The Sweeney Sisters

by Lian Dolan

  Liza was right. He is a child. “You are definitely not driving, so yes, you can crash here. There is a small guest room down the hall. It’s perfect for bed spins. You can touch both walls from the mattress,” Maggie spoke with authority. She’d spent some nights in the guest room back in the day. “Head that way—I’ll bring you a gallon of water and something for your hangover.”

  “Is that all you’re going to bring me?” Tim said hopefully, tripping over an ottoman.

  “Yes.” Of that, Maggie was sure.

  Tim saluted her and stumbled down the hallway toward the guest room at the far end of the house. Maggie went off to get the water and aspirin when movement on the porch caught her eye. It was Liza and Gray, kissing. She froze. She felt guilty and furious at the same time.

  Maggie had invited Gray to the party to tweak Liza a little bit and she’d spent the night flirting with Tim to tweak Gray a little bit. Apparently, neither had noticed her efforts at all.

  Just then Tim called from down the hall, “Hey, is there any lobster left?”

  “Shut up,” Maggie yelled in reply and shuffled upstairs to her childhood bedroom alone, forgetting all about Tim’s water and aspirin.

  Chapter 20

  “Do you want some coffee?” Serena asked her mother, pouring a second cup into the Wellesley mug, a subversive act that boosted her courage.

  “No, thank you. I’ve had enough.”

  Last night, when Serena returned from the gut punch that was the Sweeney’s Fourth of July party, she found her mother and Lucy Winthrop sitting in the living room enjoying a final glass of wine while the congressman polished off a brandy. Her mother looked defiant, in navy blue and white with a sparkling red cardinal on her lapel, one of the many bird pins that Birdie Tucker had collected over the years. She greeted Serena with a pretentious double cheek kiss and then quickly suggested they catch up in the morning, clearly not wanting a scene in front of Lucy and Deke, or anyone, really. There would be no scenes in front of anyone ever, if Birdie Tucker had her way.

  But after what had transpired at Willow Lane, Serena was done with civility over truth. She was done with discretion and she was done with deferring to those around her. Instead of shuffling off to bed and waiting her turn, Serena asked, “I assume the fact that you’re here alone means you told Dad that William Sweeney was my biological father. Did you?”

  Deke Winthrop whipped his head back and forth from Serena to Birdie to Lucy, while Lucy Winthrop put her finger to her lips to keep her clueless husband quiet. “Serena, dear, let your mother settle in. You can discuss everything in the morning. When you’re both rested. Isn’t that right, Birdie?”

  Clearly, this two-on-one strategy had been discussed in advance. Her mother didn’t lose a beat. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Lucy. That’s a wonderful idea. Don’t you think so, Serena?”

  “Nothing about the last six months has been wonderful,” Serena said, pouring herself a brandy. “But sure, we can put off discussing the fact that you slept with the man next door and then left me in the dark for thirty-eight years. Please come to the guest house at nine.” And with that, she walked out the side door with the crystal brandy snifter and her head held high.

  I’m going to write that book, Serena thought as she headed toward the carriage house, knowing for the first time in six months the best course of action.

  Her mother, though, didn’t appear as confident in the morning light. She was in a Ralph Lauren navy track suit that could have been from this season or 1994, so impressive was Birdie’s clothing-preservation program. (Serena referred to her mother’s closet as “a Ralph Lauren Museum.”) She was wearing Tretorns and her highlighted blond hair was a little flatter than last night, the top pulled back in tortoiseshell clips. Birdie had discovered sunscreen early enough to prevent the full leather face that other tennis players of her generation experienced, but her sixty-something décolletage had paid the price for all those sets in the sun. She was makeup free except for a swipe of lip gloss. She could have used some mascara.

  Serena herself was exhausted. She’d had a terrible night’s sleep and it was all she could do not to turn the light on and start in on Snap. But, before she read Bill Sweeney’s interpretation of events, she wanted to hear her mother’s story. She felt like she owed her mother that.

