The Sins of the Mother

by Danielle Steel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Wow!” he said in a hoarse voice.

  “It’s always wow with you,” Sarah said happily in the dark. “I hope we never get too old for that.”

  “I don’t think we will,” he said, rolling over on his side to look at her in the moonlight. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She had been for twenty years. He had always felt that way about her, and still did. “I think I’ll be dragging you into bed when we’re ninety. When Alex leaves for college, I’m going to chase you around the kitchen table naked every night.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Sarah said, grinning, as she sat up and turned on the light. The suitcases were still there. They hadn’t been magically filled while she and John made love. “Shit, we still have to pack.” And she had to take the dog to the neighbor’s, they had promised to dog-sit for them. She had a lot to do that night. “Will you take Jeff next door?”

  “Sure,” John said good-naturedly. “I’ll pack when I get back.”

  “And don’t let them give you a glass of wine. You’ll be there all night,” she warned him, and he smiled as he put on a pair of jeans. He could shower when he got back. He loved knowing her body had been part of his only moments before.

  “Yes, boss,” he said, teasing her as he unlocked the door. Their bed was now unmade, and anyone who walked in could have guessed what had happened. It was a common occurrence at their house. They gave in to their passion for each other frequently, and they were both hoping to spend a lot of time together in their cabin on the boat. They were famous for taking “naps.”

  Half an hour later, when John got back, Sarah was frantically packing, and had filled half a suitcase with cut-offs, jeans, some faded hiking shorts, a stack of T-shirts with slogans on them or “Princeton” written across them, and a few favorite flowered cotton dresses she’d had for years and had brought on other summer trips. She had packed two pairs of flip-flops and her favorite Mexican sandals, and a pair of running shoes in case they walked on rough terrain, or climbed on rocks. She knew it wasn’t likely with his mother, but Liz liked to go running, and maybe they’d hike somewhere with the kids. Amanda, she knew, would be wearing gold sandals and stiletto heels.

  It was nearly midnight when Sarah finished, and by then John had packed his bag with his summer khaki slacks, lightweight blue blazer, jeans, some blue shirts, and the loafers he would wear to dinner without socks. He had the look down pat, and the wardrobe to go with it, even if he wore it nowhere else. Sarah added a couple of shawls, and looked at John with exhaustion. He was lying on the bed, watching TV, and Alex and his friends were still outside when Sarah closed her suitcase and set it down next to his.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said, looking as though she had climbed Everest. Packing for a trip with his mother was precisely that to her. “What time do you think I should send the kids home?”

  “Maybe one o’clock? Is Alex packed?”

  “Probably not. I’ll check.” She was still planning to do it for him, but when she went to his room, she found that he had. He was growing up. His suitcase, his gym bag, and his camera bag and computer case were sitting on the floor side by side. He was all set, so at least that was done. Now all she had to do was clean up the kitchen and do a load of towels when his friends left. She went back to their room, and watched TV with John for an hour, and by then Alex’s friends were leaving on their own. Most of the girls had curfews and the boys had to take them home. She met Alex in the kitchen, throwing out the empty pizza boxes just after one o’clock.

  “Thanks, Mom. We had fun,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Do you want help with the towels?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling at him. She knew she was a lucky woman. She had a wonderful husband she adored, and a terrific son she loved just as much. Alex looked lik
e John, but he had wild frizzy hair just like hers. And hers was always worse in the warm New Jersey summer weather. She looked like she had stuck her finger in a socket. Alex’s was slightly more tame, and it looked cute on him.

  They loaded the washing machine together, and she checked for empty plates and glasses outside. There were none, just a few empty soda cans in the trash, which she brought in. Alex went to bed then, and by two o’clock, the towels were done, and all was silent in the house. They all had to get up at four, to leave for the airport at five and get there at six to check in for their eight A.M. flight. Fortunately, they could sleep on the plane. It was a six-hour flight to Nice, which would bring them in at eight P.M. local time, and they were hoping to be at the boat by ten. It was going to be a very short night.

