Chapter 5
As usual, Halley’s estimate of her work was accurate. She had finished the first
draft of her new book just before Thanksgiving, and she completed the second draft,
making changes and corrections, at two in the morning on the same day that Seth,
Valerie, and Olivia flew to St. Bart’s to meet the boat. She was nervous for them, since
the last leg of the trip was on a tiny plane and there had been mishaps before. She didn’t
let herself think about that as she finished the second draft of the book, which filled her
mind, as it always did, to the exclusion of all else.
The girls had both been busy in L.A., getting ready for their trip. Halley had talked
to them several times, and they were looking forward to it. And Halley’s trip to Paris
was set. The realtor had found her a gem of a small house in the 7th arrondissement. It
was available for three months, but she only took it for two weeks. The owners were
going to their home in Marrakesh for several months.
She had a vague thought in the back of her mind that if she was having a great time,
she might stay longer, since the house was available. She was keeping it open-ended.
She had nothing to rush back for, since the girls were flying straight back to L.A. and not
stopping in New York. The trip to Paris, and finishing the book, were keeping her from
thinking too much about being alone on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which hadn’t
happened in twenty-seven years, since the twins were born.
Finishing a draft of a book was always like returning from a trip. She let mail pile
up when she was working, checked her messages once a day when she finished writing,
and answered only those that were urgent and couldn’t wait. She cleared her desk
before she started a book, and tried to focus on nothing but writing while it was in
progress. As soon as she finished a draft, she caught up on everything, as though
returning from another world.
She did that the night she finished, before she went to bed. Real time didn’t matter to
her when she was writing. She would keep at it until she found the right time and place
to take a break for a few hours to get some sleep. Sometimes she didn’t stop until the
sun came up, or didn’t go to bed at all if she was too wide-awake to sleep in broad
daylight. And sometimes, she worked straight through for another day, and then crashed
for a longer stretch. Her nights, while she was working, were more like naps. And when
the book was finished, in whichever draft, first, second, or final, she caught up on
everything, including sleep, and sometimes slept for ten or eleven hours after she wrote
the last page.
The night she finished, she checked her messages and mail. There was nothing
pressing, invitations to a few Christmas parties she hadn’t gone to and didn’t care if she
missed, Christmas cards from old friends or people she barely remembered, or had
never known well. There was a message from her publisher with text proof schedules,
and marketing plans for her next book, which was due out before the one she was
working on. She had finished that one almost a year ago. She kept up a steady pace with
her writing. The one she was working on now was due out next fall. She dealt with it all
in a few hours and went to bed late, hoping the twins and Seth had arrived safely at the
boat. She had a text the next morning from Olivia, assuring her they had, and Halley was
relieved. Olivia had included a photo of the yacht, taken from the dock. It looked
incredible. They promised to call her soon and she knew they would.
She had a lot to do that day. It was four days before Christmas, and she hadn’t
bothered to order a Christmas tree for the first time, since the girls wouldn’t be there to
see it, and she would only have it for five days before she left. It didn’t seem worth it.
She had sent her gifts for them to L.A. before they left, and they were taking them to the
boat with them. She spent several hours picking up things she needed for her trip, all
practical and nothing related to Christmas. The holiday had become a nonevent for her
this year, without her girls.
She walked past a florist shop that afternoon, stopped to look at the displays in the
window, and bought a small tabletop Christmas tree that would look pretty in her living
room, and that she could save until next year, since it was artificial, but looked real. It
was small and elegant with silver and gold decorations and sparkling lights, and she put
it in her living room when she got home.
She had to hurry to dress after that. She hadn’t been sure she would make it that
night, but since she’d finished the book, she wanted to go. It was the one Christmas
party that was important to her, at the shelter for abused women and children where she
volunteered. She knew many of them well. She tried to get there once or twice a month.
It was run along the same lines as Alcoholics Anonymous, with total anonymity. None of
the women she spoke to knew her last name, and she didn’t know theirs. They were
women who had had the same violent experiences, currently or in their youth. Many of
them had been abused as children, and had partnered with men of the only kind they
knew. Their men were as violent as their fathers had been, and it had taken every ounce
of courage they had to leave them.
