The Sins of the Mother

Chapter 12


Olivia’s first days back after the trip were hectic beyond belief. It was to be expected. She had stayed on top of everything through faxes and e-mails, and occasional calls from the boat, but it was still different being home. There was always more to do. The boys had felt it too. She had scarcely glimpsed Phillip since she got home, and John had taken a few more days for his trip to Paris with Sarah and Alex.

There were threatened strikes in a couple of locations, construction issues, and a new line in production, and she was keeping a watch on the human rights issues. A monsoon in India had caused a flood that destroyed six of their warehouses, and a small earthquake in Mexico had caused considerable damage to their store, but fortunately no one had gotten hurt. When things like that happened in areas where they did business, they donated heavily to local relief, and sent in medical supplies where needed. Olivia had made enormous charitable donations for years, often anonymously. She wasn’t seeking publicity, she wanted to provide help, particularly to children in jeopardy. She had come up with a motto years before that she tried to live by: “Our customers are our friends.” And it wasn’t friendly to cheat customers, sell second-rate goods, or exploit children to keep their prices low. Her own high moral standards were used in the business.

She was reading a report on a potential lawsuit in their Stockholm store. A woman had refused delivery service, and dragged a dining table up four flights of stairs herself. She had injured her back doing so, and was threatening to sue them, because she said the table was heavier than it should be. It was a bogus suit, and she was obviously looking for a settlement, but she was making so much fuss about it that the legal department had brought it to Olivia’s attention. She wasn’t sure yet what she wanted to do. She was thinking of giving her the eight chairs that went with it as a gift. It was the sort of claim that required that kind of attention. The woman was either poor or cheap if she had refused to pay for delivery. Olivia was making a note about it when Peter Williams walked into her office. She smiled when she looked up at him. She was happy to see him, and also mildly amused about the suit. The woman had written her a letter personally, and had said that using such high-quality wood made the table too heavy and dangerous for their customers to carry. Dragging it up four flights of stairs hadn’t been their intention when they made it. It was from one of their Indian factories, and Olivia knew the piece. It was a good-looking table at an incredibly low price, and John had designed it.

“Bad time?” Peter asked her, ready to leave if she was too busy, but she shook her head and sat back in her chair with a grin.

“No, I was just reading about the Stockholm suit. That can’t have been a lot of fun dragging that table up the stairs. I’m thinking of giving her the set of chairs to go with it. The memo said she didn’t buy them.”

“If you do, be sure you have them delivered, or she’ll up the ante on the suit,” he said, laughing. “I saw it too. I don’t think she’ll really sue us.” But there were others who had and would. Peter always advised her well. There had been a head injury case of a bookcase that fell on someone in an earthquake. They hadn’t bolted it to the wall, and it said to do so in the instructions that went with it, but Olivia paid the settlement anyway. They carried astronomical insurance to cover real claims, and when reasonable, they settled, in order to maintain goodwill. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone or take advantage of them, even when their customers were foolish.

“You look terrific,” Peter said as he gazed at her admiringly. She seemed healthy and tan and relaxed. He could see that the boat trip with her children had done her a world of good. Her vacations with them always did. And he looked well after his time in Maine too. He had come home a week early. He said he had a lot to do. And they both knew that a strike at their Spanish stores was coming and probably couldn’t be avoided. Local government had made the situation worse, and it would keep them busy if it happened. And there had been an arson fire in their warehouse in South Dakota. It was hard to keep on top of it all, but they both did. You had to have a clear head and think on your feet, and be able to make rapid, intelligent decisions to prevent any bad situations from getting worse.

“Thank you, Peter,” she said as he sat down across from her. “How was Maine?” His eyes were the same color as hers, and she saw them cloud over for a moment.

