With that, she stood and left the room with the bearing of a queen. Something else she'd inherited from their mama.
"I should be off anyway," Harry said, pulling one last envelope from the briefcase and then closing it with a smile. "My eyes aren't what they used to be, and I'm a menace on the road after dark."
"Next time, let me pick you up," Sasha said, giving him a hug and a smacking kiss on the top of his bald head. "Then you can stay as long as you like without having to worry about that."
"It's a deal," he said, patting her cheek affectionately. "Maeve was right. You girls are the best. We'll all talk soon, then."
They all walked him to the foyer before he paused.
"Actually, give me one quick moment, I forgot to give something to Lena."
Sasha watched, along with Maggie and Kate, as he ambled toward the study and knocked lightly on the door.
It swung open and their quiet exchange was brief. Harry came back less than a minute later and donned the hat that sat on the table. "Love you all dearly," he said, taking a moment to glance at each of them in turn. Then, he headed out the door.
"How long were he and Annalise married when she finally passed?" Maggie asked as the three of them watched him walk out to his car.
"I recall Mama making a truly awful cake for their sixtieth wedding anniversary," Sasha said, trying to recall when that was. "Maybe three summers ago?”
"Imagine a man whose wife becomes wheelchair bound and near catatonic less than five years into a marriage and staying by her side for a lifetime?" Maggie said softly, shaking her head in wonder. "You know how many guys would've dumped her off somewhere in an institution or something back then?"
"He wouldn't even let anyone else care for her until the last few years when he couldn't lift her any longer," Sasha marveled. "And here I gotta hustle to get a man to buy me a drink half the time."
Kate waved as Harry backed out of the driveway and honked the horn. "I'm starting to think they don't make them like that anymore."
Maybe to some people, on the outside looking in, Harry seemed faithless. After all, there was little doubt he and Maeve had been lovers on and off for years. The two of them—if the letters they'd found were any indication—brought together, at first, by the crushing, shared loss of Ollie in Vietnam. But to Maeve's girls, even Lena, Harry had been a fixture in their lives for good reason. He was her champion. Her defender. Her North Star when she lost her way. He'd been their mother's best friend in the world. And Maeve had been the same to him. It wasn't often a person found someone like that and Sasha was too busy envying them to judge them for it.
What must that be like, to have that kind of stability…a person that felt like home? For all her lovers, and there had been many, she didn't know.
But, man, did she crave it.
And, suddenly, it hit her between the eyes like a two by four.
I want to keep the house.
Maggie
Maggie stepped into the air conditioned office with a sigh of relief. Women in Los Angeles might get dewy in the summer heat, but women in their 40s in Louisiana? Sweat.
A squat, old woman sat behind the reception desk clacking slowly at an ancient keyboard in a single-finger hunt-and-peck that had Maggie grinning to herself. Her mother had typed the same way, when she was forced to do it.
Maggie snagged a butterscotch candy from the dish in front of her and leaned her elbows on the counter.
“Hey, Eunice, I’m here to see Alistair. He should be expecting me,” she said. The old woman didn’t react so Maggie went up and tapped her bony shoulder, smiling as she glanced up at her with a start.
“Oh, sorry about that, Lena, dear,” she said. “I keep my hearing aid turned low so I don’t have to listen to those doggone cicadas. Now what was it you were saying?”
Maggie didn’t bother correcting her. To Eunice, all four of them were Lena, and even Sasha answered to the catchall name. “I’m here to see Alistair, he called for me a short while ago.”
“Oh, you can go on ahead if he’s expecting you. He isn’t with any clients right now,” Eunice said, pointing down the short hallway to her right.
The building’s old floorboards creaked as she made her way to the office. Sometimes La Pierre seemed stuck in the past. Maggie remembered the same creaking when Maeve had left her with Eunice while heading into Alistair’s office to talk about God knows what. She smiled fondly as she remembered the old woman letting her eat way too much candy.
“Feel free to sit, Miss Maggie,” Alistair said, rising in a quaint gentlemanly fashion until she sat. “How are you holding up?”
“As well as I could be, given the circumstances,” she said. “How about yourself?” she added, tired of the question but trying not to be short with her mother’s dear friend. It wasn’t his fault her emotions were so close to the surface all the time lately.
“About the same. Still can’t quite believe she’s gone,” he said, shaking his head with a sorrowful look on his face. “I guess I’ll get straight to the point so you can get on with your day. Maeve wanted me to wait for things to settle in a bit before I started discussing business matters, but I think it’s about time I gave this to you.” He handed her an unsealed envelope with a small folded note inside.
Maggie took it out, unfolded it, and began to read...
To my youngest, Maggie,
Lately, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands and I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of it considering what kind of stamp I’m going to leave behind on La Pierre when I go. Surely I’ll be punished for my vanity at the pearly gates, but I’m a woman of habit and I’ve grown to love my faults as much as my virtues. Once the last betrayed wife and scorned lover pass from this world, who will remember me but my children and Harry? And even those memories won’t be as fond as I would’ve wished. I’m sure you know that, as I aged, my youthful passion for men and money began to fade and, at first, I thought I was happier for it. But I am nothing if not a greedy woman, and a new lust has taken their place; a lust to be remembered. For my life to have meant something. It is for the satisfaction of this prideful desire that I write this letter for you, my dear daughter.