It had been hard for Halley to accept at first, but many of them went back, even
several times, until they were finally able to extricate themselves for good. Some, even
many, never did. Some of the women she had met repeatedly had been killed. The
statistics were horrifying as to how many violent, abusive men made good on their
threats and eventually murdered their partners. It was a fact Halley had to accept,
volunteering with them. She never gave up when she met women returning to the shelter
for the seventh or eighth time. The hope was always that this would be the last time
they’d gone back, and they wouldn’t be pulled back in again. The uninitiated who had
never experienced abuse had the uninformed view that the women must like it, or feel
they deserved it, when in fact they went back wanting to prove to their abusers that they
were good people, after countless accusations of how “bad” they were, or they returned
to their partners naively willing to believe empty promises that things would improve,
which they never did. In many cases, the more violent the men, the more convincing
their remorse afterward, until they did it again. It was only a question of when the
women would finally give up and have the courage to leave. It took some longer than
others to get there. What usually broke the chain of abuse was when their children were
abused, and they fled with their kids to protect them.
Halley had never experienced the violent physical abuse of men, only subtler forms
of sexual abuse, perpetrated on a child with no one to protect her, but there were others
like her, many of them children and teenagers who had been violently abused by their
mothers, which was sometimes hard to believe. Halley knew it well, and she spent most
of her time with them. There was always the disbelief to get through that the person they
trusted most and who should have protected them was the most dangerous person in
their life, as her mother had been for her. Many of their mothers were already in jail for
their crimes or had abandoned them, as Halley’s mother had at a much higher social
level, which should have made it more incredible but didn’t to Halley. The children she
met with usually wound up in foster care. The system was far more aware of abusive
mothers than they had been in her day. They had developed immeasurably since those
days, and emergency room medical personnel and police were trained to spot the
victims, who almost never denounced their abusers, and protected them. The children
were far more loyal than their parents and also justifiably afraid of reprisals.
Sabine had committed her abuse entirely below the radar, and benefited from the
ignorance of the day, and the dignity of her husband’s distinguished name.
Halley put on jeans, red sneakers, a festive red sweater, and a warm down coat, and
took a subway to Charles Barton House, the shelter on the West Side, where she was a
familiar sight and they knew her well. The woman who ran it knew who she was, but no
one else did, and no one had recognized her in the ten years she’d been volunteering
there. The twins were in high school when she started volunteering at the facility, and
she never mentioned it to them. They thought it was her “night out with the girls,” a
small circle of her women friends. She often came home with a heavy heart, and was
quiet the next morning at breakfast, but they were busy with their own teenage lives and
never questioned it. It was an isolated part of her life she chose not to share. She had
told Robert about it, and he respected her desire for privacy and only discussed it with
her when she brought it up, if she was particularly troubled by a child she’d seen, or an
outcome, if one of the shelter’s adult clients was killed, or even worse, a child. They
had lost several in the past ten years, killed by either one of their parents, or a
boyfriend, or someone in their severely damaged lives.
The ones who did survive and recover from the trauma had a remarkable endurance
and indomitable spirit that seemingly nothing could break. Halley had seen cases like
that, which sometimes reminded her of herself. It was hard to know why some children
survived and others didn’t. Many of them turned to drugs in their teenage years, with
disastrous results, but some survived whole, and surprisingly solid, like flowers that
had grown strong and beautiful in the ashes of war, and which nothing could destroy.
They were the lucky ones, protected by some blessing from the universe. Halley knew
she had been one of those. All she wanted was to steal the more vulnerable ones from
the jaws of death.
She walked two blocks when she got out of the subway, and went up the chipped
steps of the shelter. It was an old brownstone that had been donated and hadn’t been
renovated yet. They had room for twenty women and children to live there, and others
came for the day, or as outpatients for counseling and therapy. It was entirely supported
by private donations and benefactors, and Halley was a major donor.
The house had been an elegant home at the turn of the twentieth century, but had long
been in poor condition. It had been rescued and donated by one of their benefactors. The
house had come to life again in what was now a slowly gentrifying neighborhood, with
most of the old homes turned into apartments for middle-class families. The
neighborhood was finally safe again, and the interior of the building had benefited from
fresh paint and donated furniture. It had a shabby look to it, but the atmosphere was
warm and inviting. There was a Christmas tree in the front hall, laden with decorations
the children had made, and there were raucous sounds of shouts and laughter and
Christmas carols coming from the living room, and the smell of homemade cookies from
the kitchen.
Halley saw countless familiar faces as she walked into the living room, and several
of the children ran up to put their arms around her and shouted her name when they saw
her. She had three of them in her arms at once within minutes, and they showed her the
Christmas cookies they’d made that afternoon. She smiled as her eyes met their
mothers’, and the children who had no mother there were even happier to see her. They
clung to her like barnacles, and she needed ten arms to hug them all. She had donated an
amount to pay for Christmas toys for each of them, and gift certificates for the mothers to
buy whatever they needed, and she had paid for the party. She knew that she was by no
means the largest donor, and that others had done as much, on an ongoing basis
throughout the year, as she did. The children constantly needed clothes and school
supplies and everything practical. They attended a public school nearby if they lived in
the house for thirty days and intended to stay. A few were placed there by the courts,
arranged by social workers who knew about the shelter, but it was a small private
operation, which was what Halley liked about it. It had a family atmosphere and had
remained personal.
