An internet boyfriend was the perfect partner for Regan during these frightening, lonely days. He texted her constantly. Regan could keep her fears from her daughters and give them all her time (as she always had). François recommended Regan take the girls to the nearby island of Hydra and the more far-flung Santorini. He helped her choose hotels and restaurants for both long weekends; when Regan pressed François to join them, he despaired that his work was crippling but would simmer down eventually. He begged Regan for photos of the sunset in Oia, grilled octopus, and Regan in a bikini.
“Oh my God,Mom!” Isabelle had cried, when Regan debuted the first bikini she’d worn in twenty years, emerging from the bathroom of their cliffside Santorini hotel.
“I think you look great, Mom,” Flora had said. Her cheeks were pink and freckled from the sun; she’d picked up a kerchief somewhere, which she wore over two long braids. Both girls seemed lighter—and who wouldn’t be? They spent their dayssleeping late, scrambling over rocks down to waves, napping, eating pastries and grilled meats, and petting the stray cats that seemed to be everywhere.
“No one over forty should wear a bikini,” said Isabelle. “Period, end of sentence.”
“Rude!” cried Flora, stepping from their cool room, which was an actualcave,carved into the volcanic cliff face of Santorini’s caldera. Isabelle’s flip-flops slapped against stones as she ran down the winding path to the hotel’s infinity pool. Flora, laughing, chased her sister. Hundreds of feet below, the sea was deep blue, dotted with tour boats that looked like toys. The girls moved through bougainvillea-draped archways, down uneven steps, past a maze of cubic white buildings with blue domes. Regan sent François a sexy selfie, scrutinizing her body in the photo, astonished at how confident she looked, howhappy.
As always, François responded immediately, such a far cry from Matt, who had responded to her texts hours later…or not at all.
Stunning!wrote François.I am dreaming of standing beside you, gazing at the sea.
For the first time in her life, Regan felt like the sister who was chosen. François didn’t know about Lee’s magazine covers or red carpet appearances. In his eyes,Reganwas the star. She took selfie after selfie, angling her phone to capture the light the way she’d watched Lee do countless times, finally understanding the intoxicating power of being desired.
She wrote:you have made me the person I always dreamed of being.
20
Lee
On Monday morning, Lee’s phonetrilled at six a.m. She had not used her alarm in years and jerked awake, befuddled. While filming, she’d had a crew living with her and waking her with breakfast in bed. (This was part of the shtick—Lee, such a diva she needed breakfast on a tray! Though honestly, she did enjoy breakfast on a tray.) While unemployed, she’d slept past noon. And during her Savannah sojourn, Lee had roused herself around ten or eleven, padded downstairs, and poured coffee Charlotte had made into an M.A. Hadley mug, then situated herself at the counter next to her mother as they paged throughThe New York Times.
(And ignored the wall phone, ringing away.)
Lee groaned and stretched. The sun was rising outside the window of her sister’s apartment, but Lee’s brain felt as if she’d been hit in the head by a two-by-four.
“Auntie Lee?”
Flora approached with instant coffee. Her resemblance to her mother was so shocking that Lee felt dizzy, as if she were in one of those episodes of a TV show where a wavy screen indicates traveling back in time. She realized then, in the depths of her jet lag, that Regan had been raised to take care of her family, hadgotten herself into some codependent peril, and now her own daughter was making coffee and holding it out sweetly, desperate for affection.Family trauma,thought Lee.It’s a bear.
“Thanks, Flora. I can make my own coffee, though.”
“Oh!” cried Flora. “I’m sorry! It’s all we have, the instant. I can run to the coffee shop down the street….”
“No, honey, I just meant you don’t have to worry about me.”
Flora blinked, perplexed.She’d expected praise for being a martyr,thought Lee.
“Go get ready for school,” said Lee.
“Iamready,” said Flora. She wore a pleated skirt with a blue blazer, knee-high socks, and Mary Janes. She looked like an orphan girl from a fifties movie. Lee opened her mouth to ask Flora to go wake her sister, but then realized this was how kids got “parentified.” (Lee loved Instagram reels, and many of hers featured a psychologist who dressed up as a parentified child and spoke in an unsettling voice about childhood conditioning and fucked-up core memories. Lee could relate.)
She dragged herself from her sister’s bed and made her way to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, grabbed yoga pants and a top from her luggage, then slipped on shoes. Slurping the instant coffee, she rapped her knuckles on the girls’ open bedroom door and called, “Wake up, buttercup!”
Isabelle opened one eye. Lee stood at the end of her bed with her arms folded over her chest. “Time to rise and shine!”
“No,” groaned Isabelle, rolling away.
Lee took her long nails and dug them into the soft flesh of Isabelle’s exposed shoulder.
“Ow!” Isabelle screamed, showily. “Oh my God! You scratched me!”
“It was just a poke,” said Lee. “Get up. Now.”
“Yikes,” said Isabelle. But she got up.
It took a half hour to reach the manicured campus of the American School of Athens. “We can get out here,” Isabelle growled at the gated entrance, but Lee didn’t slow, waved at the guard, and entered the drop-off line. Isabelle scrunched into herself and Flora seemed pleased. When they reached the front, Lee said, “Have a good day, girls. When should I be here for pickup?”