“The same as always. Emily and I don’t have a lot to say to each other. I left when the kids did. I enjoyed it, but I’m happy to be home. She’ll be up there for a few more weeks till Labor Day. What about you? No more travel plans for August?” He had been more expansive than he usually was about his marriage, but she knew it anyway. He had confided in her for many years. The marriage had died shortly after their children were born, when he discovered that his wife was an alcoholic. She had promised to get treatment for years and never did. Nothing had changed, and now they had the form of a marriage but not the spirit. He had gone to Al-Anon meetings for years, and finally gave up begging her to stop drinking. He had given up on the marriage then too. Olivia had met her, she was a nice woman, and intelligent, but she looked ravaged by her addiction, which still burned out of control like a forest fire. Peter no longer went out with her socially. At sixty-three, he was married, but he had been alone emotionally for years. He buried himself in his work, as Olivia did.

“I’m not going anywhere, unless we have a problem somewhere that I need to attend to or see for myself,” Olivia answered his question. “I have too much to do here. I don’t want to start traveling again until September.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Then he hesitated and looked at her as an expression of tenderness passed between them. “Dinner Saturday?” It was a shorthand they both understood. She nodded, and they smiled at each other.

“That sounds terrific. Bedford?” He nodded too. And then she got up and quietly came around her desk. It was after hours, her assistant had gone home, the building was quiet, and she was more relaxed than usual after her vacation. She was wearing a light summer dress, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she approached him and then gently bent to kiss him. “I missed you. I always do,” she said softly. She wanted him to know it, although she expected nothing from him in return. She never did. She understood his situation perfectly. He would stay where he was forever, with Emily, drinking herself to death quietly.

Peter stood up then and did something they never did in the office, but they were alone. He put his arms around her and kissed her. He sighed as he did. Holding her always felt so good. “I missed you terribly,” he admitted. They stood kissing in each other’s arms for a long moment, lost in the tenderness of it, and then they both heard a sound in the room.

Their lips parted and their heads turned, and they both saw him at the same time. It was Phillip standing in the doorway with a stack of papers in his arms, and a horrified expression. He looked like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Peter and Olivia moved apart discreetly—he gave Olivia a serious look and walked away. He said nothing to her, and as he passed Phillip in the doorway, he nodded at him.

“Sorry, Phillip,” was all he said, as Phillip strode toward his mother with a vengeance. Peter didn’t want to leave her with him, but he thought it best to do so. It was better for her to deal with her son alone.

“What was that moment of insanity I just witnessed?” her son asked her, as Olivia sat down quietly at her desk. In the instant it had happened, and they had been discovered, she had made a decision not to apologize to him. He was old enough to know the truth. She and Peter had been discreet lovers for ten years.

“It’s not insanity, Phillip. And it’s none of your business, any more than your personal life is mine. We’re both adults.”

“What, you’re having affairs with the employees now? What kind of bullshit is that? What if someone saw you?”

“We thought we were alone. And Peter is not an employee, he’s our general counsel. And what I do personally is no concern of yours. I’m sorry if it upset you, but I can assure you, we’re discreet.” She was shaking at his accusation, but she didn’t let it show. She had to take a position on the situation now, and she didn’t like what he had said. Not at all.

“Discreet? Are you crazy, or just immoral? He’s married, he’s ten years younger than you are, and if the press gets hold of this, you’ll look ridiculous. It will invalidate all our legal positions if people find out you’re sleeping with him. And he’s a married man, for chrissake! Is this what you did when you were gone all the time when we were kids? Is this what it was all about? Did Dad know? And all your bullshit about morality—what a joke! How dare you moralize to us, when you’re screwing around with married men, and maybe you always were.”

“Stop it!” Olivia said in a powerful tone as she stood up at her desk. She had an instant sense that Phillip was using this as a vehicle to air his grievances of the past. “I was faithful to your father every moment of our marriage, and he knew that. I was away so that I could build this business for all of us, and he knew that too. He wanted me to. He respected what I did, even if you don’t. And I respected him. Your father has been gone for fourteen years, Phillip. I’ve worked closely with Peter Williams for longer than that. He was kind to me when your father died, and has given us invaluable advice for all these years. It took me four years to get involved with him after your father died, if it’s any of your business, which it isn’t. He’s lonely, so am I, and he’s seven years younger than I am, not ten. His wife is an alcoholic, and he’s married to her in name only. And we’ve been discreet for ten years. No one ever found out about this but you. It’s not going to hurt our business, I won’t let it, and neither would he.

