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.