had still made some meager efforts to come home from the office at a decent hour. When Cass came along, unexpectedly, seven years after John, it was too late. For both of them, mother and child. They had been the busiest years of her mother’s life, and Cass had no need or desire to give her a second chance now.
Cass was happy with her life. She had a business she worked hard at and had built herself; she had friends, and she had lived with a man she loved for the past five years. For Cass, with the exception of her grandmother, her relationship with her family had ended when her father died. She had always blamed her mother for not being there when it happened. After a massive heart attack, he had hung on for two days. Cassie had been convinced he was waiting for his wife to come home. It took them a day to reach her in the Philippines, and two more days for her to get home and he had died just hours before she arrived. Cassie remained convinced that her mother’s coming home in time would have saved him. It was the last straw for her. She never forgave her mother, and three months later she was gone. She had seen her brothers and sister only a few times since. She had nothing in common with them. She thought Phillip was a pretentious stuffed shirt. She couldn’t stand his wife, who seemed like a bitch to her. She had nothing against Sarah and John, but she had nothing in common with them either, and poor Liz was so insecure and frightened to compete with their mother that she could barely breathe. It depressed Cass just thinking about them, and she did so as seldom as she could.
The only one she maintained a close tie to was her grandmother, whom she saw whenever she had business in the States, and occasionally she flew over just to spend an afternoon with her. Granibelle hadn’t changed. She was still the same wonderful, loving woman she always had been, and she always begged Cassie to open her heart to her mother again. Cassie just listened and said nothing, rather than argue with her grandmother about it, or upset her.
Despite her feelings about her, and mostly to please her grandmother, Cass did see her mother once or twice a year. They had lunch sometimes when Cass was in New York, or when Olivia had business in London. The lunches were stressful and brief. Neither of them knew what to say to each other. Olivia had no idea how to make up for the past, and would have liked to. Cass shared nothing with her, and told her nothing about her life. She had never even mentioned Danny Hell. What Olivia knew about him, she heard from Liz, who had read about it in the tabloids. The only thing Olivia did know about Cass was that she had an enormously successful business, and that Cass had mentioned several times that she never wanted children. She said she was too busy to have them, and didn’t want anyone to have a childhood like her own. The point had been made, many times.
And so had her refusals to join them for family vacations. As far as Cass was concerned, the Graysons weren’t her family anymore. Phillip felt the same way about her, and made no effort to see her. He hadn’t seen her in at least ten years. John felt sorry for her, but awkward about the position she had taken and didn’t want to upset their mother by seeing her. Liz missed having a sister, and would have loved to talk to her and have her get to know her girls. But they had all begun to think there was too much water under the bridge. The only one who had never given up on Cass coming back into the fold was Maribelle. She told Olivia never to stop seeing her, and to stay in touch as best she could, and one day Cass would come home. Olivia no longer believed that, but she invited her to their summer vacations every year, and continued to have lunch with her whenever she could.
When she got back to her office, Cass sent the same response she did every year, declining her mother’s invitation. Her answer was always brief and clear: “Thank you, no. Have a nice trip. Cass.”
Olivia saw the message on her own