Charles Barton House had been in existence for seventeen years, and had some
notable successes, particularly with the children. There was more hope for a subsequent
good life for them than for their mothers. The children were more resilient, and hadn’t
become addicted to abuse, which often happened to the women. The goal at the shelter
was to break the cycle that kept the women trapped in abusive relationships forever.
The shelter’s greatest success story was a teenage girl who had been a resident in its
first few years of existence, had been an outstanding student, had gone to college and
medical school on scholarships, became a child psychiatrist, and saw the current
residents pro bono whenever possible. Halley had met her and she was an extraordinary
young woman. She was blind in one eye, from bleach her mother had thrown at her, and
had scars on her face and body.
Halley chatted with the counselors and some of the women, played with the
children, and was one of the last to leave. She left, as she always did, with a warm
feeling, and promising to come back soon. It was the real meaning of Christmas for her,
and one of the things that gave her life as much substance as her writing. It was part of
her life she didn’t discuss with anyone, not even her children. She would have had to
explain to them why she cared so much about it, and she didn’t want to. She had never
shared the details of her early life with them. She took a taxi home wearing an arm full
of the friendship bracelets the children had made for her, and a necklace of macaroni
and wooden beads. She carefully put them in a box of treasures they made for her.
And the next day she started packing for her trip.
—
The girls called her from the boat. They were still in St. Bart’s and were planning to
stay there until Christmas, and would then set sail for Pinel on St. Martin’s, a rugged
part of that island with no electricity. Seth had planned their route with the captain. He
was Australian and the crew of eighteen was mostly from England and New Zealand,
according to the broker. They were known to be one of the most accommodating,
popular crews for charters, and did everything possible to make the guests comfortable
and keep them happy. And the boat was one of the most beautiful available for charter.
After they talked to their mother, Valerie and Olivia went to lie on sunbeds on the
upper deck. The others were still having a gargantuan breakfast in an outdoor dining
area on the rear deck, served by three stewards, a man and two women.
The two girls looked at each other as they lay down, and Olivia laughed at her twin.
“You are going to get so damn spoiled, you’re going to be unbearable,” Olivia said
to her sister. “You already were, and this is going to make you even worse.”
Valerie grinned and nodded. “Yeah, I know. Seth is very good to me.” She was
grateful for it and didn’t take it for granted.
“Good to you? He spoils you rotten. You don’t deserve it, but I’m happy for you.
His mother is nice, by the way.” Olivia had talked to Katherine at dinner the night
before, sitting next to her. She wasn’t an exciting person, but she seemed like a decent
woman, even if Seth said she had never been an attentive mother. And she seemed
somewhat ill at ease in his extravagant life. Her husband had sold insurance and was
retired, and she was in real estate in Palm Springs. They were ordinary people. As a
game show host, Seth’s father had been a big step up for Katherine. She had been young
and pretty then. Of the three husbands she’d had since, her current one was the nicest,
though also not an exciting person.
Katherine enjoyed talking to Olivia, half the time she was confused and thought she
was talking to her daughter-in-law. Olivia finally stopped correcting her. It didn’t
matter. At least someone was talking to her. Katherine’s husband, Frank, was playing
liar’s dice with two of the other guests. The atmosphere among all of them was relaxed
and easy, although the group was very mixed in both age and lifestyle. Seth and Valerie
had an eclectic, varied group of friends. One of the couples they’d invited, Ted and
Marie, were lawyers at Valerie’s firm. And the other, Jaclyn and Basil, were British,
worked in TV, and were friends of Seth’s. Basil was a sound technician, and Jaclyn was
a screenwriter. Everyone got along.
“Peter is nice too.” Valerie put in a good word for her brother-in-law. She wanted
Olivia to like him, and she knew she wasn’t impressed. He was less serious and more
extroverted than Seth. He was smart, had a good career as a tax lawyer, and had a sense
of humor. “What do you think?” Valerie asked her, and Olivia rolled her eyes at her
twin.
“Stop pushing. He’s fine. We have you and Seth in common, and that’s all, and we’ll
see each other at your kids’ birthdays and christenings. That’s enough.” Olivia could tell
Peter was a womanizer, and seeing him in action at the wedding had turned her off.
