“I think we should go out,” Candice suggested.
“Now you’re talking.”
Lindsey and Candice entered the house and walked the empty halls to the kitchen, where they found a bottle of white wine chilling in the fridge.
“It’s almost like she invited us here to spend time together,” Lindsey said, uncorking the bottle and pouring two glasses. But they knew their mother had probably been chilling the bottle for future times with Vineyard friends. Probably, she’d had her schedule packed all summer long. She’d usually come to theVineyard in early May and refused to leave before the end of the year, unless she had commitments in the city.
They went out onto the veranda to watch the light play over the waves and the seagulls swoop overhead. Candice asked Lindsey when she’d last been to the Vineyard. Lindsey puffed her cheeks and said, “Maybe last summer? I can’t remember. But you were here for Christmas?”
Candice nodded, dropping her face into one of her hands. “I hate thinking about it.”
Lindsey was quiet. Maybe a normal sister would have touched Candice’s shoulder or said a kind word about her feelings, but Lindsey didn’t seem to have access to those words. Maybe she never felt for Candice at all.
Not long after that, their little brother, Henry, arrived. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit, but his hair was mussed from the plane. His eyes were distant, as though he didn’t want to investigate Candice’s and Lindsey’s faces too much.
After he dropped his bags in the room that had once been his, they went out to dinner at a seaside restaurant they remembered their mother had loved. A hostess they didn’t recognize seated them near the window, where they looked at the menu without speaking to one another. It was only after they put in their orders that one of the staff members came over to say hello.
“We were just so sorry to hear about Stella,” the woman said, sliding her hands in and out of her apron. “We loved her, you know? Oh, but we’re excited to hear about her plans for the Harbor Estate.”
Candice tilted her head with surprise. “Her plans?”
The woman laughed. “You’re here to read the will, aren’t you? Sorry. A place like the Vineyard doesn’t have many secrets. Or you could say we run on secrets like cars run on gasoline, but we don’t know how to keep them very well.”
After the woman left the table, Henry, Lindsey, and Candice exchanged nervous smiles.
“You don’t think she knows something we don’t?” Henry asked.
“How could she?” Lindsey pulled her hair into a bun and sipped her wine. After a hesitation, she continued, “What do we want to do with the Harbor Estate? I mean, regardless of which of us Mom passes it down to. I don’t mind sharing. It’s a big property.”
“You think she gave it to you?” Henry asked, his eyes glinting.
“I don’t know! Mom was always so secretive. But the thing is, I wouldn’t mind a bit of a reset. I’ve had a difficult few months, and yeah. I want to relax at the house. I want to swim in the sea and eat seafood and, you know, grieve Mom.” She let her shoulders drop forward.
Candice realized that she’d been thinking something similar about herself, about her summer. Sarah was already taking summer classes at NYU, and Peter had about eight different types of sports camps to attend in the city, so it wasn’t like they needed her around. Nathan had his writing (and his affair, if that was still going on). What if Candice spent some time at the Harbor Estate? What if she finally, finally managed to write again after years off?
They’d arranged for their mother’s attorney, Ralph Conner, to come to the Harbor Estate that evening to read the will. For this, they returned home by eight and did everything they could to make the living room comfortable for him. They set out the drink tray, upon which sat their mother’s selection of spirits and mixers, and they played light classical music, wanting to project to him an air of “togetherness.” Candice imagined that their mother had told Ralph that her children didn’t keep in touch with her or with each other. Maybe they wanted him to think that the time of their lives was over? Although once they left theHarbor Estate, they would obviously go back to not speaking. That was the way it had always been.
Ralph Conner was only slightly younger than their mother (their mother, who’d only been sixty-eight when she’d died, which was entirely too young!). He came in, took off his shoes, then put them back on when he realized everyone else was still wearing shoes.
“Apologies. Your mother always wanted shoes off.” He chuckled.
Candice was mortified. Somehow, she’d forgotten. She felt as though they’d broken an integral rule, as though they’d failed their mother’s final test. But it was too late. They kept their shoes on and sat in the living room, where they offered Ralph a drink, and he declined.
Candice was both fascinated and terrified by what came next. She’d never been to an official reading of a will, and she wanted to memorize what happened, in case she needed it for one of her books. But the minute Ralph Conner began to read, Candice lost all sense of reality. Bit by bit, Ralph Conner passed out their mother’s life. He passed out antiques and money and gave the three siblings full ownership of the Manhattan apartment and the Florida house.
And then he came to the topic of the Harbor Estate.
“Your mother was quite nervous about this next section of the will,” Ralph said, wearing a smile that told them that he was not nervous in the slightest. “I know she assumed she would be around a lot longer. She saw herself taking on this next project, rather than leaving it to those left behind. I know she could have done some real good here. But alas.” He cleared his throat and began to read. “The Harbor Estate will be transformed from its current status as a private home to a transitional home for women in crisis. The project for this transformation will be helmed by my assistant, Gwen Harper, who will be generouslycompensated. See attached contract. My children, Candice, Lindsey, and Henry, will have three months to go through the items within the estate and claim what they wish before vacating the premises for good.”
For a moment, Candice, Lindsey, and Henry sat, shocked, and stared at the lawyer. And then, Lindsey blurted, “I beg your pardon? She’s doing what to our house?”
4
Spring 1977: Hainesborough, Tennessee
Heidi Kimpel had never dreamed of getting married. It wasn’t that she’d ever been against it. Rather, up until very recently, she’d been a girl and then a teenager, trying and then failing to go to school, trying and trying and trying to keep her parents’ house clean.
Dreaming about falling in love? About walking down the aisle? About wearing a white dress? That seemed meant for someone else.