To some, Lena, who was always the scholar and a natural leader, would be the obvious choice to ensure my name lives on. But it’s you who shares my entrepreneurial spirit. I always found it funny that my sister Claire, always a free spirited artist rather than a capitalist by nature, birthed my only daughter with the same drive I’d been blessed with. For that reason, it took very little consideration to entrust you, Maggie, with the future of my enterprises. The business has declined as steadily as my health, of late. Last summer, as you know, I handed over the day to day running of The Luxe to Martin Bissett. He’s a good man and would do well as a right-hand man, but he has no vision. Left to his own devices without direction, he will run it into the ground eventually. In addition, I want to continue my charitable giving and finally get my foundation out of the planning stages and off the ground. You can do that for me, Maggie. I know you can. I’ve left documents with Alistair detailing your position, in both the business, as well as the non-profit. If you choose to accept the position as outlined, profits from The Luxe, should it begin to run in the black again, will be split. Half will go to you for your efforts, while your sisters split the other half between them. If you choose not to run the business, you can sell it and the four of you will split the money evenly.
I’ve done my part to express my wishes as clearly as I know how. Now I’ll leave you to figure out how to break it to the other three. I know you’ll do a wonderful job if you choose to take on this responsibility, but know that, regardless, I love you dearly and I wish nothing but the best for you.
* * *
All My Love,
Mama
Maggie wiped a tear from her eye and set the letter down, still reeling as she looked up at Alistair. “I assume you already know what this is about, do you have the documents that she discussed?”
> “Yes. I would just need you to sign in a few places, assuming you’re not planning to sell,” he said, pulling out three pieces of paper.
“I’m going to need to sit with this a few days and then discuss it with my sisters. Can I take those with me?” Maggie asked. This was a decision that all of them should make together.
“Certainly. But please know that your mama intended this decision to be yours and yours alone. No consensus needed,” he said, glancing at her over the rim of his glasses.
She said her goodbyes to Alistair and made her way back into the main lobby of the ancient building. “Have a good afternoon, Eunice,” she shouted loud enough for the old woman to hear as she walked out of the building.
“You too, Lena, I’ll see you around,” she replied.
Maggie’s mind raced as she walked home, but her legs definitely didn’t. She needed some time to think as a million questions buzzed through her head. How was she going to tell her sisters about all this? What would they say about the business being in her control when she wasn’t even Maeve’s biological daughter? Would they want to sell?
The one thing she didn’t have to question for a second was whether or not she wanted to step into Maeve’s role, both in the business and in the non-profit. It was her mama’s legacy. More than that? She had entrusted Maggie to honor it.
She wouldn’t…couldn’t let her down.
By the time Maggie was halfway through the long trek back to the house, she had made up her mind to pay Martin Bissett a visit and get some information about the casino before she mentioned her visit with Alistair, and what came of it, with her sisters. When they spoke, she wanted to be armed with information and data that would hopefully make all this easier to swallow. Because as much as she was shaken and moved to the core by Maeve’s faith in her, the thought of it causing friction between she and her sisters made her gut clench.
She spent the rest of the walk home running through every possible scenario, thinking about Sasha and Lena’s reactions to the news. Surely, as the oldest, Lena would feel that it should’ve been at least offered to her. And wouldn’t Sasha be offended at being overlooked as the one who was closest to Maeve and spent the most time with her, especially these last few years?
When she was just a few blocks from the estate, she passed the Russell and Sons Confections Shop and impulsively veered off to head inside. The musty scent of the old building, mixed with the sweet smells of cooked sugar and cinnamon, wasn’t at all unpleasant, though maybe that was more due to the nostalgia that came along with it than the odor itself. A young man no older than twenty stood behind the counter, smiling.
“What can I get for you?”
“I’ll just take a pound of your toffees,” Maggie said.
The boy took a metal scoop and dropped an overflowing portion of the wrapped candies into a tiny paper bag and handed it over to her.
“That’ll be four dollars,” he said, taking the five-dollar bill she held out to him.
“Thanks a lot,” she said, unwrapping two of the toffees and tossing them into her mouth at once. The buttery taste instantly brought an image of her mother to her mind. Funny that she had once hated the stuff, thinking it a candy for old people and preferring chocolates or caramels. As she walked out the door, she wondered absently if Maeve had even liked the stuff before Ollie passed away or if she picked up a taste for them after he was gone, like Maggie seemed to have with her mother.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw a familiar-looking woman a few years older than herself walking down the street, coming from the opposite direction. The other woman waved and smiled, sweet as the candy Maggie was eating, but her instincts told her that she was no friend of hers.
Why couldn’t she place her?
“Hello, Maggie. Long time, no see,” she said in a two pack a day voice that resonated through Maggie like a sharp pinch.