“His kids are adorable,” Valerie added as a selling point, and Olivia gave her a
shove.
“I’m sure they are. And so are the fifty women he met online in the last month. He’s
a player, Val. I’m sure he dates hot girls in L.A. I’m an artist, I don’t have breast
implants, I hardly ever wear makeup, and everything I own is covered in paint, except
what I bought for this trip. I’m not his style, and he’s not mine. But he’s perfectly good
company.”
“How do you know who is your style?” Valerie said, exasperated. “You never date.
All you do is paint.”
“I have a show in less than three months. And dating is too much work, and it seems
so fake. I get dressed up to go out and seduce somebody, and then they get the real me
and have to think I’m adorable in overalls covered in paint, with uncombed hair. I had
to buy a new hairbrush for the trip because I couldn’t even find mine. I think I threw it
out by mistake.”
“You need to make more effort,” Valerie said primly. She always looked
impeccable and killer chic. Olivia didn’t care what she wore.
“That’s probably true, but I’m perfectly happy the way I am.” The only time Olivia
made an effort to look decent was when she went out with Valerie and Seth.
“You’re going to wind up an old maid,” Valerie warned her, as Peter arrived on the
upper deck in a bathing suit with dolphins on it, ready to sunbathe, with the business
sections of The New York Times, the London Financial Times, and The Wall Street
Journal, and Olivia closed her eyes, lay in the sun, and ignored them both. Seth joined
them a few minutes later, to make sure everyone was happy.
Peter asked him if there was a disco to go dancing in St. Bart’s, and Seth said he’d
look into it, and a few minutes later, he went back downstairs to check on the other
guests, and Olivia pretended to be asleep. She didn’t want to make chitchat with Peter
and didn’t care about the disco, and he was engrossed in his newspapers anyway.
Valerie left a little while later to find Seth, and by then Olivia really was asleep in the
warm sun, and snoring softly. She woke up with a start an hour later, and Peter was
lying on the sunbed next to her, and smiled.
“You snore,” Peter said with a look of amusement. Olivia rolled over onto her side
and gave him an irritated look.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I do too. A lot of people do. Do you like to dance? I never got to dance with you at
the wedding.”
“You were busy.”
“Jeanie and I used to date when we were in college. It was fun seeing her again,” he
said easily. “We both got incredibly drunk that night,” he added with a grin. There was
no artifice about him. He was like a big teddy bear, or a big kid. Olivia laughed
sheepishly.
“I did too. I had an unbelievable hangover the next day. It was a beautiful wedding,
though,” she said, thinking about it. “They lead a charmed life, your brother and my
sister.”
“He can afford it, so why not. And he’s crazy in love with your sister. He’ll be good
to her.” He looked at Olivia intently then. “It must be weird having someone who looks
exactly like you, like looking in the mirror.” She smiled when he said it. “I never know
which one of you I’m talking to.”
“I’ll give you a clue,” she said, grinning. “She always looks perfect. I forget to
comb my hair. Or actually, I don’t bother to when I’m painting, and I always have paint
all over me, somewhere.”
“Good to know,” he said, as they lay side-by-side on their sunbeds, chatting. “What
do you paint?”
“Abstracts. Big ones.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“I love it.” He rolled over on one elbow then, and took a good look at her, and
looked like he was going to share something important with her.
“I usually date actresses and models. It’s kind of what you do in L.A. if you’re
single. Most of them are looking for a husband or a boyfriend to support them so they
can stop working. It’s nice to meet someone who enjoys what they do.”
“I take it seriously. I have a fine arts degree from Yale, and I’m not looking for a
husband or a boyfriend.”
He nodded. “I figured. That’s probably a good thing.”
“Why?” She was curious.
“The snoring, and the uncombed hair. You know, you can get special strips to wear
over your nose for the snoring. My ex-wife made me wear them. They didn’t work,
apparently I’m a serious case, Level Three. But they give the other person the
impression that you’re trying to do something about it. I actually used to take them off
when she went to sleep, and pretended they fell off in the night. That’s probably why the
marriage failed. I wasn’t serious enough about the snoring. It can be a real deal-breaker.
She also had me wearing glasses with little lights on them to change my sleeping
patterns.”
“Did they work?” Olivia asked, amused.
“Not really. I put them in the recycling bin. She told our couples counselor about it.
Apparently, it showed a bad attitude on my part. Our kids are great, though, so it was all
worth it. Do you want to see a picture of them?” he offered enthusiastically, reaching for
his phone.
