by Lian Dolan
“I see. Good to have the full story,” Liza responded coolly, looking from Maggie to Gray and back to Maggie again. “Maybe the two of you can split the payday. Meeks & Beauregard bought the painting for a client. Panes of Gold will find a happy home in East Hampton. The new owners said they’d love to have you out to the house for the installation. Congratulations, Maggie.” There was little joy in Liza’s voice. “I’ll break out the champagne. Excuse me.”
Gray followed Liza, leaving Serena and Lucy to wonder what they had witnessed, although they had a pretty solid idea. Lucy, back on top of her game, remarked, “There’s nothing like a sister to really make you feel special.”
“What is wrong with you? You come back to town and it’s not enough to romance one Sweeney sister, you have to go for the majority of Sweeney sisters?” Gray had followed Liza into her office to explain. There was no escaping the hum of the party, but at least no one could see Liza’s face. She was struggling to pull this whole charade off: the dead father, the missing husband, the random sister. She could not handle one more complication. “Please leave me alone.”
“Nothing serious happened between me and Maggie. A kiss or two.”
“Oh, a kiss or two? That’s not nothing to me.” Liza leaned back against her desk, crossing her arms. She wanted to seem as unreceptive as possible.
“There was a moment when I thought something might happen between Maggie and me. I felt conflicted, so I asked her to leave. She’s the one who suggested you might be interested in my bowls. She’s why I came in here that night. Then you and I had a conversation and I knew it wasn’t Maggie I was interested in. It’s you, Liza.”
“Then why would she lie to me about the painting?”
Gray shrugged. “You know Maggie better than I do.”
It was true. She did know Maggie. And, if Liza was honest with herself, she would admit that what Maggie and Gray did was none of her business. They were single, she was the married one. She was the one with obligations. “Gray, I need a lot of space right now. Like years of space. There’s nothing between us except some sexual residue. I can’t act on that now or ever. I have too much going on in my life.”
“I get it. But I wish it wasn’t true. I thought with Whit gone, I might have a chance.”
“And that’s why you came to the Fourth of July party? For me and not for Maggie?”
“Yes, for you,” Gray said, moving closer to Liza. Liza froze, unsure of whether to close the gap between the two of them or turn away. She couldn’t get the way she felt with him last night out of her head. She wanted more of that in her life. She took a step.
There was a knock on the door. It was Tricia who popped her head in, like Liza had asked her to do. “Hey, Liza, you’re needed out here.”
Gray understood, nodded at Liza, and walked past Tricia. “Don’t worry. I’m leaving.”
“You okay?” Tricia asked.
“Give me five. Thanks for the backup.”
“I wasn’t lying. You are needed. Your in-laws are here.”
Lolly Jones stood straight and tall, in a beautiful Escada silk tunic and white pants, an ensemble that Liza had seen her mother-in-law wear at many events over the years, as she was a believer in the Spending Money on Statement Pieces school of dressing. It always looked lovely on her. She was reaching out to Maggie, one hand on her sister’s arm, clearly expressing admiration for her painting. Whitney Jones Sr. stood holding two glasses of wine, waiting patiently to give one to his wife. As Liza made her way through the crowd, Lolly looked up and smiled at her, then lowered her chin and shook her head slowly. She had heard, through the grapevine or from her son himself. In a way, Liza was relieved.
But there would be nothing negative tonight. “It’s a triumph! You’ve done it again!” Lolly said, switching back to party mode and giving Liza a quick hug. “Isn’t that right, Whit?”
Her husband, always good at taking direction from his wife of forty-two years, lifted up both cups of wine in an awkward toast and said, “Brava to you both.” He once went to see Tosca at the Met and liked to prove it by tossing Italian phrases into his conversation.
Maggie used the moment to make her excuses without making eye contact with Liza, directing all her energy at Lolly. “I think I see an interested buyer I have to charm. Excuse me, all. See you soon, I hope!” She headed off to the bar, leaving Liza alone with her in-laws.