  Sarah slipped into bed next to John, and he smiled the moment he felt her, and put a hand between her legs. He was too sleepy to do anything more, and she cuddled up next to him, as he put an arm around her and went back to sleep. He was dreaming of making love to Sarah on the boat.

  When her brothers were getting up in New Jersey and New York to catch their flight, it was still dark, and in the farmhouse in Connecticut, Liz was already awake. She was catching the red-eye to France that night with Sophie and Carole, and she was working on her book in the meantime. It had been the strangest thing. The idea for it had come to her in a flash, it was unlike anything she had ever done, part fantasy and part real. She had started it the day her mother’s invitation came for the summer trip. It was the story of a little girl and her imaginary friends: a lonely child and the world she creates and populates around her. It was allegorical and the child was her. As a child, Liz had had an imaginary friend, who had gotten her through some lonely and confusing times, and she felt as though she were solving some of the mysteries of her life as she wrote the book. It wasn’t a big book, but it was deep, and she wasn’t sure if it was the worst thing she had ever written, or the best. She’d been working on it night and day for six weeks. She was almost finished but wanted to do some more polishing before she left that night. No one had read a word of what she’d written, she hadn’t told anyone about it, and as usual, Liz was scared. Maybe this book was the final sign that she had no talent, and was losing her mind. It wasn’t a novel, it wasn’t a children’s book. It was a fantasy that had leaped straight out of her head onto the page. And she worked furiously as the sun came up, the day she was leaving on the trip.

  Sophie and Carole had come out from the city the weekend before, packed their clothes for the boat, and left their suitcases with her. Liz had packed her own bags then too. And six suitcases were standing ready by the door. She was meeting the girls at the airport at ten that night, with all their bags, for a midnight flight. She had to leave the house in Connecticut at eight. And much to her own amazement, she had worked for fifteen hours straight when she stopped at seven. It had been like that for six weeks. She was being driven by the book. She had thought about asking Sarah to read it on the trip, but what if she hated it? Liz couldn’t stand the thought of another failure.

  Sarah had been writing literary novellas and short stories for years. They were of a high intellectual caliber, and were published by an academic press. No one had ever heard of them, but Liz had read them and they were good. Her style was reminiscent of Joyce Carol Oates, who also taught at Princeton and was Sarah’s literary idol. It would be hard for Liz to show her little fantasy book to Sarah, but she didn’t know what to do with it, and she hadn’t had the guts to call her agent, and maybe never would. But when she stopped writing at seven o’clock that night, she knew that she had done all she could. She printed it out and stuck the manuscript in her hand luggage with her laptop and then went upstairs to take a shower. She had an hour to get ready and leave the house. An airport shuttle was picking her up.

  As she stood in the shower, she thought about what she’d written and prayed that it was good. It probably wasn’t, but she knew that she had done her very best. That was something at least. In her dreams, she wrote a book that people cared about and understood, that was as meaningful to them as it was to her. Maybe this was it. The terrifying part would be showing it to someone else. She hadn’t even told the girls what she’d been doing. She’d had too many false starts, stories that went nowhere, outlines she never followed, half manuscripts and unfinished poems that lay in drawers. This time at least she’d finished it, and in a mere six weeks. The story had poured out of her like falling pearls, scattered everywhere and then gathered up in her hands like gems.

  The girls had helped her pick her clothes for the boat, and shared some of their own with her, since all three of them wore the same size. She had two old bikinis she always wore, and her girls went topless in Europe, like everyone else their age. Liz could have too, and had the body for it, even at forty-four, but she didn’t think her mother would approve. Having two babies at a young age had left no mark on her. But at her age, she knew she was expected to be respectable, no matter how fit and trim her body was. And there would be lots of crew around. For the rest of what she’d brought, they were either old summer clothes of her own, or things she’d borrowed from her girls. She had nothing fabulous with her and didn’t really care. As usual, Amanda would be their fashion plate, which seemed like too much trouble to Liz. But she knew that her brother liked having a wife he could show off.

