“Thank you, dear. I’d hoped you could,” said Mamaw.
“I’d have to keep Nate,” Dora added.
“Of course.”
“I’m in,” Carson said, grinning, tucking her legs up.
Mamaw looked at Harper, who was pacing the patio. Harper turned and returned to the group, standing opposite Mamaw. Her face was slightly flushed. “This is ridiculous,” Harper said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Dora, who was sitting next to her, swung her head to look at Harper.
“It’s not blackmail, Dora. It’s bribery,” Harper continued. “I see the pirate blood still runs strong in the Muir family.”
“Death to the ladies!” Carson shouted, raising her fist.
She was trying to lighten the mood but her effort fell cold. Harper was having none of it. She stood straighter, her jaw clenching. She wasn’t aware how very much she looked like her mother at that moment.
“You know, Mamaw,” she said in disbelief, “it’s laughable that you’d expect that we could drop everything and come running back here for vacation, like we were little girls again. We’re not! We’re grown women. With jobs. Or at least I have a job. Even if we could stay a month. But, two months, three!”
“This is not merely a vacation,” Mamaw implored. “This is our final opportunity to be together.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” Harper asked. “That suddenly we’re all going to be close again? Sisters? It’s too late for that. You should’ve thought of this long ago.”
“Actually, she did,” Carson interjected. She offered her sisters a sober glance. “She invited us every summer.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Harper replied. “I couldn’t make it. And I can’t make it this summer.” She reached up and fumbled at the clasp of her pearls.
Carson leaned forward and stretched her arm out to touch Harper’s leg. “Harpo,” she said, using the old nickname. “What are you doing?”
Harper didn’t reply. When the pearl necklace slid into her palms she walked over to Mamaw and stuck out her hand. “Please take it. I don’t want it.”
Mamaw put out her hand to catch the pearls as they slid out from Harper’s palm.
“Good night.” Harper turned on her heel and marched off.
“Harper!” Carson called after her.
“Let her go,” said Dora darkly.
Mamaw forced herself to keep her silence, closing her fingers around the pearls. She brought her fist close to her beating heart.
“I’d better go check on her,” said Carson. She sprang to her feet and trotted across the porch and into the house.
“Well!” Dora said in a huff. “I never heard anything like that in all my life. Talking that way to you. Throwing back the pearls. She might have royal lineage, but no lady would ever talk to her grandmother like that. Let her go back to New York.”
Mamaw wasn’t listening. She stared into the dark night, lost in her own thoughts. The night hadn’t gone at all the way she’d hoped. The house was in an uproar and her girls were more alienated from one another than ever.
“Mamaw?” Dora said, nudging her.
Mamaw shook herself to the present. Dora had moved beside her and was looking at her with worry.
“Go see if Lucille is awake, would you, sugar? That’s a good girl. If she’s asleep, let her be. And help me up. I’m so tired. I’m going to my room.” Mamaw fanned the air. “My heart’s beating like a rabbit’s. I’m worn out.”
“Mummy? It’s me.” Harper sat on her bed in the room she shared with Dora. The pillow was flat, the mattress hard, and the old pink and blue patchwork quilt frayed. It was a far cry from the chic decorator rooms in her mother’s house in the Hamptons. Suddenly, she felt so alone. She longed to be on the eastern shore, far from the South, far from everyone here who could pierce the shell she’d constructed around herself. Harper looked at the screen of her laptop, comforting with its steady connection to a vast, impersonal world.
“I saw that you’d called.”
“Yes,” Georgiana confirmed from New York. “I called twice, actually. The most terrible thing has happened.”
Harper’s body tensed. “What?”
“Mummy fell and broke her hip.”
Harper’s eyes flashed open and she rolled to her side. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. When?”
“Yesterday. She’s at hospital now and terribly put out.”
“Poor Granny. How did it happen?”
“She was preparing to leave for the Hamptons and fell down the stairs. I suppose we’re fortunate it wasn’t worse.”
“I guess that means she won’t make it to the Hamptons.”
“Of course she won’t make it.”
Harper flushed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Of course not. Silly of me. I just meant . . .” She didn’t know what she’d meant. It was just one of those inane comments people sometimes made at tense moments. Her mother didn’t tolerate fools or the foolish.
“She’ll need someone to stay with her when she returns home from hospital,” Georgiana went on. “So, darling, I’d like you to go to England as soon as you can.”
“England?” Harper exclaimed, shocked at the suggestion.
“Yes,” her mother said impatiently. “Mummy will need someone to stay with her. Family.”
“Shouldn’t you go? She’d much prefer you to me.”
“I would, of course. But I have to go to the Hamptons regardless. I’ve accepted so many engagements that I simply can’t cancel.”
“But my work . . .”
Her mother’s tone grew increasingly frustrated. Harper could picture her at her desk, despite the late hour, her hair pulled back and her bifocal glasses sliding down her nose. She was in a hurry and wanted this settled and off her desk promptly, without argument.
“You work for me. Your job is to do what I tell you to do. And I wish for you to go to England.”
Harper let her hand drop from her ear. Your job is to do what I tell you to do. Despite all her imaginings, she had to face the reality that this was, indeed, her job description.
“What about all the projects I’m working on?” she asked. She was very excited about the editorial work she had outlined for the summer.