It was Lolly, of course, who stepped into the void and said what needed to be said. “You’ve done a wonderful job with this gallery and with Fitz and Vivi. You’ve made us very proud. Work, children, family—you’ll have that as a foundation so you can move forward. We know you’ll be fine.” Unlike so many of Liza’s friends whose mothers-in-law aimed their arrows of disapproval at them, with stinging comments about the nanny raising their grandchildren, Lolly had always been supportive of Liza’s work. On several occasions when stopping by to chat with Liza at the gallery, she’d expressed her own regrets that she’d not had the opportunity for a career. Now, in the middle of a crowded room, Lolly was making it clear that she would remain a loyal Liza supporter and that this gallery may be her salvation.
“Thank you.”
Just then the event photographer swung by and asked to take their picture for the paper. Liza hesitated but Lolly agreed and instructed Whit to keep the wine glasses down out of the picture, so his clients didn’t think he had a drinking problem. They all smiled for the camera and the photographer got what she came for. Liza knew when all of Southport saw the photo, they’d know whose side Lolly was on . . . which was exactly what Lolly intended.
“Let’s have lunch soon and we’ll really talk. Now, Whitney, what do you think about that painting over there? It’s a Kat Ryan. I’m thinking of replacing those tired nineteenth-century prints of sailboats in the front hall with something punchier, more fun. That piece is front hall material, isn’t it, Liza?”
“Brilliant, bold. For sure, front hall material.”
By nine o’clock, the last patrons had filtered out of Sweeney Jones. The wine was gone and the door was locked. Only a handful of people—Tricia, Raj, Connor, David, Tim, Maggie, Kat, and Serena—remained to clean up, rehash, and wait for Liza to bring out the champagne from the back. Serena had been set to leave earlier, but Liza insisted she stay and celebrate at the afterparty. “You were a part of this,” Liza told her, squeezing her arm. “Thank you.” Serena busied herself like the others, feeling grateful to be included.
Emily, in charge of sales for the evening, was running the final numbers at the desk. “Fantastic night, Liza. Congratulations, Kat and Maggie. This was our biggest summer show ever.”
“Don’t forget the commissions, too!” Jenny added, tapping away on her tablet, posting the party pictures on social media.
Tricia, who hadn’t eaten all night, positioned herself next to the remains of the oversized cheese board, once abundant with cheeses, meats, fruit, and nuts and now a sad skeleton of the dried apricots no one ever ate and the intimidating blue-veined cheese. She ate the crackers and the decorative grapes that had collected around the edges and thought about the encounter with Lois. Regardless of what the forensic accountant discovered, she and Cap had agreed that Lois had to go. She watched Serena move around the room, comfortable in the company of family and friends, and that gave Tricia a sense of purpose. She was formulating a plan.
“Cheers,” David said, emerging from the back with a couple of bottles of champagne. Connor followed with clean glasses. Raj found some folding chairs and arranged them in the front window of the gallery. One by one, the exhausted team took a seat, chattering about what a night it had been, how great all the work looked on the walls, all except Liza, who scurried around the gallery, clearing the last of the wine glasses and cocktail napkins.
Maggie knew Liza was working out her anger with the frantic cleaning. Liza had always used housework as therapy, mopping the floors or folding laundry with vitriol whenever she got punished for something that Maggie had
initiated. Staying out past curfew or skipping school to take the train into the city—when the punishment went down, Liza got to cleaning. Twenty years later, she was still doing it.
Serena watched her for a minute, then whispered to Maggie, “What’s the deal with Liza?”
Maggie whispered back, “Cleaning as coping. She’s mad at me and at Gray, so she’s taking it out on those used cocktail napkins.”
“Liza, honey, come sit. We’ll get all that mess in a bit. You must be exhausted. Have some champers and we’ll fix you a charcuterie plate, but sit down,” Connor insisted, trying his best to usher Liza to a chair. “I stashed some prosciutto in the office so we’d have some to share now. I didn’t want those freeloaders eating it all.”
