The Sins of the Mother

Chapter 6


Amanda went back into Portofino with a crew member and the tender the next day. She was itching to get back to the shops and see what she could find. There were several fancy little stores strung along the port, some Italian, some French, a fun jewelry store, and she came back to the boat laden with her purchases. The crew member she’d taken with her looked like a beast of burden, carrying six or seven shopping bags, and Amanda wore a look of victory. She had worn a short pink strapless sundress with a matching hat for her trip into town, and she came back looking like the consummate shopper. Phillip always said that Amanda shopped as a form of relaxation, so he never complained about it. And Olivia suspected it was true. And as a side benefit, Amanda always looked like a page in Vogue. And she knew that her son liked that.

Amanda was beautiful, without a doubt, but even at her best, she was never warm. It worried Olivia for Phillip. And oddly, although he had suffered from how busy she had been when he was a child, he had picked a woman to marry who was just as intent on her career, or even more so. To the point that she hadn’t wanted children, and it always struck Olivia that she wasn’t much fun to be around. She was so intense about everything she did, and so determined to become a judge. She wanted to know the right people, be seen at the “right” events. There was nothing spontaneous about her. Even her shopping seemed calculated and determined. It was hard to imagine her with messy hair, or laughing herself silly. She seemed humorless and cold to all of them, although they never said so to Phillip. He wasn’t a particularly spontaneous person either, and he was serious by nature, but Olivia couldn’t help thinking that a more easygoing woman might have softened him, and done him a world of good. But he never commented on Amanda’s coolness, so maybe he didn’t mind it, and liked her the way she was.

Olivia had far more fun with Liz, whose humility was touching in many ways. She was bright and funny and beautiful, and never seemed to know it. She was quick to laugh at herself, which was endearing. And Olivia enjoyed talking to Sarah, who was intense but extremely intelligent, and madly in love with John, which pleased Olivia no end. It touched her heart to see her so loving to her son.

Olivia had come to know her children better as adults than she had as children. She was far more aware now of their sensitive points, their fears and weaknesses, and she worried about them more in recent years than she had when they were young. In the early days, they had had their father and grandmother to protect them, and Olivia had been around as much as she could. In those days all they had had to do was keep them healthy, safe, and warm, and keep them out of harm’s way, or from doing something foolish in their teen years. But now the stakes were so much higher, the risks greater, and the price of mistakes they made potentially enormous. A wrong spouse, a bad decision, a serious health problem—in their early forties they seemed so much more vulnerable to her than they had been when they were small. And there was almost nothing she could do to protect them. She had to respect them as adults, remember not to pry, and pretend not to notice when they looked unhappy. She seriously wondered if Phillip was really happy with Amanda, if she was enough for him, if all he wanted was a clothes horse obsessed with their social status and her job. It was hard to know, and she couldn’t ask him, although she was tempted to at times.

When the rest of them got up, the crew slipped the yacht free of its moorings on the rocks, and they went out to find a good place to swim, and for the young people to play. It was nearly lunchtime by then, but they had all agreed to eat late. And Phillip and John wanted to go fishing. Once they had anchored at a good swimming spot across from a beach, the boys took off in one of the tenders with a crew member, and their fishing equipment. John promised to come home with dinner, and as they motored off, Olivia couldn’t help thinking how much like their father they were in many ways. They were both good, quiet, solid men, who were kind to their children in John’s case, and loving and supportive of their wives. And a day of fishing was a slice of heaven to them. It made her smile thinking of Joe, and knowing how pleased he would have been with how they turned out, and how devoted to the family business. He would have been very, very proud, just as she was.

The kids tried the banana again before lunch, with the same results as the day before. Everyone fell off in less than a minute, with squeals of laughter. Sarah tried to take their picture, but they fell off too quickly. Olivia was laughing just looking at them, and so was everyone else. The top of Liz’s bathing suit fell off twice when she tried it with them, and Alex nearly lost his swimming trunks. It looked like a lot of fun. The only one who wasn’t amused was Amanda, who was slathering sunscreen on her long graceful arms, then decided to sit in the shade. She paid no attention whatsoever to the merriment caused by the banana. She was oblivious to all of them.