“And you’re right about one thing, it’s not a shining example of morality in the absolute. But we’re real people, with real lives, with grown children in their thirties and forties. I’m single, and he’s respectful of his wife. I don’t recommend this kind of situation, but it happens. I carry a huge responsibility here, on my shoulders alone, and if the kindness of Peter Williams helps me do that, then it’s a compromise I’ve decided to make. It took me a long time to make that decision, and I did. It’s not ideal, I’ll agree with you on that. But we’re human beings, and the ideal isn’t always possible. He’s never going to leave his wife, out of respect for her, and we’re not flagrant about this.

“I’m old, Phillip. I work hard, I always have. And if this gives us both some comfort in our later years, then so be it. You don’t get to decide what’s right for me or not. You can decide that for yourself. We all make compromises. You’ve decided it’s enough to be married to a woman who behaves like an iceberg and gives you precious little comfort, from what I can see. And I’ve had an affair for ten years with a married man. I was faithful to your father to his dying day and for years after. In all the ways that matter, I still am. I loved him when he was alive and I still do. And if this is what I choose to do, it is entirely up to me, not to you. The compromises you make in your life in order to make it work are your business. This is mine. It’s a compromise, but sometimes that’s a decision that one makes. I owe you no explanations, and I’m not going to discuss this further with you. Don’t try to cast aspersions on my behavior when I was married to your father—that won’t fly. And if you don’t like what I’m doing now, then I’m sorry. But that’s the end of it. The discussion stops right here.”

Her son was standing across the desk from her where Peter had been a moment before, and Phillip was shaking with rage. “I stand by what I said a few minutes ago. You’re a hypocrite. I don’t know if you were faithful to my father, I hope so for his sake. But you’re no saint, Mother. You’re the mistress of a married man. I don’t care if his wife is an alcoholic, that makes no difference. He’s married and you’re sleeping with him. He works for us. You’re sleeping with the help. So don’t lecture me.” He didn’t deny what she’d said about Amanda, but he was only thinking about Peter. And he was outraged that his mother was having an affair. Olivia couldn’t help wondering if it really made a difference to him that Peter was married—maybe he just couldn’t tolerate the idea of his mother sleeping with someone other than his father. He was very black and white in his ideas, and she always had been too, but the situation had changed over the years, and she and Peter loved each other, in a quiet way.

“I’m going to forget everything you just said. I’m not proud of what I’m doing, but I’m not ashamed of it either. It is what it is. Two people who need each other and have the weight of the world on their shoulders. We work hard, and derive a little comfort from each other. It keeps us going on the bad days, and there are a lot of those in this business, or any business. We’re not hurting anyone. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but we’re all grown-ups here, even you. You’re forty-six years old, and no, I wasn’t there every minute when you were growing up. I wish I had been, but I wasn’t. There were other things I thought I had to do, and your father thought so too. Maybe we were wrong. I’ll always regret what I missed. But that’s over, Phillip. We can’t get those years back. I can’t undo it, no matter how sorry I am if it hurt you. And I have a right to some comfort in my life, whether you like it or not.”

“You’re seventy years old, for chrissake. You’re an old woman. What are you doing screwing around at your age?”

“I’m not ‘screwing around,’ as you put it. I’m sorry you see it that way. And it’s absolutely none of your concern what I do, as long as I run this business correctly, and don’t embarrass you or myself publicly, and I’m not. The rest is up to me, Phillip. There’s no vote on this issue. This isn’t a board meeting, it’s my life, and you don’t get a voice in this one.”

He stared at her in unbridled fury, and without another word, he turned on his heel and left the room. He was seething at everything she had said to him.

She was shaking when she sat down at her desk again when he had left. This wasn’t the way she had wanted Phillip to discover her affair with Peter. She hadn’t wanted anyone to find out at all. But he had, and she had to live with it now. It didn’t change anything, and Phillip would have to get over it. It reminded her suddenly of her own feelings when she had realized that her mother was Ansel Morris’s mistress. She had hated it, it seemed so wrong to her. She had thought her mother was “a fallen woman.” But she was thirteen years old, not forty-six. She had discovered her mother’s affair just as Phillip had. She had seen them kissing one day, and her mother had then admitted it to her. She said she was lonely, and he was a kind man. But she had never married him, even at the end when he was widowed, despite their obvious love for each other.

