, or panicked and
anxious and needed a lot of help. Halley felt confident and sure of herself when she
wrote. And after she finished the first draft, she corrected it diligently in a second draft.
She had organized Thanksgiving very thoroughly weeks before, in anticipation of
starting the book, but she still had some last details to take care of. The day after she
finished writing, before she even read the draft, she went out and bought what she was
still missing for dinner. She ordered all the pies they loved, mince, pumpkin, apple, and
pecan. She got heavy cream to whip to put on top of them, and vanilla ice cream. She
had everything she needed for the three kinds of stuffing, sausage, chestnut, and plain.
She’d ordered the turkey a month before, got all the vegetables, and cranberry jelly. She
was going to serve good French white wine, and she had already ordered caviar and all
the trimmings for the first course. None of it was complicated to cook, which allowed
her to shine the one time a year she prepared a real meal for them. The girls always said
it was their favorite, and Seth had never had her cooking before.
The rest of her purchases were delivered on Wednesday morning. She set the table
with beautiful linens, crystal, and china, and the silver flatware she and Robert had
bought at the silver vaults in London. They had loved doing things like that.
She was wearing gray slacks and a white cashmere sweater when the doorbell rang
at six o’clock. She knew they had landed on time. Valerie had texted her from the car.
They were staying until Sunday, Valerie and Seth in the guest room, and Olivia in the
twins’ bedroom they had grown up in, still full of their mementos and treasures, and
photographs of them as teenagers and at college.
When Halley opened the door to them, all three were smiling and laughing. Seth had
just told them a funny story about their Labrador eating the turkey on Thanksgiving
morning when he and his brother were boys. They’d had Big Macs for dinner, which
he’d preferred. They’d been born and raised in Pasadena, and various parts of L.A.
Their father was a famous game show host, frequently married, and never an attentive
father. And his mother had married several times too. Holidays and family gatherings
were always fraught with tension and disappointment. So Seth was looking forward to a
real traditional Thanksgiving with his new family.
Seth had TV in his blood. His brother, Peter, was a tax lawyer, and had several bigname
stars among his clients. Olivia had been paired with him at the wedding, since he
was Seth’s best man and she was the maid of honor. Peter was six years younger than
Seth. They had both gone to UC Berkeley and Peter had stayed for law school.
He had spent the entire evening of the wedding flirting with one of the bridesmaids,
and they had left together. Olivia wasn’t too impressed, although he was handsome, and
very bright. He was obviously a player, like his father. Seth was good-looking too,
although more serious and reserved, the responsible older brother in a fatherly role.
Peter had always been the wild one, and still was. He was divorced, and had two young
daughters. He had shown Olivia pictures of them on his phone. They were four and six
years old, a redhead and a brunette. He said he had them on weekends. He’d been
married for five years, and divorced for almost two. His ex-wife was an actress with a
part on a daytime soap opera, and was getting remarried to one of her co-stars. Olivia
felt as though she knew everything about Peter, as he took off to the dance floor with the
bridesmaid of his choice. Olivia wasn’t attracted to him, and he wasn’t interested in
her. “Too serious, too arty,” he whispered to Seth, when his brother told him to dance
with her. The other girl was much more fun, and had huge implants. She was almost
falling out of her dress. Olivia had the same perfect figure as the bride in the elegant
beige lace dress.
When Seth and the twins walked into Halley’s living room, after they took off their
coats, they all looked related. Seth was as blond as Valerie and Olivia. He was tall and
handsome and had a faint air of Hollywood about him. Halley noticed that he was
wearing matte black alligator loafers she recognized as Hermès, jeans, and a blazer. He
had arrived in a down coat, and so had the girls. It was freezing and had already
snowed twice in New York, and it was bitter cold the day they landed. It felt like
Christmas. It was cozy inside the apartment despite the weather and Halley poured them
all champagne, after Seth opened the bottle for her.
“It’s nice having a man around the house,” Halley said when she thanked him, and
Valerie laughed.
“Don’t be fooled, Mom,” Valerie informed her, “he’s already told me he doesn’t do
house repairs. He won’t even change a light bulb.”