  “Let’s go sit in the living room. You can tell me how Dad reacted.” As Serena walked over to the couch, she flipped on the recording device on her phone. She would need it for her book.

  “I’m recording this.”

  “Oh, am I a suspect now?”

  “I’m not the law, Mom. I’m a journalist. It’s for my records.”

  “Whatever you say. You’ve certainly been treating me like some kind of criminal, cutting me out of your life.”

  Serena’s patience with her mother was done. “What are you here to say?”

  Birdie sat up straighter in her chair, as if she thought she were on camera. “As you suspected, my presence here does mean that I informed your father about your DNA test.”

  “That’s a roundabout way to say it, Mom. Isn’t this about your infidelity, not my DNA test?”

  “Oh, stop it, Serena. Don’t get precious with me.” Birdie Tucker never liked being corrected, especially by her daughter. She had used the same tone when Serena was a teenager and started pushing back during dinner table discussions about politics or science or history when her mother was careless with the facts to prove a point or Serena had a different opinion than her parents. While Birdie and Mitch Tucker were happy to pay for their daughter’s excellent education, actually using it at the dinner table was discouraged. “Yes, I told your father that I had a relationship with William Sweeney and that William Sweeney is your biological father. I did as you asked.”

  “Again, this is not about me. Mom. It’s about your behavior. What did Dad say?”

  “Some of that is private.”

  “I think it’s your turn not to be precious, Mom.”

  Birdie’s edge was slipping away. This was a conversation Serena had run in her head for months. She was ready. “Your father was not entirely surprised. He said he had always wondered why I only got pregnant once after many years of trying to have other children, both before you were born and after. And he said that he needed some time to work out his feelings for me, but it didn’t change his feelings for you.” There was a catch in Birdie’s voice. “He is honored to be your father.”

  The last line hit Serena hard. Mitch Tucker was a decent man, even if he wasn’t the most demonstrative or dynamic man. Serena had no doubt that he meant what he said. “And how did you leave it with him?”

  “Your father and I will be fine. We’ve been married long enough to know neither of us is perfect. As for you, your father said that you should call him after we talk. He expressed his sympathy to you and his anger at me, for upending your life like this. He said that it must be particularly hard for someone like you whose life’s work was to uncover the truth.”

  Unlike her mother, her father had admired Serena’s career and felt like she was fighting the good fight, as long as she didn’t come down too hard on the Bushes or bring up the scandals of the Reagan administration. Serena appreciated that her father understood what no one else had expressed. “I’ll call him.”

  “So, now, what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know what happened between you and Bill Sweeney. And how it happened.” Serena realized she was ready for this story now.

  “I met William Sweeney when I was a senior at Vassar. I was an editor of the paper and I was helping to organize a panel discussion about women in journalism. We had two journalists from the New York Times and a columnist from Esquire scheduled, but at the last minute, the columnist canceled, so Esquire sent William Sweeney instead. He had just written a controversial article about the glory of miniskirts or something like that and they knew they were sending him into the lion’s den.”

  “Like hazing.”

  “Ex
actly—our editor in chief was set to moderate and she was a radical feminist, you know, the whole hairy-armpit, no-bra thing that was happening in the seventies. It wasn’t my thing, but it was hers. I marched down Fifth Avenue. I wore an ERA button. But I shaved my legs. She, on the other hand, was ready to make an example of Bill Sweeney. Her name was Lorna, Lorna . . . Feldman. I think what Lorna really wanted was to work at the New York Times and she hoped her insightful critique and dismantling of his work would get her noticed.

  “Anyhow, they asked me to be his campus escort. I had to pick him up at the Poughkeepsie train station, get him to the pre-panel wine-and-cheese event, and then make sure he attended the post-event dinner at the president’s house. When I picked him up at the train station, I remember thinking that he looked like Paul Newman, a young, tall Paul Newman. I was entranced by his intellect, his humor. I had never met a man like him. We immediately went to have a drink, bypassing the official reception, the mandatory rehearsal. Everything I was supposed to do, I didn’t. I was twenty-one and he was twenty-six, but he seemed to have the world on a string. I warned him about the protests, the questions that would be coming at him. By the time we got to campus, he was fully prepped and slightly inebriated. He relished his role as a Male Chauvinist Pig, wore it proudly, and wore down the poor moderator. It enraged the student protestors even more.