For a second, Liza protested, then to everyone’s shock, she dropped the wineglass in her hands, shards of glass flying across the hardwood floors. Then she started sobbing, choking out the words, “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Don’t move!” Tricia warned, while dashing into the office to grab a broom to sweep up the shattered glass.
Liza froze in place, her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said over and over like she was trying to self-soothe. Tricia swept up the glass around her while Serena moved in to comfort her, stepping over the shards to get to Liza. She was inconsolable. “I’m so tired, so fucking tired of holding it all together while the men in my life do exactly what they want. Dad. Whit. Gray. Just once, I would like to do what I want.” Liza collapsed in Serena’s embrace. The two women stood together in the center of the studio, Liza crying softly and Serena assuring her, “You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s okay.”
The men gathered around the bar, desperate to find something to do so they didn’t have to stare at Liza and Serena. They started putting away the chairs in the front of the gallery. Liza noticed them and immediately felt awful. “Oh, not you. You’re not the men I’m talking about. The other men in my life.”
Tricia finished sweeping the glass carefully while Serena walked Liza back to her office so she could have some privacy in her pain. Maggie stood in the background and watched the scene unfold, like it was a play and she was an audience member.
“What the hell happened?” Later, in the kitchen on Willow Lane, Tricia grilled Maggie after taking Bear for a walk. She had to clear her head after the opening and walking Bear, who was clearly lonely and confused, was her best option. Poor dog. She ran into Maggie in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea. “What went on between you and Liza?”
“What do you mean?” Maggie responded, resorting to evasion, as if Tricia were going to fall for that.
“Mags.”
“I told her that my painting was a view from Perry Park when it was actually from Gray’s front porch,” Maggie spit out as if she were the put-upon party.
“Oh.”
“Nothing happened between me and Gray. It was dinner. At sunset. I swear, nothing happened. I mean, I totally would have let something happen, but it didn’t.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because he’s cute and I’ve had a crush on him since I was nineteen.”
“Do you understand why she was mad?”
“Not really. I think she needs some meds. Maybe some Xanax.”
“She’s lost her father and her marriage in the last six weeks. She is being forced to sell her family home, find a divorce lawyer, and maintain her business because she’s going to need that income stream. I think she needs understanding, not a diagnosis.”
“She was making out with Gray last night.”
“She was?” Tricia was shocked.
“Yes. I know everyone thinks Liza is perfect and I’m a mess. But . . . not true.”
“But, generally true.”
“Gray and I did make out a little bit on the night of Dad’s wake.”
“You can never tell Liza that. Ever.”
“I know. Even I’m sorry for that. The whiskey.”
“You know you should stay away from him, right?” Tricia used her nice voice so Maggie wouldn’t shut down. “Please.”
“I know. I will.”
Chapter 23
In 1997, William Sweeney was named the Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City. He was thrilled at the prospect of walking up Fifth Avenue, with a grand orange, white, and green sash, one of a hundred thousand marchers in the parade but in his mind, the most important one. He relished the chance to celebrate his heritage and be cheered by the spectators who lined the streets for thirty-plus blocks. He insisted that Maeve and the girls march beside him, the four fiery redheads in their green wool coats as a testament to their Irishness. Maeve was reluctant; she didn’t want the girls on display to the inebriated crowd, but she acquiesced to her husband’s wishes as she often did and March 17, 1997, went down as one of the worst days in Sweeney family history.