“I hope you’ll carve the turkey. I make a mess of it,” Halley said to him, and then
toasted the newlyweds. They looked happy and relaxed, and Halley noticed that Olivia
had paint on her hands. She usually did, and on her clothes. “Working on a new
painting?” she asked her. Olivia was the younger twin by four minutes, as Valerie
always reminded her.
“I’m doing a triptych,” Olivia answered proudly. “The panels are six feet tall, it’s a
commission for a huge house in Malibu. The gallery is really busy,” she said happily.
Halley went to turn on the lights in the kitchen, and light the candles. She had set a
pretty table. The elegantly set table in the dining room was for the next day. The girls
liked dinner in the dining room for special occasions, but they preferred the kitchen. It
was cozier and warmer.
They had fresh crab for dinner, which was one of the girls’ favorite meals, Halley
liked to spoil them when they came home, like with the caviar she’d ordered for the next
day. It had just been delivered before the twins and Seth arrived. Everything else was
there for her to fix the next day. She had everything organized, as always.
Over their champagne, Valerie told her mother about the movie she’d watched on
the plane and said she would love it. It was about a woman who took in a homeless boy
who was later alleged to be a murderer. He told the court that an intruder had killed his
parents. He was then accused of murder, and a famous lawyer took his defense, and it
turned out that the father’s girlfriend had killed the parents. The boy knew about her, but
didn’t tell anyone that his father had had a girlfriend. He was afraid his father would
kill him if he did. The girlfriend was arrested for murder at the end.
“Movies like that make me anxious,” Halley said.
“Me too,” Olivia said. “I watched The Sound of Music again on the plane and fell
asleep.” Halley smiled. It was so nice having them home. The casual banter continued
over dinner. Seth and Valerie talked about their honeymoon in Italy, and how incredible
Venice had been. They’d both been there before, but it was even more special on a
honeymoon. They had stayed at the Cipriani, and had wandered all over Venice, visiting
little churches and artisanal shops. And in Portofino they stayed at the Splendido. The
beautiful warm fall weather had held up until they left. It was a time they would never
forget. And it touched Halley to see how happy they were together.
—
It was a warm, cozy meal in the kitchen. Seth loved being with all three of them.
Although there was no father present, they felt like a real family. His own parents had
been so dysfunctional when he and Peter were growing up, too often married and more
interested in themselves than their boys. Seth and Peter got along with their mother now,
but their childhood memories weren’t pleasant. Both parents had remarried and
divorced several times, in true Hollywood style, and as a result, the holidays had been a
nightmare, with Seth and Peter being pulled between warring parents and dividing their
time, with stepparents who were inhospitable to them, and with stepsiblings they barely
knew. The Parkers were a poor role model for their sons’ relationships later on. Both
Seth and Peter had been divorced. And Peter was making up for lost time, casually
dating many women.
There was a peaceful atmosphere in Halley’s home, where Seth felt warmly
welcomed, and it was obvious that the twins had grown up with a mother who loved
them profoundly, even though Valerie said a little too much so. She liked living in
California now, with Olivia nearby and some breathing room from their mother, except
when they wanted to see her and went to New York to do so. Olivia missed her more
than Valerie did, but she was living alone. Valerie had Seth to be with.
Olivia hadn’t dated in the nearly two months she’d lived there. She was too busy
painting, and hadn’t explored the art scene yet, or met other artists. She was planning to
do that after Christmas. She had promised Valerie she would. She worried about Olivia
being alone, and she and Seth were out a lot, for his business, and her own, although
they spent most weekends with Olivia.
They had coffee in the living room, and Halley retired to her room. She wanted to
give them space to be together. They opened another bottle of wine, and went to their
rooms at midnight. The girls were going to help Halley cook the Thanksgiving meal, as
was their tradition.
The apartment smelled delicious the next day. They convened for champagne at six
o’clock. They were going to sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner at seven-thirty, after
Seth carved the turkey. He did a masterful job of it, although he said he’d never done it
before, but he enjoyed cooking, unlike his wife and her twin. Neither of them was
particularly domestic, and both were more interested in their chosen professions. Their
mother wasn’t a great cook either. It was a family trait.
Seth had watched while Halley made the stuffing, and he and the girls helped her
cook the vegetables. He made the whipped cream for dessert while Halley basted the
turkey.
