She had no need for some older, smarter sister like Serena Tucker showing up and taking her place as the first-born. Liza had earned that spot over the years, leaving college to be there in her mother’s waning days, caring for her father for years, hosting all those family birthday parties, organizing family Christmases. For God’s sake, she married Whit to do the right thing before her mother’s death and that had to count for something.

Serena Tucker wasn’t going to walk into their lives and take that spot away from Liza because she’d been born fourteen months earlier. No way.

Liza stopped in front of the Robert Motherwell print that hung in the front hall. It had always been her favorite piece in the house, a bold abstract in orange and blue that reminded her of those bunny ears TV antennas she’d seen in old sitcoms. This was hers. She slapped a sticky note on it that said,

“Liza.”

Maggie welcomed the silence in her car. Jesus, she thought, I don’t know if I can take one more minute of Tricia and Liza. The two of them tended to ignore her completely when they were facing off in the “let’s do it my way”

competition that had been going on for the last decade. Maggie’s opinion rarely counted, which didn’t really bother Maggie. Let somebody else deal with the hassle.

But she certainly didn’t want to get cut out of the loop so completely that she was cut out of the money. Maggie had spent last night mindlessly scrolling through social media and formulating her strategy. She had

enough awareness about her mental health to know that her father’s death could affect her deeply, striking her like a lightning bolt and knocking her back off her feet for weeks, maybe months. It was a familiar pattern, one Maggie realized she shared with her father, a cycle of creativity, depression, sexual neediness. Of course, with male artists, there was a sort of “comes with the territory” acceptance that Maggie had never found herself. She knew people judged, including her sisters. As her therapist in Los Angeles had told her, “You can change your patterns, but you can’t change society’s perceptions. So, work on you and don’t get hung up on the others.”

Maggie had worked on herself and knew she needed to stay strong until the estate was settled, the manuscript found, and this Serena complication was worked out. Then she could return to her free studio space in East Nowheresville and check out for a while. In the meantime, her goal was to focus and move forward.

Still, Maggie was more intrigued than terrified of Serena Tucker and how she might infiltrate their lives. As long as Serena didn’t enchant her sisters in some weird way that would relegate Maggie to second-tier status, that was, with her cool looks and her media job. Maybe her connections could help Maggie somehow; maybe Serena would like Maggie more than the others and that would drive Liza and Tricia a tiny bit crazy. Maggie considered analyzing people on the spot as one of her special skills. It was clear from the meeting yesterday and the way Serena went on and on about the smallest details that Serena wanted a friend, a confidant. Maggie could be that person and use the relationship to her advantage.

She pulled her car into the parking lot of the Athena Diner on the Post Road, a classic Southport spot and the scene of some of the best days of her life (Sunday mornings drinking terrible coffee with Liza instead of going to math tutoring; late-night French fries with her first real boyfriend, Drew Pearson, after they made out in his Range Rover) and the worst days of her life (the Drew breakup; the post-ER pancake breakfast with her father after she swallowed all those pills; the diet plates she and Liza ate every day for two weeks after their mother died). She pulled her Prius into a spot next to a silver BMW sedan, and quickly checked herself in the mirror. She looked good, she thought. The crying had made her green eyes pop and the grieving diet brought out her cheekbones. She had grabbed one of her father’s sweaters out of his closet and tossed it on over a silk blouse, mainly for effect, but the heather-green color worked on her. She was ready.

For one second, Maggie felt a twinge of guilt. Then she remembered Liza babbling on about the summer show at the gallery. Sunflowers. How basic.

And still, she hadn’t asked Maggie to participate. I have yellow paint. I could do something for your little show. Liza had her own agenda, Maggie told herself as she got out of the car. And I have mine.

Gray Cunningham was leaning up against his silver truck. He looks even better than the other night, Maggie thought. Sobriety suited him. His blue eyes were clear, his curly dark brown hair was longer than the usual Southport day trader/woodworker (that’s what he called himself, anyway), and his face was tan and slightly chapped from sailing. He’d mentioned yoga as a recovery tool the other day; that must explain the arms. He kissed her on the cheek. “Hey, I’m so glad you could get away. I know you must have a lot going on, but I wanted to see you after the other night. I feel like we have more to say to one another.”

She nodded. The other night. Her father’s wake. Should she feel awful?

Maggie didn’t. “Me, too.”

“Shall we?” Gray offered his arm like he was a twelve-year-old boy at a cotillion escorting her to the punch table.

Maggie, who two minutes ago was all about focus and moving forward, took it willingly. She’d had a thing for Gray Cunningham since he was Liza’s secret boyfriend. All through that terrible summer as her mother got sicker, the one bright spot was Gray showing up in the shadows to pick up Liza and take her away from the misery at the house. Liza didn’t want her parents to know anything about him, especially the fact that she was getting on the back of his motorcycle, so Maggie volunteered to be the go-between in order to spend a minute a day alone with him, clearing the coast for Liza or making her excuses if she couldn’t escape. She was better at lying to her parents than Liza. In her brief conversations with Gray, Maggie felt like there was something there with him, but nothing ever happened between them. (Her sister would tease her that she believed every guy was hitting on her.) She had thought about him over the years, the kind of “what-if” that kept her going through rough days and long stretches away from Southport.

Even though the timing was terrible, Maggie was ready to make something happen. The what-if was now. After all, Liza was married. She couldn’t possibly object, could she?

Maggie smiled up at Gray. “We shall.”

“Hey, I’m home. I got some boxes.” Maggie struggled to carry a stack of boxes, unfolded and unwieldy, as she stumbled into the kitchen where her sisters were eating lunch. She’d been gone three hours. “I think I got enough, but we’ll probably need more.”

Tricia and Liza looked at each other before responding. Neither got up to help. They knew this was classic Maggie behavior, dodging work, offering vague excuses, if not outright lies, about where she’d been. This had been her pattern since childhood—skipping school to take the train into the city to hang out in the Village or claiming to be at a friend’s house overnight when more than likely she was with a guy. After she dropped out of Rhode Island School of Design, she went to Europe for six months with her mysterious college friend “Dina” who was really a thirty-five-year-old adjunct professor of ceramics named Deon. Liza knew the truth, of course, because there were all kinds of back-channel communications about the breakup on Santorini and the lost passport and the “stolen” wallet. Liza covered for her and wired her cash to get home. It had been nearly twenty years since that European odyssey, but, in many ways, Maggie hadn’t matured an ounce. Here she was with the same tropes. Liza couldn’t even speak.

Finally, Tricia asked, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Did you find the manuscript? Does Julia know where it is?”

“No and no. But you’ve been gone for hours. I could have used the boxes to sort the papers in the boathouse.” Tricia’s annoyance was more pragmatic than personal. She knew Maggie’s relationship with the truth was relative, but she’d never been as involved in the cover-ups as Liza had been. The six-year age gap had spared her the role of coconspirator.

“Oh, you know,” Maggie responded. “I stopped at Switzer’s Pharmacy and ran into Mrs. Whatshername. She lives at the top of Rose Hill in that huge Victorian with all the hydrangeas. She was mom’s friend, Emmy or something?”

“Yes. Emmy Nolan. She was, like, Mom’s best friend. That’s who she is.

The person Mom liked the most in the whole town,” Liza snapped back. It was all she could do not to scream at her.

“Sorry. I haven’t lived here in a while, Ms. Town Crier. Anyway, I ran into her and she cornered me for an hour in the adult diaper aisle. She wanted to know the real story about what happened and everything about you two.” Red flag for Liza. She’d run into Emmy Nolan two weeks ago.