Olivia had never believed in married people having affairs. She believed in marriage and fidelity, but so had Maribelle. She had been faithful to a married man she loved and who loved her. There had never been anyone else, even after Ansel died. And Olivia had been faithful to the only two men in her life. Joe for their entire marriage, and now Peter for ten years. It was not a spotless life, but it was a good one, and a reasonable one, given the circumstances. She didn’t love it, but she could justify it to herself, and had. She had never told anyone about Peter, and hadn’t intended to, although she often had thought about telling her mother. Somewhere in her heart she knew she owed her mother an apology for what she had thought of her at thirteen. She hadn’t understood then how Ansel had protected her mother and how much he cared about her. Maribelle had needed him, just as she needed Peter, even though he was married to someone else and always would be.

She wondered why her mother had never married Ansel, even after his wife died, but she had never dared to ask. He had died so soon after, within the year—maybe they didn’t have time. But whatever her reasons, they had been her own. Maribelle was a good woman, and an honorable one. And so was she, whatever Phillip thought now. She felt sorry for him with his limited thinking, and harsh judgments, the resentments he had carried for years. He was unable to accept or believe that people did their best, even if they weren’t perfect. And he had settled for a wife who Olivia believed didn’t love him, and was incapable of it. It was a sad life for him. And she preferred her own compromises to his, the love of a married man who was kind to her and whom she respected. They didn’t need marriage and they loved each other. Olivia wasn’t going to let Phillip spoil that for her with his black-and-white ideas about what was right and what wasn’t. She had a right to decide that for herself about something as personal as this.

She called Peter’s cell phone with a shaking hand, and he answered immediately with a worried tone.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I am,” she said firmly, determined to be, despite her son’s tantrum and his accusations and low opinion of her. What mattered was how she viewed herself, and she knew she had done the closest thing to right she could, for all concerned. “He’ll get over it. He’s a very rigid person, and he has a loveless marriage. It makes him harsh and unreasonable about everyone else. And he has a lot of old scores to settle with me, and grudges he can’t resolve. In a way, this has nothing to do with you. It’s just an opportunity for him to stay angry at me.” She knew him well.

“I’m sorry I ran out on you. I felt bad leaving, but I didn’t think you wanted me there while you talked to him.”

“I didn’t,” she confirmed. “You did the right thing.”

“What did he say?”

“A lot of very ugly things. He wanted to know if I cheated on his father, and of course I didn’t. Maybe it was good for him to hear. And he’s old enough to know what’s going on with us. He’s nearly fifty—at his age he ought to be able to accept human frailty in others. If he can’t, he’ll never be able to forgive himself for anything. Someone once said that being grown up is being able to accept your parents as they are. The trouble is that most of us don’t grow up in that sense. We want our parents to be perfect and live up to our ideals. Our children want us to forgive them unconditionally for their mistakes, but they don’t want to forgive us anything. At some point that no longer works. Phillip has some hard lessons ahead of him. Cass is the same way. She’s never forgiven me anything, particularly not being there when her father died. I blamed myself for that too, and I spent years thinking that he might have survived if I’d been there. He wouldn’t have, and there are other mistakes I’ve made. But this isn’t one of them. We’re not hurting anyone, Peter, as long as your marriage is intact, and you’re not hurting Emily with this, and I don’t believe you are.”

“She’s been an alcoholic for more than thirty years,” he said sadly. “We’re not stealing anything from her. Our marriage was over long before you came along.” It was what he had always told her, and she believed him. But he sounded worried anyway, about Olivia, and her son’s attack. It was hard being lambasted by your children, and he felt sorry for her. His own had no idea that he was involved with Olivia, although they knew their parents were married in form only. His daughter had urged him to get a divorce years before, but he felt a responsibility for Emily, and his son turned a blind eye to what was going on but he knew how sick his mother was. She had destroyed their family when the children were young, getting drunk at their school events, not showing up, or passing out when their friends were there. She had been a humiliation to them all their lives, and they respected their father for staying with her. It was easier for them in some ways. He was always there to take care of her, so they didn’t have to.