“You showed me at the wedding. They’re adorable.”
“Thank you. I didn’t remember, sorry. I must have already been drunk by then. It was
a great wedding. You never answered when I asked if you like to dance.”
“It depends what, when, and with whom,” she said, smiling at him. He was funny,
and a little awkward.
“Well, we’re related now, and I figure we’re going to be at a lot of weddings over
the years—my kids, Seth and Valerie’s kids—and we can always dance with each other
if the weddings are boring. Most weddings are a lot of people thrown together who
don’t know each other, all dressed up. And no one introduces them to each other, so they
stand around, bored. That doesn’t always make for a good party. But at least we’ll have
each other to talk to and dance with. We should practice tonight so we’re ready, if Seth
finds somewhere where we can dance. Or maybe we can just play music on the boat.
This is amazing, isn’t it?” She nodded. She had never seen anything as luxurious and
couldn’t begin to guess what it had cost Valerie’s husband to charter. “My brother has
always been incredibly generous,” he said. “I didn’t think he’d ever get married again,
until he met your sister. Does she snore too, since you’re identical?” Olivia laughed out
loud when he said it.
“No, actually, she doesn’t. But I have allergies.”
“Then you’re not identical,” he said confidently, and then he was curious again. “Do
you like being a twin?”
“We love it. We had a lot of fun with it when we were younger. And I think we’re
closer than most sisters. We shared an apartment and a bedroom all our life until she
and Seth got married.”
“I’m close to Seth, but I wouldn’t want to share a bedroom with him. I need my
space. But we’ve gone on a lot of trips together. He’s the best guy I know. He’s someone
you can always count on. Our parents were pretty unreliable, and he was always there
for me.”
“Valerie and I are like that,” Olivia said. “Except that our mother is super reliable.
We could always count on her.”
“I guess that’s why you’re both such nice, solid, normal people, and I mean that as a
compliment. And I don’t think it’s a mystery why Seth and I both failed in our marriages.
Our mother’s a nice person, and our father is a character. But they were terrible role
models for relationships. They made poor choices, and so did we, and then they
screwed it up every time, after marrying the wrong person. Seth and I learned from our
mistakes, but we did it the hard way. I think my mom is okay now, and her current
husband is a good guy, although pretty boring. But she seems to like him, and I don’t
think she has the energy to get divorced again, which is a good thing. We had a
revolving door on our homes while we were growing up. And you never knew who
would come through them.”
“Our father wasn’t the best choice either,” Olivia said quietly, “but our mother
managed fine on her own, and was kind of mother and father to us. We had everything
we needed from her emotionally. He was just a cameo appearance occasionally.”
“Our whole family were guest stars who changed every season. The only constants
were the two of us,” Peter said, as Valerie and Seth appeared on the sundeck to check
on them.
“What are you two up to?” Seth inquired, and sat down on a sunbed next to them, as
Valerie slathered sunblock on him so he didn’t burn, since he was so fair. Peter had
brown hair and dark brown eyes, and they looked nothing alike.
“We’re just covering the basics,” Peter said, and turned to Valerie. “You didn’t tell
me that your sister snores,” he said seriously, and Valerie looked mortified.
“She does not,” she said, glancing at Olivia, who was laughing.
“Oh yes, she does. Don’t lie. I heard her and she admitted it. She needs to get those
little strips that Barbara made me wear, if she ever wants to find a husband.” Seth
started to laugh, Olivia was grinning, and Valerie wasn’t sure how to react.
“Peter says I’m going to wind up an old maid if I snore,” Olivia volunteered. “I
want to be a spinster aunt one day.”
“So are we going dancing tonight?” Peter asked his brother.
“Apparently there’s a very good disco, if you’re serious. The crew will drive us
there.”
“I think it would be good for Mom,” Peter said, and Seth laughed again.
“If you pour enough champagne before we go, she might enjoy it,” he said. “Lunch is
in ten minutes. We came up to get you.” Valerie had been nervous that Peter and Olivia
would be at each other’s throats by then, but they seemed very much at ease, almost like
a real brother and sister, taking friendly potshots at each other, and there had been a few
serious moments before their respective siblings joined them.
“We’ll be down in a minute,” Peter said, as Seth and Valerie disappeared down the
staircase to the lower deck, where lunch was being served. “Shall we?” he asked
Olivia, and she got up and wrapped a turquoise pareo around her. She was wearing a
black bikini and had the same spectacular body as her twin. Peter made no comment
about it, but followed her down the staircase, watching the natural sway of her hips. He
was looking forward to dancing with her at the disco, and planned to make sure they
went.