“I love being here,” he said happily, and gave his mother-in-law a warm hug. They
all went to dress for dinner then, and met for caviar in the living room just before
dinner. Halley served it with both blini and small triangles of toast, with finely chopped
egg and sour cream, and lemon wedges on the side. “You run a very fine restaurant,
Mrs. Holbrook,” Seth complimented her with another hug. He was a warm person, and
grateful to be there.
“My kitchen is like Brigadoon,” Halley said, smiling at him. “It only appears once a
year, on Thanksgiving.” And they all laughed. The dinner was as delicious as it had
smelled all day while it was cooking. The table and the meal looked like a
Thanksgiving spread in a magazine.
Seth had a small slice of each of the pies, smothered in the whipped cream he had
made himself. The girls only had one kind of pie each. Olivia ate her favorite, pumpkin,
and Valerie pecan. Halley had apple pie with vanilla ice cream, and they were all quiet
and sated at the end of the meal, when Halley brought out a bottle of Château d’Yquem,
a sweet Sauterne wine, which was like mixing liquid gold with candy. It was Halley’s
favorite, and she poured a small glass for each of them. It was the perfect end to the
meal.
They put the dishes in the kitchen to deal with the next day. Seth said it was the best
Thanksgiving he’d ever had, and it was Valerie’s too, since he was there and they were
married now. While they recovered from the meal they’d eaten, they watched a movie,
and went to their rooms at midnight.
Halley lay in bed, thinking about the day. She was soaking up the joy of having them
home again, and excited to know that they’d be back in a month for Christmas. She had a
book to write after the holidays, and she was planning to go to California in early
March and stay for a few weeks when Olivia had her show. She loved staying in the
bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel and hadn’t been there in years, not since she’d
gone there with Robert.
She fell asleep making Christmas plans in her head, and drifted off with a smile. It
had been a perfect Thanksgiving, and Seth was an excellent addition.
—
Halley got to the kitchen early and made order from chaos before the others got up.
Seth came in before the twins and she poured him a cup of coffee. He was impressed
when he saw how clean and tidy everything was.
“You should have told me. I would have helped you.” He looked as though he meant
it. He was a successful man with a big job, but he wasn’t above helping her, which
touched her.
“It was easy,” she said, and sat down at the kitchen table with him, with an
espresso, and Olivia walked in.
“Hi, baby,” Seth said, smiling at his wife, and Olivia laughed at him. She loved it
when that happened.
“Wrong baby. Your wife is still sound asleep.” He looked startled and then grinned.
“I always think I can tell the difference and then the two of you fool me. So are we
going skating today?” he asked her. She was wearing a heavy pale blue ski sweater and
jeans, her hair in a braid down her back. Seth’s hair was the same color as theirs, but
his eyes were blue instead of green.
“I hope so, if you can get your wife out of bed. Do you want to come with us,
Mom?” Olivia asked her casually, helping herself to a cup of tea.
“I think I’ll stay home, I have work to do. And if I break a wrist, I won’t meet my
deadline for the first draft of my January book.” Halley was a good skater, and had
always gone with them when they were children. She had learned when she was at
Connecticut College, and had loved it. She’d never had the chance to do things like that
when she was a child, or in the orphanage. It would never have occurred to her parents
to take her skating or do something fun with her. There had been no joy in her childhood,
only pain.
Valerie walked into the kitchen then, also in a pale blue sweater. They often did that,
showed up in the same colors, without having checked with each other before. Olivia
always said it was some kind of weird twin telepathy. Halley had dressed them
identically when they were little, for as long as they had been willing to put up with it.
Valerie was the first to object. Olivia had liked it.
The skating party left the apartment a little while later, for the rink in Central Park,
and Halley sat down at her desk to check her emails. There were two from her
publisher, one about ads they were placing on social media for her next book, and the
other offering her a choice of cover designs. She liked keeping track of all the different
facets of publishing.
Halley dressed before they came home. They had dates to meet friends that
afternoon, and were going to dinner on their own that night. They were planning to go to
the Museum of Modern Art on Saturday, and invited Halley to go with them.
They all enjoyed the exhibit, wandered around the museum afterward, and walked
back on Fifth Avenue.