  Liz was ready right on time, and then realized she had forgotten to leave an outfit out for the plane. She looked in her own closet and found nothing, and then headed to Sophie’s, and looked through the things she still kept at home and hadn’t packed. She found a pair of old white shorts, a white cotton shirt in her own closet, and an old pair of sandals she’d forgotten that laced up her leg. Her long blond hair was still wet from the shower, and she left it damp down her back, didn’t bother to put on makeup, for a midnight flight where all she’d do was sleep anyway, and when the shuttle came, she flew out the door, and took out all their bags. While the driver loaded them, she made sure that all the lights were turned off and set the alarm, looked in her carry-on again to make sure the manuscript was there, and then double-locked the front door.

  She was in the van when her cell phone rang and it was Sophie, checking on her. She was the organizer in the family, the responsible one. Carole was less efficient, always distracted and a little vague. And Liz always forgot things, like her handbag, her keys, or setting the alarm. But this time she had everything in control.

  “Did you remember to set the alarm?” Sophie asked her in a motherly tone, almost certain she hadn’t, and was surprised when Liz said yes. “Turn off the lights? Do you have your passport?”

  “Of course.” Liz would have been annoyed, but she knew her questions were well intentioned, and Liz had been known to forget important things over the years.

  “Did you bring our bags?”

  “No, just mine,” Liz said innocently, teasing her as Sophie gasped, and then her mother laughed. “I think I got it all.” Including her precious manuscript, Liz thought, as Sophie said she would meet her at the airport. She and Carole were sharing a cab from the city to meet her there. And for once Liz felt as though she had done everything she should. For six weeks while the book rolled out of her, she had felt better than she had in years. She almost felt ready to spend two weeks with her mother, though not quite. She had spent her whole life desperate for her mother’s approval, and never felt like she had earned it, not because Olivia was critical of her, but mostly because Liz always felt as though she had been a failure. Her path had been strewn with broken dreams, failed relationships, disappointing outcomes, and promises to herself she’d never kept. The only thing she’d ever done right, or well, was be a mother to her girls. She had all the maternal instincts Olivia had never had. But Olivia had built an empire, and Liz knew she never could. So far, she couldn’t even write a successful book. Maybe this time would be different, but Liz found it hard to believe it would.

  Her mother was impossible to compe
te with, and equally so to live up to. Liz saw her as some kind of goddess at the top of a mountain with no roads leading upward and no way to reach her. As a child, she had dreamed of pleasing her and making her happy and proud of her, and she had wanted it so badly, she had never even tried. How did you impress a goddess when you were a mere mortal? These summer trips were torture for her, they tantalized her with all the wishes of her childhood that had never come to pass and never would. She didn’t blame her mother, unlike her younger sister and oldest brother. She knew Olivia had been busy, but she had left Liz with an aching hunger in her soul that nothing could satisfy or fill, except the love of her children and hers for them. Both of them had been accidents, but had turned out to be the greatest blessings of her life, far more than their fathers had been.

  The marriage to Sophie’s father would never have lasted, even if he hadn’t died, and Jasper, Carole’s father, was a handsome, narcissistic flake. He was harmless and incompetent, and had spent a lifetime having beautiful children in his image and doing nothing for them. There was no one there, and never had been. And the men Liz had been involved with since, albeit briefly, had been no better. She was the first to admit she had terrible taste in men. She always fell for their words and their looks, not their actions. All of them had been handsome, and none of them had been capable of real relationships and loving her. She always seemed to pick people who were unable to love, or people who were unavailable like her mother had been. What she needed was a man like her father, but she was never drawn to men like him, and was destined for a life of loneliness and frustration as a result. And in recent years, she had given up, and decided it was too late. At forty-four, she no longer expected to find the love of her life, and when she bothered, she settled for brief affairs. They were good enough.