The story of How Dad Abandoned Us at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and We Got Lost and Then Had to Take the Train Home and We All Cried and Mom Yelled became a family favorite. In the sisters’ version, the parting of ways was accidental. The end of the parade was chaos and Bill Sweeney went one way, toward the bars on Second Avenue, and Maeve and the girls went the other way, toward the car that the parade organizers had promised would be waiting a few blocks away to take them back to Connecticut. The crowd closed in, separating the family and, in the primitive days before mass cell phone ownership, the mother and the father had no way to communicate with each other. The fact that there was no waiting town car became a laugh line in the storytelling with the girls describing the four of them cold, hungry, and exhausted standing on the corner of 80th and Fifth hoping for a miracle. Maeve had tried to use the phone in a coffee shop to call somebody, anybody, but without luck. The schlep back down to Grand Central was when Tricia, then seven, started to melt down and Maeve started to yell, an uncharacteristic reaction by their even-keeled mother. By the time the Sweeney girls jammed themselves on the standing-room-only train headed back to Southport, Maggie and Liza were crying from the stress of the day.
Maggie, who had insisted on wearing her new Ugg boots, complained that her feet hurt and her mother fired back, “I told you those were a terrible choice. What do you expect with no arch support?”
Liza, who previously could tune out almost any conflict, had recently started her period and was a hormonal mess. “Please stop crying,” she kept saying between tears.
In the dinner table version, the Sweeney sisters practically crawled the mile home from the train station, no taxi in sight. Little Tricia, who slept on the floor of the train, caught a second wind and ran home ahead of her sisters, a precursor of athletic achievement to come. When the Sweeneys arrived at Willow Lane, cold and dark, Maeve slammed a box of cereal and a quart of milk on the kitchen table, saying, “Eat this!” and took to her bed. The denouement of the tale was that Bill Sweeney arrived home twenty-four hours later, no explanation, and Maeve made him sleep in the boathouse for a week.
Over the years, the girls told the story to Cap and Aunt Frannie and random dinner guests and new boyfriends and college roommates. When Maeve was alive, she would stay silent in the retelling and roll her eyes when Maggie got to the part about their father staying in the boathouse.
They always put a glossy veneer over a grim story until one day, Liza, then a wife and mother of four-year-old twins, said to her sisters while they were doing the dishes after a family dinner, “You know, it was pretty shitty of Dad not to make sure we got to that town car. I mean, he knew where we were supposed to meet the car and he never showed up. I know the car didn’t show up, either, but he could have gotten us a cab to Grand Central at least if he wanted to stay and drink. Whit would never abandon me and the twins like that. Tricia was so little.”
The sisters must have known that to be true the many times they’d entertained with the parade story. After Liza’s comments, they stopped joking about the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. But it wasn’t until
Tricia read the final chapter of her father’s memoir, the chapter titled What I Got Wrong, that she truly understood what Liza really meant. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade story was one extended metaphor about what William Sweeney got wrong. In his own summation, he got fatherhood totally wrong.
“Did he hate us?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, it sounds like he hated us,” Tricia said to Cap in his office Monday morning. She had finished the memoir the previous night, promptly thrown up, fallen asleep curled up in the fetal position next to Raj around three a.m., gone for a run at dawn, and was now trying to make sense of what she’d read. Cap had been right. When he said there was difficult material at the end of the book, Tricia had assumed it was about her father, not about her and her sisters. Even Maeve got one last devastating swipe from the grave. Reading it, she felt like she’d gotten hit by a truck. “He definitely uses us in the book.”
“I understand it’s hard for you not to take this material personally, but remember, your father was a writer. He sought meaning in the banal. He’s heaping a lot of importance onto this one day and using it as an extended metaphor for his shortcomings. It’s a literary device.”
“Yes, I went to Yale, too. I understand literary devices,” Tricia said, unusually snippy with Cap. “I’m sorry. That was childish. But the attacks get very personal. I’m too focused, too ambitious. I won’t color outside the lines and I run to run away from my problems. Damn straight, because the house was so depressing after Mom died, I ran as fast as I could away from the place and I’m still running. I’m not going to apologize for using a coping mechanism to gain control over my life.”
“I know . . .”
“And Liza, who literally married a guy she wasn’t all that crazy about to please her parents, is going to love being called a slut in high school and repressed as an adult. Thanks, Dad.”