Halley made hot chocolate when they returned. They were having dinner at home
that night, since Seth and the twins were leaving for California in the morning. The days
had flown since they arrived, but had been perfect.
Seth noticed the photographs of Robert in the living room and asked Valerie about
him. She said he was their unofficial stepfather growing up, and explained what had
happened to him. Valerie had mentioned him before, but he had never seen pictures of
him. He was a handsome man and Halley looked blissfully happy with his arm around
her.
“She must miss him,” Seth said, sad for her. “She’s young to be alone.” She was
only ten years older than he was. Seth was twelve years older than Valerie and closer in
age to her mother. “Maybe she’ll meet someone now that you girls are out of the house
in California,” Seth said. He thought Halley was a lovely woman and as beautiful as her
daughters.
“I don’t think she wants to. She was madly in love with Robert. I don’t think anyone
else would measure up to the reality, or her memories of him.”
“You never know,” he said thoughtfully. “I didn’t expect to meet you, and then you
walked into my life.” He had been determined not to marry again, until he met Valerie.
They were wonderfully well suited to each other.
Valerie smiled at the memory too. “But I didn’t have much to live up to.” Seth’s first
marriage had been a bad experience, and he had no pleasant memories of his ex-wife.
She wasn’t an evil woman, it just wasn’t a match. They had split up after two years and
she moved to London. She had been cold and inattentive, a competitive and ambitious
network executive. The marriage had ended five years before. They hadn’t spoken
since. He had found her intelligence seductive, but she had been unpleasant and critical
once they were married. His brother called her the Ice Queen. And his brother had fared
no better, married to a narcissistic young actress. Both brothers had made poor choices
in their previous life partners. They’d had no role models for successful relationships
while they were growing up. But Seth could tell that Valerie and Olivia did, with a
loving mother. Their own mother had been constantly distracted and absent.
“What were your mom’s parents like?” Seth asked Valerie, curious about them. He
guessed that they were loving people because she was. She never talked about them,
and he only knew they were dead now.
“I never met them. My mom’s grandparents died in France before her mother came
to America. And her mother died when she was eight. She’s never said why. Her father
died when she was fourteen. Her childhood is kind of a taboo subject, she doesn’t talk
about it,” she whispered so Halley didn’t hear her. “She never talked about it when we
were kids, and still doesn’t. She’s a very private person.”
“What happened to her then?” he asked, curious about the woman who was visibly
so crazy about her daughters, and so warm and welcoming to him. She was such a
dedicated mother that he could easily imagine her coming from a loving home. “Did she
live with relatives?”
“No. She spent four years in a state orphanage in New York. That I do know, but she
never talks about that either. And she was on her own after that. Her father and his
family had left her some money. She went to Connecticut College and then she met our
father and had us. That’s about all I know. I don’t think she had a happy childhood. In
fact, I think it’s safe to assume she didn’t, or she would talk about it. She never mentions
her parents, and changes the subject when we do.”
“She’s such a warm, loving person.”
Valerie nodded, thoughtful. “I felt smothered by her when I was a kid, in my teens.
Olivia didn’t mind it. I did. She’s all right now, though. We’re the only family she has.
That’s a heavy weight for a kid to carry sometimes,” she said, and Seth nodded, thinking
about his own family, which had been so dispersed and disrupted every time his parents
got divorced and married someone else. His mother had finally settled down and had
been married to the same man for ten years. But Seth and Peter’s childhood had been a
mess.
“I always felt like I had no family, because everything changed all the time,” he
said. “New stepparents, boyfriends, girlfriends, stepsiblings. I couldn’t figure out who
they were half the time, and I didn’t want to. Every time I got to know them, they all
split up again. All I wanted was to get the hell out as fast as I could, and never see any
of them again.” She knew that his mother lived in Palm Springs with her latest husband,
whom Seth described as “nice enough.” And his father lived in Mexico with a woman
he’d married, and Seth hadn’t seen him in five years. “Families scare me, or families
like mine anyway. Your mother created a real family with the two of you. My brother
thinks the way we grew up was funny. I never did. But he had me as a constant in his life
that he could rely on. And he’s actually a good father to his own kids, in spite of the
craziness we grew up with. The woman he married is ridiculous. She’s an actress and
only cares about herself.”