It was three o’clock when everyone came back on board for lunch. Phillip had caught a tiny fish and thrown it back, and both men were determined to do some serious fishing at their next stop. They had decided this wasn’t the right place. And once again the lunch the chef had prepared for them was plentiful and delicious. There were two long buffet tables, and a round table in the middle of the deck, all laden with food they all helped themselves to generously. Sarah said she’d never seen Alex eat so much, but everyone was hungry, and the food was too good to resist, so no one even tried.

Liz, Sarah, and Amanda made a date to meet in the gym late that afternoon, and to try the hair salon after that. And after lunch, they all went water-skiing. Everyone but Sarah and Olivia got up and had a good run around the boat, and everyone was in great spirits when they finally came back on board.

They were planning to have dinner anchored to the rocks, and then take off for a night sail to Elba. And the captain promised that in the quiet waters around Elba, the fishing would be excellent. Phillip and John were looking forward to it.

And that afternoon, after their water-skiing adventure, everyone lay on the sundeck, except Amanda had gone downstairs to take a nap. She clearly needed a break from having that many people around. And Phillip seemed more gregarious after two days of hanging out with his siblings. Olivia thought it was good for him to loosen up. He was so serious, and older than his years at times. He was very sedate and respectable but was becoming more irreverent as the days went by. He was telling John funny stories about a hunting trip he’d been on, when Liz quietly confided to Sarah about her book.

“To be honest, I just can’t tell if it’s terrific or awful. It’s different from anything I’ve ever done. It’s mostly allegorical about the fantasy life of a child, but it’s very philosophical in some ways. I’m afraid to send it to my agent—he might think I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t called him in years.”

“Do you want me to take a look at it?” Sarah offered, as the sun went down, and they all relaxed together. They felt like a real family, during these holidays together, instead of separate unrelated individuals. Maintaining that bond to one another, and to her, was why Olivia got them together every year, and so far it was working. Even the in-laws got along better, and the cousins had a ball.

“I’d love you to,” Liz said with a shiver of fear running down her spine. “Christ, Sarah, what if it’s awful?”

“Then you’ll write something else. You have to try different things sometimes.” She knew Liz had been stuck for a long time. She was happy to hear that she was writing again, and intrigued to see what she’d written. “I’d love to read it,” she said, sounding enthusiastic, and neither of them had realized that Olivia was sitting right behind them, soaking up the last of the sun.

“So would I,” she said gently. “Can I read it after Sarah?” Liz jumped when she heard her mother’s voice, and turned to see her with a look of panic.

“Mom, it’s really not ready, I need to work on it some more.” Olivia nodded, but looked disappointed. She wanted to share in what they were doing, and learn more about them now, but sometimes it was hard to open those doors, and she could only enter the inner sanctum of their lives if she was invited. And apparently, in this case, she wasn’t.

“I’d love to see it whenever you’re ready,” Olivia said, and Liz nodded, thinking that would probably be never. The last person she wanted to share her failures with was her mother. Olivia had succeeded at everything she’d ever done, as far as Liz was concerned, and she herself had never done anything of importance or merit. What she didn’t realize was that Olivia thought Liz was an extraordinary mother, and felt like a failure in that area herself. They each had their talents and their strengths. Olivia’s had come out in business, and Liz’s had blossomed at home with her children. But Liz’s sense of herself was always as a failure. And if her new manuscript was another example of that, she had no desire to show it to her mother.

Liz changed the subject then, and a little while later the three women went off to the gym. Olivia played Scrabble with her grandchildren when they came back from their last swim, and Phillip and John were talking about the business. They had each gotten several e-mails from the office that morning, and had already discussed them with their mother. There had been a threatened strike at their Cleveland store, but the dispute had been settled, and Olivia wasn’t concerned. She had reminded them to send a copy of the e-mails to Peter Williams, to keep him informed. But work was the last thing on her mind as she played the game with her grandchildren. Sophie put down a seven-letter word, and then Alex managed two of them and beat them all soundly.

Olivia had a massage after the game, and they all dressed casually that night for dinner. They were going to make it an early night, so they could get under way to Elba. It would be an eight- or nine-hour cruise, so they could arrive by morning. Elba was a sleepy spot with good swimming, and excellent fishing for the boys, and it was a good halfway spot between Portofino and Sardinia, where they were planning to spend several days.

They had dinner at nine o’clock, and by ten-thirty they were under way toward Elba. The kids had decided to spend the rest of the evening in the movie theater, and the adults all wanted to go to bed early. None of them was used to the amount of sports they were doing, and they were genuinely tired after a long day in and out of the water. But all of them felt healthier and more relaxed than they had when they arrived.

