laced up her leg. Her long blond hair was still wet from the shower, and she left it damp down her back, didn’t bother to put on makeup, for a midnight flight where all she’d do was sleep anyway, and when the shuttle came, she flew out the door, and took out all their bags. While the driver loaded them, she made sure that all the lights were turned off and set the alarm, looked in her carry-on again to make sure the manuscript was there, and then double-locked the front door.
She was in the van when her cell phone rang and it was Sophie, checking on her. She was the organizer in the family, the responsible one. Carole was less efficient, always distracted and a little vague. And Liz always forgot things, like her handbag, her keys, or setting the alarm. But this time she had everything in control.
“Did you remember to set the alarm?” Sophie asked her in a motherly tone, almost certain she hadn’t, and was surprised when Liz said yes. “Turn off the lights? Do you have your passport?”
“Of course.” Liz would have been annoyed, but she knew her questions were well intentioned, and Liz had been known to forget important things over the years.
“Did you bring our bags?”
“No, just mine,” Liz said innocently, teasing her as Sophie gasped, and then her mother laughed. “I think I got it all.” Including her precious manuscript, Liz thought, as Sophie said she would meet her at the airport. She and Carole were sharing a cab from the city to meet her there. And for once Liz felt as though she had done everything she should. For six weeks while the book rolled out of her, she had felt better than she had in years. She almost felt ready to spend two weeks with her mother, though not quite. She had spent her whole life desperate for her mother’s approval, and never felt like she had earned it, not because Olivia was critical of her, but mostly because Liz always felt as though she had been a failure. Her path had been strewn with broken dreams, failed relationships, disappointing outcomes, and promises to herself she’d never kept. The only thing she’d ever done right, or well, was be a mother to her girls. She had all the maternal instincts Olivia had never had. But Olivia had built an empire, and Liz knew she never could. So far, she couldn’t even write a successful book. Maybe this time would be different, but Liz found it hard to believe it would.
Her mother was impossible to compete with, and equally so to live up to. Liz saw her as some kind of goddess at the top of a mountain with no roads leading upward and no way to reach her. As a child, she had dreamed of pleasing her and making her happy and proud of her, and she had wanted it so badly, she had never even tried. How did you impress a goddess when you were a mere mortal? These summer trips were torture for her, they tantalized her with all the wishes of her childhood that had never come to pass and never would. She didn’t blame her mother, unlike her younger sister and oldest brother. She knew Olivia had been busy, but she had left Liz with an aching hunger in her soul that nothing could satisfy or fill, except the love of her children and hers for them. Both of them had been accidents, but had turned out to be the greatest blessings of her life, far more than their fathers had been.
The marriage to Sophie’s father would never have lasted, even if he hadn’t died, and Jasper, Carole’s father, was a handsome, narcissistic flake. He was harmless and incompetent, and had spent a lifetime having beautiful children in his image and doing nothing for them. There was no one there, and never had been. And the men Liz had been involved with since, albeit briefly, had been no better. She was the first to admit she had terrible taste in men. She always fell for their words and their looks, not their actions. All of them had been handsome, and none of them had been capable of real relationships and loving her. She always seemed to pick people who were unable to love, or people who were unavailable like her mother had been. What she needed was a man like her father, but she was never