“Do you want me to come by tonight?” Peter asked her gently, and Olivia smiled.

“Yes, I do,” Olivia said honestly, “not just because of this. I missed you while I was gone.” They usually spent a night or two together every week. He had nothing to explain to Emily. She didn’t know if he was there or not. They had had separate bedrooms for twenty years, and there was a housekeeper to keep an eye on her. He offered no explanations, he just left, and could be reached on his cell phone at all times.

“I missed you too. I’ll come at eight.” It was six-thirty by then. They both had a few things to finish up in their offices, and it would take him an hour to get to Bedford. She’d arrive at about the same time. She had no live-in help. And no one ever knew when he spent the night. It worked perfectly for them. He always left before her daily housekeeper arrived. Olivia knew that she suspected, but had no idea who Olivia’s occasional nighttime visitor was. They had managed to maintain total discretion for ten years, until tonight. It was unfortunate that Phillip had discovered them, but it wasn’t a tragedy. It was evidence of her humanity. Now Phillip’s ability to be human, and adult, remained to be seen.

“See you at eight,” Olivia said quietly. “Drive carefully. I love you, Peter,” she reminded him, and he smiled.

“I love you too. See you soon,” he said, and they hung up. Olivia left her unfinished files on her desk. She was tired tonight. It had been a long day. And the altercation with Phillip had worn her out. She might not look it, and everyone said she didn’t, but she felt every minute of her age tonight.

A few minutes later she picked up her handbag and briefcase and turned out the lights in her office. She was looking forward to seeing Peter.



Phillip waited until he was in his car to call his brother. He had thought about what to do about what he’d discovered. He thought the others should know. He knew what a bleeding heart Liz was, and she’d probably think it was touching or romantic. He didn’t. And he hadn’t spoken to his sister Cass in years. But he wanted to tell John. He was sure he’d be as outraged as Phillip was. And Phillip didn’t buy the story that she’d been faithful to their father. He wondered now if that was why Cass looked so different from the rest of them. Maybe that was why Olivia had never been home. Maybe she’d been screwing around for years. Who knew what had really gone on? He felt sick when he thought of finding her kissing Peter. They had looked passionate as they embraced. Phillip’s stomach turned over when he remembered it. It was seven o’clock when he drove home, one in the morning in Paris. He called John at the Ritz, where he was staying with Sarah and Alex. His brother sounded sleepy when he answered.

“Something wrong?” John asked his brother quickly. Their grandmother was ninety-five, after all, and their mother was now ten years older than their father when he died. He was always afraid of something happening to them, or his wife or son. But they were in Paris with him, so he knew it wasn’t them. And a business crisis was always possible too. “Are you okay?” John asked, sitting up in bed, as he turned on the light. Sarah was sound asleep, dead to the world.

“No, I’m not. And you won’t be either when I tell you what’s going on.”

“Shit. Granibelle or Mom?” Phillip was hitting his worst fears, and John hadn’t picked up on the anger in his voice.

“Our mother. She’s having an affair with Peter Williams. She has been for ten years, or so she says. Who knows how long it’s been going on, or if she cheated on Dad before that, when she was never home.” It was a lot to absorb all at once, as John tried to sort through what he was saying.

“Mom’s having an affair?” It sounded unlikely to him.

“Yes, she is,” Phillip confirmed in an undertaker’s voice.

“How do you know?”

“I found them wrapped around each other in her office, when I walked in on them an hour ago.”

“They were having sex in her office?” John sounded stunned.

“No, they were kissing,” Phillip said precisely. He would have had a heart attack if they’d been making love. “She admitted the affair to me after that. He left, and she and I had a talk about it. And he’s married, if you’ll recall.”

“Yeah, I remember that. He’s a nice guy, though. At least he’s not some fortune hunter thirty years younger than she is.” He knew their mother was too sensible for that, but he was actually surprised to hear that she was romantically involved. He thought all she cared about was her work. He thought it was kind of nice to know that that wasn’t the case and she was human after all. Their father had been gone for nearly fifteen years—the anniversary was coming up shortly. That was a long time to be alone. “Is it serious?”