Sarah and John were the first to leave the others. Sarah had Liz’s manuscript with her. She was very curious about it. And Amanda went to get a massage before she went to bed. Phillip and Olivia were the only ones left on deck. He was nursing a glass of wine, and he looked pensive as they watched the yacht’s broad wake behind them. The sky was full of stars, and it was a magnificent night. Olivia was enjoying the silence and the peace, and she watched her son’s face grow serious as he looked out to sea and drank his wine. For the first time in a long time, Olivia felt as though she could reach out to him. There was something so sad in his eyes, she just couldn’t resist it. Whatever their differences in the past, or their respective regrets about his childhood, she was his mother after all.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him gently. He didn’t answer for a long time, and then he nodded, but he didn’t meet her eyes as he took another long sip of his wine. “Phillip, are you happy?”

He looked at her then, and seemed surprised, as though he had never asked himself that question. “That’s an odd thing to say,” he commented, but he didn’t seem angry that she had. “I think so. Why did you ask me?”

It was an opening that she had hoped for, for a long time. His marriage was a mystery to her. It was so different from the warmth she had shared with Joe, no matter how busy they both were. Phillip’s choice of spouse had not been what she wished for her children. She much preferred John and Sarah’s cozy lovefest, but her two sons were very different, and Sarah wouldn’t have suited him at all.

“My marriage to your father was very different. You and Amanda are much cooler with each other. Is that all right for you?”

“It suits us,” he said simply.

“Is it enough?” For a moment, he looked angry, and she was afraid she had gone too far. It was a delicate thing asking adult children about their private lives, and the history of his resentments stood like a wall between them. She had just dared to come over that wall, and he looked like he was about to react severely. She had trespassed on his life.

“By what right are you asking me something like that? You were never there when I was a kid, Mom. Dad and Granibelle were, you never were. Was that enough? No, it wasn’t, if you really want to know. You were wonderful when you were there, but you weren’t around very often. And now you question if my wife gives me enough?”

“She’s almost as busy as I was,” Olivia said gently but bluntly. “My success was an accident. I never planned it, I never hungered for it. It hit me like a tidal wave, and I started swimming as fast as I could to keep up with it. But I never made a decision to go after it. Amanda is a very ambitious woman. She wants it. I worry sometimes that you’ll miss out on the same things with her that you did with me—enough time together, someone to be there for you when you need them, someone to rub your back or hold your hand when you’re scared or lonely. You father did that for me. I can’t see Amanda doing that for you. She’s too busy trying to get where she wants to go.” They both knew that Amanda was an ice queen, but Olivia didn’t say it. “And you don’t have Granibelle and your father around now to make up for it. I’m sad for you that you decided not to have children. I may have made mistakes, and I made many, but all of you are the best thing in my life now. You always were. I’d be miserable without you.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” he said, looking unconvinced. “It works better for us this way. I don’t think people should have children who don’t have the time to spend with them. Amanda is smart enough to know that, and so am I. Maybe we’re just very selfish people.” She would have agreed that Amanda was, but Phillip had a warm side that a good woman could have developed and Amanda had no interest in doing that. She was far more interested in herself, what he could do for her, and how he could serve her ambitions. And Olivia couldn’t help wondering what he was getting out of it. And like her, he was all business. Even at her busiest, she and Joe had never lost the tenderness they shared. She could see none between Amanda and Phillip.

“I don’t think you’re selfish,” Olivia said generously, still slightly amazed that they were having this conversation and that he had allowed it to happen. She had taken him by surprise, and the wine had helped. She knew he was being honest with her, surprisingly open and very candid. “Cass says the same thing, about why she doesn’t want children. She says she’s too busy, and she knows it.” It pained Olivia to realize that she had affected her children so deeply with her frequent absences during their childhood, that two of them had decided never to have children, which seemed like a terrible deprivation to her. But she knew she couldn’t have managed it herself without her mother and Joe. Joe had been willing to give more than his fair share as a father, and her mother had carried the full weight of four children, day in and day out. It had been an incredible gift to her, and made her family possible in ways it wouldn’t have been otherwise. Olivia was well aware of it and eternally grateful to them.

“Not everyone is cut out to have children.” Phillip looked right at his mother as he said it. “Some of us are smart enough to know it.” He scored a direct hit with that one, and his mother felt it go straight to her gut with a dull ache.

