Perhaps you’d like to see it before Liza donates everything to Goodwill and Tricia shreds all remaining documents. Hahahaha. Kidding. No, seriously, come by. xo Maggie

Serena stared at the mug, then reread the note. Our father. Yes, Maggie had acknowledged the truth and it touched Serena deeply. She’d already formed her own opinion about all the sisters and it didn’t surprise her that Maggie was the one to reach out. She was the most open, a seeker. This was a huge gesture, and the invitation to see the house, his office, everything before it was sold was exactly the opportunity she had hoped for. The night of the wake, the office had been locked (she had tried the door) and the house itself was too filled with people to do any decent snooping. Yes, Serena would be stopping by this week.

It didn’t even matter that Maggie had gotten the details wrong. Vassar hadn’t been all women since 1969 and William Sweeney had, in fact, appeared there in 1972 as part of an all-male panel discussion about “the pinking” of journalism, an event protested by the Women’s Union on campus. He was a male chauvinist pig, according to the enthusiastic voices of dissent of dozens of undergraduate women who blocked the entrance to his talk, according to Serena’s research. Apparently, this assessment was based on a single Esquire article the new young columnist there had written in praise of women’s legs in short skirts. He was a rookie on the New York publishing scene and his editors had sent him to Poughkeepsie as a sort of hazing ritual that he barely survived. There were photos in the Vassar newspaper of the kerfuffle and a brief mention in the New York Times.

Serena wasn’t surprised he never got a Vassar mug.

She wandered into the kitchen, flipping on the lamps in her cottage, feeling more at home and relaxed by the second. She opened the door of the sleek new refrigerator and sure enough, there was a bottle of Chardonnay, a cheese-and-fruit plate, chocolate truffles, coffee and milk for the morning, and a note from Lucy Winthrop: So good to have you back in Southport!

Cheers!

Serena opened the Chardonnay and poured the wine into her mug.

“Cheers, Dad.”

Chapter 12

Over the last three days, quite a few things had shown up at Willow Lane, including but not limited to: Tim the line cook with an old minivan full of Maggie’s possessions—work-in-progress paintings, paint and brushes, blank canvases; Rufus the cat; trays of sandwiches from Fortuna’s Deli, and a dozen homemade cakes of all kinds from friends and neighbor; bottles of whiskey and hundreds of sympathy cards from William Sweeney fans and admirers around the world expressing condolences; the quiet presence of Raj Chaudhry, who charmed Liza and Maggie and then immediately set to work in the boathouse, much to Tricia’s delight; and finally, a letter from their father’s publisher, Allegory, bypassing his longtime agent, that was both polite (about how sorry they were to hear about their dear friend William Sweeney) and threatening (“But we need that memoir in thirty days or else”) that spooked Liza and enraged Tricia. About the only thing that hadn’t turned up was the memoir itself despite a nonstop effort to find it.

When the doorbell rang midafternoon on a Thursday, Liza assumed it was another food delivery from a well-meaning neighbor or school mom who’d missed the service because, in the words of yesterday’s food deliverer, “I was out of town when I heard. Tuscany. It was glorious, but your news was tragic.” (It was, after all, early summer, the official “Best Time to Go to Europe” for the locals, an annual exodus well-documented on Facebook pages with pictures of smiling families at the Louvre or Buckingham Palace with the hashtag #familytime.) Liza had nearly finished organizing the downstairs, everything labeled “Dump,” “Donate,” or

“Keep,” in defiance of Whit’s edict. To say the organizing was therapeutic was an understatement. Liza worked out a lot of anger and anxiety filling

up a dumpster with old sheets and high school term papers. She’d kept the truth about Whit to herself, sure her sisters hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

She couldn’t find the words or the moment to tell them about her failure.

Liza would move upstairs tomorrow, determined to clean out her father’s closet. That was a task none of the sisters wanted to tackle, so Liza, of course, volunteered to do it. She hoped whoever was at the door had thought to bring coffee, too, because she could use a latte. “Coming!” she called.

It was Serena with a tray of lattes.

“I hope I’m not intruding,” Serena said, sensing that her visit was at the very least a surprise and at most a social breach beyond comprehension, judging by the look on Liza’s face. “Maggie invited me. I texted her to let her know I’d be stopping by. Latte?”

“You read my mind. How thoughtful.” Damn it, Maggie. Liza tried not to look too put out by the fact that Maggie had struck up a text relationship with Serena and invited her to Willow Lane. But she was. Maggie had returned from Mill River inspired to paint, not to help, and had set up a studio in the conservatory with Tim’s furniture-moving skills. Clearly, he was more than Maggie’s cat sitter, but Liza and Tricia refused to mention the obvious chemistry between the two because they didn’t want to give oxygen to yet another one of Maggie’s drama-filled relationships. Instead, they treated him like a helpful Uber driver and sent him on his way when he was done.

Maggie had barely left her makeshift studio in seventy-two hours, finishing up the pieces she had promised Liza and then starting on another of a view across the harbor of a house on the hill with glowing windows.

Maggie was calling it Panes of Gold and Liza knew it could be a highlight of her sunflower show with its striking golden tones, so she’d backed off criticizing her sister for creating more chaos than order at Willow Lane.

Maggie was working at a new level, so Liza let her be and took up her duties in the manuscript search.

But here was Serena, at Maggie’s request, presumably now demanding a tour of the property. Well, not demanding exactly, but still. Now, Liza supposed, she would have to spend an hour escorting Serena through the house. At least she had brought coffee.

“Come on in. Thank you for these. We have a lifetime supply of Entenmann’s in the kitchen. Why don’t you follow me? I’ll let Maggie and

Tricia know you’re here.”

Serena followed her from the front hall past the living room, down the wide hallway, and toward the library. There hadn’t been any updating of Willow Lane, no tearing down of walls to create the open plan that was now de rigueur for any home renovation these days. Even the homes on the historic registry managed to keep their street views intact, as per the regulations, yet blew up the interior to create one big twenty-first-century entertaining room from many small nineteenth-century rooms. That wouldn’t have suited Bill Sweeney, who liked to have his own space when he wanted his own space.

At Willow Lane, each well-proportioned room was separated by doors and entryways. Despite Maggie’s warning to get there before Liza gave everything away, Serena had waited a few days to follow up. She didn’t want to seem too eager for information. As a result, the rooms did have a

“just about to move” look with tagged furniture and boxes in the corners.

As they moved past the library, Liza stopped, reversed course, and opened the pocket doors, and went in, offering up the first insight into the house as a home. This handsome room featured three walls of built-in bookshelves painted a striking dark blue that Serena suspected Liza had chosen. The fourth wall was all windows facing out to the sea. There was no desk; instead, there was a faded red velvet couch and two wingback chairs upholstered in a handsome striped fabric. There was a ragged Oriental rug on the floor and the room was lit by brass floor lamps. Prints of what looked to be hand-drawn quotes from writers hung on the few feet of wall not covered in shelves.

“I love this room,” Liza said. “My father’s work papers are going to Yale, but all of these books from his personal library are going to the Pequot Library. I’m not sure they need more copies of John Updike and Robert Ludlum; you’d think they already have enough. But Pierce Crane was insistent that they get the complete library, even the airport paperbacks.”