Maggie waved, too many toffees in her mouth to speak through, and kept walking. It took another few minutes of brain wracking before Clyde’s tired, rawboned face popped into her head, clear as a picture. Serina McFadden, Clyde’s daughter.
She’d looked much the same when she was a girl as she did now, exactly like her daddy, only with longer hair and fuller lips.
A shiver ran through her as she tried to digest this new information. No doubt, Maeve’s death had something to do with why she was back in La Pierre. By the time she opened the door to the house, she was quivering with anxiety.
“Who’s here?” she called, closing the door behind her.
“Me and Kate are in the living room,” Sasha called.
Maggie set down her purse and followed the sound of her voice. The two of them were cleaning out a bookshelf, by the looks of it, and dozens of journals and papers sat open, many of them handwritten in her mama’s own script.
“Serina’s back in town,” Maggie said breathlessly, getting straight to the point.
“That little sneak,” Sasha muttered, “probably thinks she’s entitled to some inheritance or something. Over my dead body.”
“Wouldn’t put it past her to have something to do with that rock through the window the other day,” Kate said, looking thoughtfully at Maggie.
“Do you know where she’s staying? Maybe I need to go have a woman to woman talk with her,” Sasha said, almost snarling as she said it.
“Slow your roll,” Kate said, putting a hand out, “Lena is working on her paper for another half hour or so. We should wait for her to finish up and talk this out between the four of us. It’d be best if we don’t escalate this any further than we have to.”
Sasha looked at Kate angrily but nodded. “We can wait for Lena but I’m pretty sure she’s going to agree with me.”
“Is there any way she’s just here because she wants to pay her respects?” Maggie asked hopefully.
“There sure isn’t,” Kate replied with a sigh. “If the McFaddens are sniffing around La Pierre, they’re bringing trouble with them. Count on it.”
All thoughts of her meeting with Alistair faded to the background as a sense of impending doom blossomed in her belly.
Dear God, please let her be wrong. This family was bending so hard, they were one false move away from breaking…maybe for good this time.
Lena
Lena stared at the blinking cursor in front of her, fingers hovering over the keyboard.
She had been prepping to send an email, but only the good Lord knew to whom about what.
Her brain was a sieve this past week. She hadn't expected to find herself so overwhelmed with dueling emotions. But so far, going through Maeve's house felt a little like grave digging. With every shovelful of dirt they lifted away, more bones were revealed.
Not that any of them had been fooling themselves before they started. They were all fully aware that Maeve had more than her fair share of skeletons. And still, knowing hadn't softened the blow with each new reveal.
Some had been emotional, but in a good way. They'd unearthed countless thank you letters from people in the community, from the baseball team she sponsored to the women's shelter in Shreveport she'd been a sponsor of since it had opened its doors in 1979. And the notes and cards from people in town she'd helped were just as plentiful, blessing her for loans she'd offered without being asked, or rides to and from the hospital.
Mixed in with those, though, was some less heartwarming correspondence. A handful of letters from furious wives, demanding she keep her legs closed or suggesting she leave town and move to Vegas where "women like her" were more welcome. Legal letters and documents outlining her brushes with the law. Maeve had never done any hard time, but she'd spent more than a night behind bars before Alistair managed to get her out, and she'd even been on house arrest for a time awaiting a racketeering trial. In the end, Maeve had prevailed. Seeing all of this stuff and learning about some of it for the first time ever, had brought all those memories she'd tried to forget rushing back to the forefront.
How many times had she b
een forced to miss school because Maeve was out all night on the riverboat and hadn't gotten back by morning in time to care for Sasha or Maggie? How many times had she stayed awake by the window, imagining her mother dead on the side of the road somewhere or bobbing, lifeless, in the lake because some desperate gambler didn't have the money to pay his debt, or a jealous wife had finally decided she'd had enough of Maeve Blanchard?
So very many.
Her email pinged with a new message and she squeezed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger when she saw the name of the sender.
Trent Loughlin, her attorney.
She double-tapped and scanned the email quickly before reading it again carefully.
* * *
Sorry, Lena, I read this myself and then gave it to my partner for a second opinion. No matter how we turn it, this thing is airtight. Now, we can try to establish that your mother wasn't in her right mind when she signed, but it’s a long shot. And, regardless, by the time we got a ruling, the three months would be long past. If you leave now, we'd be fighting against the beautification committee after the fact, with a relatively low expectation of winning. If you want your sisters to get their inheritance, staying is the only way to guarantee it. I'm sorry, I wish I had better news.
* * *
Trent
* * *
She'd expected the rush of disappointment. This had been her last hope of getting out of La Pierre and back to her old life anytime soon, after all. But nothing was simple or cut and dried when it came to Maeve, because she hadn't expected the strange sense of relief that had been mingled in with her disappointment at Trent's reply. Sure, she'd still have gone back home if it were a possibility, no question of that. The lure of the known and comfortable versus this daily riot of conflicting emotions was strong. But she would've left wondering if she should've stayed. There were a lot of loose ends here that she'd spent a lot of years trying to ignore.
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