“I may have screwed up, but I don’t regret having any of you. I love you very much, and I always did.” She wondered if he needed to hear it. It felt right to say it to him.

“Well, that’s good to know,” he said as he finished his wine and set down the glass, and then he stood up. They had gone as far as he was willing to, but Olivia was touched that he had let her go that far inside his inner walls. Usually Phillip was heavily guarded, and he had never let her in before. She was glad she had broached the subject. She still didn’t know if he was genuinely happy with Amanda, but she had the feeling that he didn’t know that himself. She suspected that he didn’t ask himself a lot of questions. He just accepted the obvious and what was. She thought Amanda was a very lucky woman. From what Olivia could see, she expected a lot, and gave very little in return. She didn’t like to see it, but Phillip didn’t seem to mind, if he even noticed. His emotional expectations appeared to be minimal, and he set the bar for that very low.

He kissed her on the forehead then, and went downstairs to his cabin. He left Olivia alone on the deck, staring out to sea, and thinking about him.

Amanda was lying on the bed, reading a magazine when he walked in. He smiled when he saw her. She was wearing a white satin nightgown, her hair was freshly brushed, and she had had her nails done after the massage. She loved all the luxuries offered on the boat.

“Where were you?” Amanda asked, curious about it.

“Having a drink with my mother.”

“How sweet. And she gave you permission to come to bed?”

“My mother doesn’t give me ‘permission,’ Amanda. I work for her, but she doesn’t own me.”

“You could have fooled me. I would have said she did,” she said in a chilly tone, and he looked at her as though for the first time. But it was not the first time she had said it. It was an old refrain.

“Why do you resent it so much that I work for her? It’s a great job. I’m going to run the whole company one day, I might as well learn how.” John had no head for business, and they all knew he would never do anything more than creative and design, and he was brilliant at what he did. But it was Phillip who would step into his mother’s shoes one day. It was why he had gone to Harvard and gotten an MBA.

“You already know how to run the company,” Amanda said with a grim look. “Your mother should step down. You’re like Prince Charles and the Queen of England. She’s going to run the business till she’s a hundred years old, and you’ll be lucky if she turns it over to you when you’re eighty.”

“I hope she does live to be a hundred,” he said generously. “I’ll take it over whenever she’s ready. And I’m not in any hurry to take on all the worries she has on her plate.”

“That’s my point,” Amanda said with an angry expression. “If you had the balls, you would be willing to take on those headaches now. How old was she when she stepped into the business? Eighteen? How old are you? Forty-six? You should be doing it now. You and John should force her out.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say,” Phillip said, looking shocked. Amanda had never been that blunt before.

“It’s embarrassing to admit that I’m only married to the CFO. It makes you sound like an accountant. It would sound a lot better if you were the CEO. You should be. Now.”

“I’m sorry if you’re embarrassed, Amanda. And as a matter of fact, my father was an accountant. I don’t think my mother was ever embarrassed to be married to him. In fact, I think she was very proud of him. She may have been a lousy mother, but my father thought she was a great wife.” And he was beginning to wonder if he could have said the same about his own. Some of the things his mother had said to him, and the questions she had raised, had hit home, even if he hadn’t admitted it to her. He had heard every word she said. Amanda had picked a hell of a night to go after him, and humiliate him by saying that his mother “owned” him. No one owned him, and neither did she. Phillip had no desire to be owned, only loved. And sometimes it was hard to tell if Amanda did.

“I hope one of these days you grow up and take over the reins,” Amanda said with a sigh. She had been insulting to him ever since he had walked into the cabin. He didn’t say another word, just walked into the bathroom. They had both said enough for one night.

When he came back into the bedroom, with his teeth brushed, in his boxers, Amanda was in bed, her long, elegant form silhouetted under the covers. He got into the bed and turned off the light, and as soon as he did, he felt her cool fingers touch his back, and move gently toward the front of his shorts. Her timing was terrible and her words had hit him hard. Maybe she was trying to make it up to him, but he gently took her hand, moved it aside, and turned on his side with his back to her.

“Not in the mood?” she asked in a silky voice in the dark, as he marveled at how insensitive she was. How could she think he wanted to make love to her now? She had basically told him he had no balls.

“Not tonight,” he said in a cold voice, and she gracefully moved away from him, and stretched out on her side of the bed. And neither of them said another word.