  “After the panel, we escaped through the back door and headed straight for the guesthouse on campus where he was staying for the night. He whisked me upstairs and I was sunk.”

  A picture of young Birdie Tucker flashed through Serena’s mind. Tall, thin, blond, in a suede maxi skirt, Frye boots, and white beret, the product of Northern European genes, a Darien, Connecticut, upbringing, and a rigorous tennis-training schedule. Throw in a top-notch education and a healthy sense of entitlement and it was easy to see why the college senior was such an attractive mark to the young Bill Sweeney who, until he landed a scholarship to Yale, had none of the advantages that she had enjoyed. A theory was beginning to develop in Serena’s mind, but she let her mother continue.

  “For the next three years, my life revolved around Bill Sweeney. After graduation, I moved to Manhattan and got a job at NBC News, but really, my life consisted of our interactions. He was writing Never Not Nothing at the time we met and by the time he left me, he was an international literary sensation. He lived in the Village, which was so exciting, and I lived in Murray Hill, safe but boring. I’d wait in my apartment every night to see if he was going to call and ask me to his place. Sometimes, I’d see him every night for two weeks straight and then he’d disappear into his work for a month. We’d go out in the Village, but never with other people. He said he wanted to keep me for himself, but I think he was a little embarrassed by me. I wasn’t edgy, I wasn’t the next big thing. I was an associate producer at NBC News primarily because I checked the female box and my father knew the president of NBC News at the time. They were members of the same club in Manhattan. Mainly, I got coffee and made copies and picked up dry cleaning for the men in the office. I was no Jessica Savitch. I suppose you’ll think poorly of me, but I wasn’t looking to change the face of journalism. I wanted a husband, a family, stability. I knew I would never marry Bill because he was a Catholic and, you know, Mimi and Granddad never would have approved of that.”

  Serena thought about her mother’s opposition to her ex-boyfriend Ben because he was Jewish. “I know how that goes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said, not wanting to derail the story. “Go on.”

  “Bill Sweeney was a dynamic man. I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t have to, though. He walked away from me. I wasn’t what Bill Sweeney wanted.”

  “What did he want?” Serena asked drily.

  “Someone flashier. When he left me for good, I was devasted, really lost. I wasn’t the independent woman I pretended to be. I didn’t want to be on my own, stay in the city and love my job and sleep around like everybody else in the seventies. Six months after Bill dumped me in a restaurant in Chinatown for Dyan Cannon, I met your father at the wedding of a college friend and we were married within a year. It was time.”

  “Dyan Cannon? The actress.”

  “Yes, the actress. Once the book came out, he was the hottest thing in town. Writers became celebrities in the seventies and everybody wanted Bill Sweeney at their party. And he wanted to be at every party, not that he would take me. Then Hollywood noticed and directors flew him out to LA, trying to persuade him to sell the movie rights to Never Not Nothing. He wouldn’t, of course. People thought it was because he had integrity, but actually he just wanted to keep getting those trips to LA. But on one trip, he met a beautiful actress and that was it for me. I don’t think it lasted long with Dyan Cannon, but I couldn’t compete with that or any of the other Dyan Cannons to come.”

  “Why did he live next door? Was that intentional?”

  “No! Of course not! It was a complete coincidence. We hadn’t been in touch since that night at the Chinese restaurant. I’d followed his career and his picture was everywhere, but no one was more stunned than me when I learned that the new neighbors were William Sweeney and his lovely new wife, Maeve. I hadn’t even told your father about him. How could I? By then, he was so well-known, I didn’t want to make your father self-conscious.”

  Serena was on her third cup of coffee. She brought two cans of seltzer over to the living room and her mother gave her a look, so she stood back up to get a glass. “You never told Dad about your relationship with Bill Sweeney? Ever?”