Halley walked into the room then, and they made dinner together. Seth made a big
bowl of pasta carbonara, from a recipe he’d gotten in Milan, which was delicious.
Halley made a salad, and they put some of the leftover turkey and stuffing on the table, it
was a relaxed, wonderful meal.
They were eating some of the leftover pie when Seth said something in passing
about a boat and St. Bart’s, and all three women looked at him.
“You got the boat?” Valerie asked him. “You didn’t tell me.”
“They texted me yesterday, and I forgot. I had the bank wire them the money, so it’s
secure,” he said, looking pleased, as Valerie glanced at Olivia, who knew nothing about
it. “I’ve chartered a very handsome yacht in the Caribbean over Christmas and New
Year’s. And you’re all welcome, of course,” he said generously, looking thrilled.
“We’re meeting it in St. Bart’s. It has six cabins, and we want you all to come. The four
of us, plus my brother, and I thought I should invite my mother and her husband. We
never go to Palm Springs to see her.” Halley looked paralyzed as he said it, and didn’t
say anything. “That leaves us one extra cabin. We could even take a friend.”
“My mother gets violently seasick just looking at boats,” Valerie explained in a
choked voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He frowned at his wife.
“Because you said you didn’t get it, so it didn’t matter. You were on a waiting list.”
“The two groups ahead of us dropped out. So I’ve chartered it now.” He looked at
Halley, who was smiling bravely, determined to be a good sport.
“It sounds like a fabulous opportunity,” she said kindly. “I don’t want to ruin the trip
for you. I’d be sick the whole time. Robert and I took a cruise once. I was sick the entire
time, either seasick or nearly comatose on medicine. We flew home after three days.”
“I feel terrible,” he said, as a pall settled over the table. “Are you sure?”
She nodded vehemently. “I promise. I’ll be fine here. And it will be nice for you to
be with your mother and brother. You should have time with your family too,” she said
fairly. “That’s what married people do.”
“What would you do, Mom, if we’re away for Christmas?” Olivia asked her, upset.
“I still have the second draft of the new book to do. It’s due in January. I can work
through the holidays, and have it ready early. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She sounded
cheerful about it, but Olivia knew her better, and hated to leave her alone, but the trip on
a yacht in the Caribbean sounded incredible.
“Would you want to stay at a hotel in St. Bart’s, while we cruise around? I was
thinking we could visit various islands. But at least you’d have the hotel and the beach,”
Seth said. It sounded even lonelier to her, in a strange place, alone at a hotel for
Christmas, worse than being at home by herself. But she’d been counting on spending
Christmas with them, just like Thanksgiving. It hadn’t occurred to her, or the twins, that
they might go away. It was costing Seth a fortune to charter a two-hundred-and-
fourteenfoot yacht, and he was committed now. Seth felt bad about leaving the twins’ mother, but
it was too late to back out, since he’d paid.
“How long do we have it for?” Valerie asked him.
“Two weeks.” At double the normal rate because of the holidays, which he didn’t
say. Halley was quiet for the rest of the meal, while trying not to look upset, and Valerie
came to Olivia’s room to talk about it while Seth got ready for bed.
“What do you think we should do?” Valerie asked her. “The charter costs a fortune,
and he’s committed now. We can’t cancel. I know Mom won’t come. Do you think she’ll
be okay here?”
“Okay, yes. Happy, no. That’s really sad for her, to be alone for Christmas. Why
didn’t you say something when he told you about it?” Olivia asked her, annoyed.
“Because he talks about stuff like that all the time, safaris in Africa, swimming with
the whales, the Galapagos, China, Japan, Turkey. Most of it never happens. And we
were third on the waiting list. He said it would never get to us.”
“But it just did,” Olivia said grimly. Valerie didn’t want to upset Seth, her new
husband, but instead, they were abandoning their mother for the holidays. Olivia felt
awful. “Maybe I should stay here with her, and you go with Seth and your in-laws.
That’s what people do when they get married.” Olivia looked very unhappy, but
couldn’t see any other way.