“Of course it’s serious. He’s married. How much more serious can it get than an affair with a married man? And for ten years. Imagine if the press gets hold of that.”

“The press isn’t going to care who she’s sleeping with,” John said sensibly. “They don’t report affairs in the business section of The New York Times. She has a right to do what she wants. She has a right to be happy, Phillip. She carries a hell of a lot on her shoulders. She’s had no one to support her in that since Dad. He helped her a lot, and now she’s all alone.”

“Bullshit. She has us,” Phillip said, sounding pompous, as John thought about it.

“Not really. We work for her, but we don’t support her. When the shit hits the fan, she’s the one it hits, and she works it out on her own. Did you get in a big fight with her about it?” John suspected that he had, and he was sorry for her. Phillip was always so critical of her, and so was Cass. They never forgave her anything from the past, and this was just the kind of ammo Phillip would use against her to prove all his old theories about how bad she was.

“Yes, I did,” Phillip admitted without remorse.

“Did you actually accuse her of cheating on Dad? An affair she got into four years after he died is hardly proof of infidelity in their marriage.” John sounded upset as he asked his older brother the question. Their mother didn’t deserve to be beaten up for having a discreet affair. And if she’d been involved with Peter for ten years, none of them had ever known, which was proof of how discreet she was.

“As a matter of fact, I did accuse her of that. It shows she has no morals, which casts a shadow on everything.”

“That’s ridiculous,” John said, annoyed at him. “How immoral is it for two people in their sixties, and now her seventies, to have an affair? And so what if he’s married? That’s unfortunate for them, but it has nothing to do with her life with Dad, Phillip. They were crazy about each other, and she was madly in love with him. We always knew that. And if she has someone in her life now, I’m happy for her. No one wants to die alone.”

“Nor in the arms of someone else’s husband. She should be better than that.” He had high standards for her, more so than John.

“She’s human, for chrissake. She still looks great. She looks young for her age. Why not? Why not have some comfort in her life, and a little love? He’s obviously not ditching his wife if they’ve been involved for ten years and he’s still married to her.” It was the sensible point of view, and the humane one, which Phillip didn’t share.

“You sound just like her,” Phillip said angrily. “What’s wrong with all of you? Does no one in this family have any standards? I suppose you think our grandmother should be turning tricks on Long Island so she doesn’t have to die alone either?” He was furious with John for not joining in the fight of outraged virtue with him. He was turning it into a crusade, but John was not signing up.

“Give it up,” John said, sounding exhausted. He had been asleep when his brother woke him. “This is her life, not ours. We all work it out the best way we can. She has a right to make her own mistakes, if this is one, but I’m not convinced it is. The only thing I am convinced of is that it’s none of our business. As long as she’s not embarrassing us or herself, or screwing on her office floor with the door open, or at a board meeting, I don’t need to know about it, and neither should you. You happened on it, like opening a door and seeing something you shouldn’t. This has nothing to do with us. Or with Dad. Now close the door and forget about it. You’re only going to cause unnecessary trouble for everyone if you make a big issue about this.”

“I can see you inherited her morality, or lack of it,” Phillip said coldly.

“It’s not up to us to judge her ‘morality,’ or decide who she should have affairs with or if she should. And she isn’t cramming Peter down our throats. I respect her for keeping quiet about it. And I think you need to back off. It’s only going to upset you, and her, unnecessarily. Find something else to bitch about. Now I’m going back to sleep. It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. I’ll be home on Sunday, but I’m not going to get on this bandwagon with you. And if she’s having a hot romance or a love affair at seventy, good for her!” John said with feeling.

“You’re as big a fool as she is,” Phillip said, and hung up on him without another word. He had expected his brother to share his opinion and his outrage. He hadn’t expected him to support her. And as John lay in bed at the Ritz in Paris, he was smiling, thinking about it. He liked Peter Williams. And he loved his mother, and if Peter was making her happy, what the hell. He turned over in bed and put an arm around Sarah. He wasn’t sure if he was going to tell her, out of respect for his mother, but he knew that if he did, she would agree with him. He thought Phillip was all wrong on this one, just as he was about a lot of things.