  “I know you think I’m rigid, but I have some soft spots. Your father is a good man, but he couldn’t compete with William Sweeney on any level. What was the point? I was happy enough. I willingly walked away from a career to be a wife and mother. We had money, a nice house, good vacations. Your father provided all of that and more. I am embarrassed by what happened.”

  “What did happen?”

  “A very selfish affair. The last flicker of a relationship that meant everything to me and, I think, meant something to Bill. But it was short-lived the second time around and the details are rather seedy. I’m not going to tell you any more than that, because I’m entitled to my own life. But we both knew it was wrong and it wouldn’t last. It ended and a few weeks later, after five years of trying to get pregnant, I learned I was pregnant. Your father was thrilled, I was thrilled. It was the eighties; we didn’t ask a lot of questions then. Soul-searching wasn’t required. I went on and Bill Sweeney went on. We had very little contact after that. I would see him at the library at official events and occasionally run into him on Willow Lane. We spoke after Maeve died, but our connection burned out.”

  “Did he know?”

  “That he was the father?”

  Serena nodded.

  “I didn’t know he was the father. Not for sure. Which is another aspect to this story I’m not proud of. But, honestly, I think he was too busy being William Sweeney to notice my pregnancy. After our relationship ended, I wasn’t exactly lingering at the end of the driveway after picking up the morning paper hoping to see him walk by with his dog. I avoided him and he was easily avoided. Our worlds didn’t intersect that much. I was a Southport housewife. Bill was reaping the rewards of his second literary masterpiece, Bitter Fruit. And, in public, he was the devoted husband of Maeve, an esteemed faculty member at Yale, a new father of one, two, then three girls. He chose not to know and I chose not to tell him.”

  “Were you and Maeve friends?” Serena asked that more for Liza, Maggie, and Tricia than herself.

  “Friendly, but not friends. I was curious about her, of course, and, I admit, not kind to her behind her back. I was jealous. She was a decent person but very naive. I think Bill must have had two different lives: one on Willow Lane and one when he was out in the rest of the world. I did understand more than most what he was like when he was working on something. I was there through Never Not Nothing. One day, he was on top of the world; the next
, wanting to burn the entire manuscript. He threw money away. I wished I could have explained that to Maeve, that we had that in common, but she was vulnerable. And then sick for so long. When she died, I brought over a cheese platter and that youngest daughter wouldn’t even let me in the door.”

  “Tricia. Her name is Tricia. I look exactly like her, except with your coloring. How could you not notice that?”

  “Everyone always said that you looked like me.”

  There was silence for a bit. Her mother had filled in the missing pieces, most anyway. The story had such a bittersweet veneer that Serena didn’t end up thinking less of her mother, but more. She understood the affair. Serena couldn’t judge her mother for that. She thought about Dean, the guy from the airport. She’d slept with a married man, too. She hadn’t known it at the time, but if she’d gotten pregnant after finding out he was married, would she have told Dean about that baby? Serena couldn’t honestly say that she would have. It seemed like the most complicated solution, to involve a whole other person, a whole other family. Birdie simplified the situation with her choices, or so she must have thought. At the very least, Serena could understand that instinct.

  Over the course of Serena’s lifetime, it seemed like families were allowed to be more complicated, less cookie-cutter versions of the one mom, one dad, loving siblings version of previous generations. There were endless combinations and formations of families now, sending out holiday photos like everyone else. Serena had seen that in the NPE social media groups where she lurked. These DNA kit discoveries had led to some pretty complicated family trees. Certainly Birdie Tucker, with her family tree of straight and blue blood branches, could never have come clean about Serena’s true parentage without social repercussions. Her mother chose a path that many women had before her, the path of least resistance. Serena saw her more as a coward than a liar.

  Birdie poured the seltzer into the glass and found a coaster so she could set it on the side table next to the couch. She was tired of disclosing. She didn’t know how the younger generation did it, dumping so much personal information onto the world at large. She took a sip of the seltzer and waited for Serena’s next question.