We Were Liars

It was easiest to tell her I would.

And later, I told her I had.

But Bess had asked Mirren to do the same thing,

and neither one of us

begged Granddad

for the fucking tablecloths.

61

GAT AND I went night swimming. We lay on the wooden walkway and looked at the stars. We kissed in the attic.

We fell in love.

He gave me a book. With everything, everything.

We didn’t talk about Raquel. I couldn’t ask. He didn’t say.

The twins have their birthday July fourteenth, and there’s always a big meal. All twelve of us were sitting at the long table on the lawn outside Clairmont. Lobsters and potatoes with caviar. Small pots of melted butter. Baby vegetables and basil. Two cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, waited inside on the kitchen counter.

The littles were getting noisy with their lobsters, poking each other with claws and slurping meat out of the legs. Joh

“We are worldly and awesome youth,” said Joh

“You know,” said Granddad, “I’m not getting any younger, despite my good looks.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said.

“Thatcher and I are sorting through my affairs. I’m considering leaving a good portion of my estate to my alma mater.”

“To Harvard? For what, Dad?” asked Mummy, who had walked over to stand behind Mirren.

Granddad smiled. “Probably to fund a student center. They’d put my name on it, out front.” He nudged Gat. “What should they call it, young man, eh? What do you think?”

“Harris Sinclair Hall?” Gat ventured.

“Pah.” Granddad shook his head. “We can do better. Joh

“The Sinclair Center for Socialization,” Joh

“And snacks,” put in Mirren. “The Sinclair Center for Socialization and Snacks.”

Granddad banged his hand on the table. “I like the ring of it. Not educational, but appreciated by everyone. I’m convinced. I’ll call Thatcher tomorrow. My name will be on every student’s favorite building.”

“You’ll have to die before they build it,” I said.

“True. But won’t you be proud to see my name up there when you’re a student?”

“You’re not dying before we go to college,” said Mirren. “We won’t allow it.”

“Oh, if you insist.” Granddad speared a bit of lobster tail off her plate and ate it.

We were caught up easily, Mirren, Joh

“You’re not being fu

“We’re not children,” I told her. “We understand the conversation.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, “or you wouldn’t be humoring him that way.”

A chill went around the table. Even the littles quieted.

Carrie lived with Ed. The two of them bought art that might or might not be valuable later. Joh

Bess was raising four kids on her own. She had some money from her trust, like Mummy and Carrie did, but when she got divorced Brody kept the house. She hadn’t worked since she got married, and before that she’d only been an assistant in the offices of a magazine. Bess was living off the trust money and spending through it.

And Mummy. The dog breeding business doesn’t pay much, and Dad wanted us to sell the Burlington house so he could take half. I knew Mummy was living off her trust.

We.

We were living off her trust.

It wouldn’t last forever.

So when Granddad said he might leave his money to build Harvard a student center and asked our advice, he wasn’t involving the family in his financial plans.

He was making a threat.

62

A FEW EVENINGS later. Clairmont cocktail hour. It began at six or six-thirty, depending on when people wandered up the hill to the big house. The cook was fixing supper and had set out salmon mousse with little floury crackers. I went past her and pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge for the aunties.

The littles, having been down at the big beach all afternoon, were being forced into showers and fresh clothes by Gat, Joh

I brought wineglasses for the aunts as Granddad entered. “So, Pe

“I didn’t say that,” said Bess.

Carrie narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, you did,” Granddad said to Bess. He motioned for me to sit down. “You talked about the five bedrooms. The renovated kitchen, and how Pe

“Did you, Bess?” Mummy drew breath.

Bess didn’t reply. She bit her lip and looked out at the view.

“We’re not lonely,” Mummy told Granddad. “We adore Windemere, don’t we, Cady?”

Granddad beamed at me. “You okay there, Cadence?”

I knew what I was supposed to say. “I’m more than okay there, I’m fantastic. I love Windemere because you built it specially for Mummy. I want to raise my own children there and my children’s children. You are so excellent, Granddad. You are the patriarch and I revere you. I am so glad I am a Sinclair. This is the best family in America.”

Not in those words. But I was meant to help Mummy keep the house by telling my grandfather that he was the big man, that he was the cause of all our happiness, and by reminding him that I was the future of the family. The all-American Sinclairs would perpetuate ourselves, tall and white and beautiful and rich, if only he let Mummy and me stay in Windemere.

I was supposed to make Granddad feel in control when his world was spi

My mother and her sisters were dependent on Granddad and his money. They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand co

“It’s too big for us,” I told Granddad.

No one spoke as I left the room.

63

MUMMY AND I were silent on the walk back to Windemere after supper. Once the door shut behind us, she turned on me. “Why didn’t you back me with your grandfather? Do you want us to lose this house?”

“We don’t need it.”

“I picked the paint, the tiles. I hung the flag from the porch.”

“It’s five bedrooms.”

“We thought we’d have a bigger family.” Mummy’s face got tight. “But it didn’t work out that way. That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the house.”

“Mirren and those guys could use the room.”

“This is my house. You can’t expect me to give it up because Bess had too many children and left her husband. You can’t think it’s okay for her to snatch it from me. This is our place, Cadence. We’ve got to look out for ourselves.”