“He never takes his mother anywhere, and I know he was thinking it would be nice
for her. They’re not close, and he feels guilty he doesn’t see her more often. And I want
you to come with us. He showed me a brochure of the yacht, and it’s incredible. You
have to come, Ollie.” Valerie hardly ever called her that except when she really wanted
something. “We’ll make it up to her,” Valerie said, feeling torn between her mother and
her husband, and it was an enormous amount of money for him to spend for their
entertainment. “Seth’s brother will come. You’ll have fun,” Valerie promised.
“He didn’t say ten words to me at your wedding, he was so busy chasing your
bridesmaids.”
“He’s getting over his divorce. He wasn’t like that before. He’s really a nice guy. I
can’t go without you,” Valerie said. “Mom will understand. She always does. She’s an
adult. She’ll figure out something. You heard her, she said she wants us to go, it’s a
fabulous opportunity.”
“She said that because she’s a good person and she loves us and wants us to have a
good time. This will be awful for her, alone on Christmas, if we go.”
“She’s not a hundred years old,” Valerie answered. “She’s turning fifty, not ninety.
And if she works on her book, she won’t even know what time of year it is.”
“She’s not senile, for heaven’s sake. Everyone knows when Christmas is,” Olivia
said tartly, annoyed at her sister.
“Not when she’s writing. She always asks me what day it is, sometimes what month,
when she’s deep in a book.” They both knew that was true, but this was different.
“I feel like a terrible person,” Olivia said. “I want to go,” she admitted, “but I don’t
want to leave her alone.”
“She can see friends. We’re not leaving her alone in a strange city. She lives here.”
“And her friends go away every year, to their families somewhere else, or their
country houses. She never has friends here over the holidays. She just has us,” Olivia
reminded her, and they both knew it was true.
“I can’t get out of it. I’ll have to go now that he’s paid for it. And I want you to come
with us.”
“I need to think about it, and talk to Mom,” Olivia said, looking tormented. They
were flying back to California in the morning. There was no time left to talk about it,
except by phone, which wasn’t the same. They couldn’t see their mother’s expression or
the pain in her eyes.
Valerie scurried down the hall to the guest room, where Seth was already in bed,
waiting for her. She wanted to talk to him about it, and ask his advice, but he got
amorous the moment she slipped into bed next to him.
“Thank you for a beautiful Thanksgiving,” he said to her. “The best one in my life,”
and then his words were forgotten when he kissed her, and they made love, and he was
asleep five minutes later. She felt sad for him. He had wanted to do something
wonderful for her, having her family and his own on a fabulous trip on a yacht, and
instead, it was turning into a crisis. And Valerie wanted her sister to come. It wouldn’t
be nearly as much fun without her. Nothing ever was.
—
In her own room, Halley was thinking about it. The prospect of not being with her
daughters for Christmas weighed like a stone on her heart. She didn’t want to deprive
them of an exceptional experience. Seth could do things for them that she could never
have done. The cost of a two-hundred-and-fourteen-foot yacht in the Caribbean for two
weeks was way out of her league. Only Seth could afford that, and she thought they
should go. But Christmas without them was going to be incredibly hard. It suddenly
reminded her of the orphanage, when she had no family, and her college years when
everyone went home for the holidays, and she had no home and no family to go to. She
had gone home with one of her friends once, and she had never felt more like an orphan,
an outsider, looking in through a window in a place where she didn’t belong with
people she barely knew. She had spent Christmas alone when she was pregnant with the
twins, but she was used to it then and she had something to look forward to. Once she
had them, she had never been alone for the holidays again, and she had always made it
wonderful for her girls. She loved spending Christmas with them. Christmas would be
meaningless without them.
Now she had come full circle. After twenty-seven years of celebrating the holidays
with her daughters, they had other plans, a golden opportunity, and she didn’t want to
keep them from it. After all these years, she was facing Christmas alone. The prospect
of it was harder than she could ever have imagined. But she felt she should be gracious
about their going. It seemed like the best gift she could give them this Christmas.
A twoweek trip on the fabulous yacht Seth had chartered in the Caribbean. How could she
cheat them out of that? She couldn’t. She had to let them go, and not let them know how
sad she was about it. It was a sacrifice she knew she had to make, out of love for them.
