property to create a compound and will pay the money to make that happen.

This house isn’t protected by the Historical Registry, so let’s not get all emotional and look for a buyer who wants to preserve Willow Lane out of respect for Dad. Let’s get out of it what we can.” Tricia nodded in Liza’s direction, knowing that she’d be a holdout. “And let’s face it, there will be revenue from book sales and possibly other business ventures like film rights now that Dad is gone. Is everyone okay with that?”

Maggie was having a hard time controlling her tears and Liza was lost in thought. How did we let this happen? Whit would have a field day with this news. He was constantly harping on Liza to get her father to agree to let him take over the finances, fearing that Bill Sweeney was doing exactly this, frittering away equity and cash. Bill Sweeney’s banker was a sailing buddy, not a financial whiz, who worked at the local People’s Bank, known more for its charming historic building than aggressive portfolio management. We’re going to end up paying for your father one day, I know it, Whit would say after almost every family dinner. “Why didn’t Dad sell this house then if he needed the cash?”

“Your father had a lot of flaws, but he knew most of them. He knew if he sold the house, he’d spend the money. The house was part of your inheritance and he didn’t want to gamble that away.”

“Jesus. How fucked up is that?” Tricia asked. “His best quality was not gambling away the roof over his head. Thanks, Bill!” The four of them managed to laugh. It was true. Brilliant William Sweeney was a goddamned mess. The laughter turned to snorts. If people only knew.

When they collected themselves, Liza asked, “Is there anything for Julia in the will?”

“I’m glad you asked. You father had a decent life insurance policy through his employment at Yale. The sole beneficiary is Julia Ruiz.”

“Like how much is ‘decent’?” Maggie had to ask because stockpiling resentments was her lifeblood.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” This only made the sisters laugh harder, the thought of the housekeeper getting a clear inheritance, much deserved, while they had to clean up their father’s mess.

Liza said that Julia would be equally shocked about the money, but also pragmatic. “Julia had told me about her cousin who had devoted twenty-five years to a Southport family of five, from the first baby’s baptism to the last child’s college send-off, only to be given a CVS gift card and two bags

of old clothes on her last day of work. Maybe she told that story to Dad, too. I’m happy for her. She deserves this. She put up with a lot over the last fifteen years. She saw it all.”

“So did we,” Maggie whined. More laughter.

Their dark sense of humor serves them well, Cap thought as he prepared to drop the biggest bomb of all on the Sweeney sisters.

“As you know, your father was a man in full. He lived a life that was both rich and often complicated, the result of which could be brilliant writing but difficult personal relationships. As you come to terms with your father’s death, I must add one more complication. It came to my attention about a month ago that your father had a previously unknown child outside of his marriage to your mother.” Cap paused to let the last sentence sink in.

A previously unknown child outside of marriage. “And I have an obligation to tell you about the child both legally and morally. You have a half-sister out there in the world and you should know that.”

A quiet moment passed, then the sisters registered their disbelief. Maggie spoke first, straight from her bank account. “Seriously, could this day get any worse? How many more people do we have to split the money with?”

Liza muttered, “What the hell . . .”

“Who is this person? How did you come to know this?” Tricia asked.

There was a flutter of talking along the same lines by the other sisters, then Liza said, “Please don’t tell us that one of his grad students has a newborn.” They all cringed at the thought of their seventy-plus father impregnating one of his starry-eyed students.

Cap understood their panic. “No, the child in question is not a newborn.

In fact, she is older than any of you. Your father is the biological father of Ms. Serena Tucker.” Again, a pause to let the sisters absorb the name. “As you recall, the Tuckers lived next door, the blue Dutch Colonial that shares the hedge. It appears that your father and Birdie Tucker were intimate for a time and Ms. Tucker, now thirty-eight, is the result.”

Tricia, the lawyer, went straight to the heart of the matter. “Does she stand to inherit any part of the estate?”

“Your father did name her as an equal heir in the real estate portion of his estate. She is to get one-quarter of the proceeds of the sale of the house.”

“And the intellectual property?”

“She is not entitled to any share of the IP. The three of you are the primary heirs to any and all of your father’s work, from his books to his

articles to the unproduced screenplay I know he has in his desk. There is a small percentage of monies from the IP revenue granted to his sister Frannie, five percent, but she has no say in the decisions about the IP. In terms of this recently identified heir, I think having a non–family member in the role of executor will add a layer of clarity.”

“Thank you for the provision, Cap. I’m sure that was your influence,”

Tricia said, and Cap nodded.

Liza was more focused on the name, not the law. “Wait, Serena Tucker?

She was at the wake.” She could barely find the words. “Tricia, she was the blonde out there dancing by herself at the end of the night. The tall skinny one.”

The light bulb went off for Tricia. “The one who was doing that drunk-girl sway out on the dance floor?” Nothing about this situation was the slightest bit humorous, but Maggie snorted a bit at Tricia’s brief imitation. It was spot-on. She’d seen that drunk girl out on the dance floor, too. Then, it hit Tricia. “Dad slept with Birdie Tucker? How is that possible? She was so, so . . . tan. Remember, all she did was play tennis? I don’t think I ever saw her in anything but a Ralph Lauren tennis skirt.”

It was true. The mention of Birdie Tucker’s name took them right back to the one summer their mother signed the older girls up for tennis camp at the country club, a rite of passage for so many local children whose parents believed a reliable serve could secure a lifetime of good fortune. Maeve Sweeney was not one of these mothers, preferring the public beach, the Boys & Girls Clubs sports, and arts and crafts to the country club lifestyle, but Emmy, her friend who meant well but only saw one path to a life well lived, talked her into signing up Liza and Maggie for tennis. The sisters were constantly reminded they weren’t “real members” by fellow campers, meaning their spot in the locker room hadn’t been passed down by bloodline nor paid for in equity.

Liza and Maggie, then fourteen and twelve, hated every minute of it, pounding forehands during the baking afternoon sun when the club moms preferred to sit by the pool, drinking iced tea or wine spritzers. The only reason they didn’t revolt entirely was the tennis pro, John Wilton, with the floppy brown hair, his Conn College T-shirts, and a maroon Saab. Liza and Maggie talked about him endlessly. Plus, there were popsicles at the end of the day.

The Tuckers were a permanent fixture at the country club courts, either playing, taking lessons, or drinking half-and-halfs on the patio. Liza could picture Serena Tucker, a few years older with tennis abilities well beyond those of the Sweeney sisters, hanging out at the tennis shack, flirting with John while he strung racquets, and her mother, Birdie Tucker, doing the same, like competitors. This was the woman their father slept with?

Now, Liza was a member of the same club, signing her kids up for the same lessons.

Maggie’s voice broke a little bit as she said, “Mom was so beautiful then, so healthy. How could he do that to her? With that totally generic suburban woman?”

Liza and Tricia fell silent. The timing of the affair, if it could be called that, was hitting them. Their father was sleeping around on his young, beautiful wife—not his sick wife, or his dying wife, or even shortly after Maeve was gone, all of which might have been understandable and, if the sisters were honest with themselves, knew had occurred with various women over the years. But the possibility that their father slept around on his young, beautiful poet wife, his muse, with that uptight mom next door who was constantly yelling at the Sweeney sisters to walk on the sidewalk instead of down the middle of their dead-end street? This had never occurred to them.

Cap answered as only Cap could. “Your father was a man who moved from one experience to another, uninterested in operating in some kind of coherent direction. He wasn’t a big-picture guy, except in his writing. In his life, it was often moment to moment.”