Page 9 of A Mother’s Love

With her usual determination and discipline, Halley finished the rough first draft of her book three days before Thanksgiving.

It had gone more smoothly than usual, which always worried her and made her wonder if she had left something out, some vital piece of a character’s history, some plot twist she’d written in the outline and had forgotten.

It happened sometimes, although she was meticulous with both the outline and the draft.

The books needed very little editing. They were very clean, even in first draft, which wasn’t always the case with writers.

Some were slapdash or careless, or panicked and anxious and needed a lot of help.

Halley felt confident and sure of herself when she wrote.

And after she finished the first draft, she corrected it diligently in a second draft.

She had organized Thanksgiving very thoroughly weeks before, in anticipation of starting the book, but she still had some last details to take care of.

The day after she finished writing, before she even read the draft, she went out and bought what she was still missing for dinner.

She ordered all the pies they loved, mince, pumpkin, apple, and pecan.

She got heavy cream to whip to put on top of them, and vanilla ice cream.

She had everything she needed for the three kinds of stuffing, sausage, chestnut, and plain.

She’d ordered the turkey a month before, got all the vegetables, and cranberry jelly.

She was going to serve good French white wine, and she had already ordered caviar and all the trimmings for the first course.

None of it was complicated to cook, which allowed her to shine the one time a year she prepared a real meal for them.

The girls always said it was their favorite, and Seth had never had her cooking before.

The rest of her purchases were delivered on Wednesday morning. She set the table with beautiful linens, crystal, and china, and the silver flatware she and Robert had bought at the silver vaults in London. They had loved doing things like that.

She was wearing gray slacks and a white cashmere sweater when the doorbell rang at six o’clock.

She knew they had landed on time. Valerie had texted her from the car.

They were staying until Sunday, Valerie and Seth in the guest room, and Olivia in the twins’ bedroom they had grown up in, still full of their mementos and treasures, and photographs of them as teenagers and at college.

When Halley opened the door to them, all three were smiling and laughing.

Seth had just told them a funny story about their Labrador eating the turkey on Thanksgiving morning when he and his brother were boys.

They’d had Big Macs for dinner, which he’d preferred.

They’d been born and raised in Pasadena, and various parts of L.A.

Their father was a famous game show host, frequently married, and never an attentive father.

And his mother had married several times too.

Holidays and family gatherings were always fraught with tension and disappointment.

So Seth was looking forward to a real traditional Thanksgiving with his new family.

Seth had TV in his blood. His brother, Peter, was a tax lawyer, and had several big-name stars among his clients.

Olivia had been paired with him at the wedding, since he was Seth’s best man and she was the maid of honor.

Peter was six years younger than Seth. They had both gone to UC Berkeley and Peter had stayed for law school.

He had spent the entire evening of the wedding flirting with one of the bridesmaids, and they had left together.

Olivia wasn’t too impressed, although he was handsome, and very bright.

He was obviously a player, like his father.

Seth was good-looking too, although more serious and reserved, the responsible older brother in a fatherly role.

Peter had always been the wild one, and still was.

He was divorced, and had two young daughters.

He had shown Olivia pictures of them on his phone.

They were four and six years old, a redhead and a brunette.

He said he had them on weekends. He’d been married for five years, and divorced for almost two.

His ex-wife was an actress with a part on a daytime soap opera, and was getting remarried to one of her co-stars.

Olivia felt as though she knew everything about Peter, as he took off to the dance floor with the bridesmaid of his choice.

Olivia wasn’t attracted to him, and he wasn’t interested in her.

“Too serious, too arty,” he whispered to Seth, when his brother told him to dance with her.

The other girl was much more fun, and had huge implants.

She was almost falling out of her dress.

Olivia had the same perfect figure as the bride in the elegant beige lace dress.

When Seth and the twins walked into Halley’s living room, after they took off their coats, they all looked related.

Seth was as blond as Valerie and Olivia.

He was tall and handsome and had a faint air of Hollywood about him.

Halley noticed that he was wearing matte black alligator loafers she recognized as Hermès, jeans, and a blazer.

He had arrived in a down coat, and so had the girls.

It was freezing and had already snowed twice in New York, and it was bitter cold the day they landed.

It felt like Christmas. It was cozy inside the apartment despite the weather and Halley poured them all champagne, after Seth opened the bottle for her.

“It’s nice having a man around the house,” Halley said when she thanked him, and Valerie laughed.

“Don’t be fooled, Mom,” Valerie informed her, “he’s already told me he doesn’t do house repairs. He won’t even change a light bulb.”

“I hope you’ll carve the turkey. I make a mess of it,” Halley said to him, and then toasted the newlyweds.

They looked happy and relaxed, and Halley noticed that Olivia had paint on her hands.

She usually did, and on her clothes. “Working on a new painting?” she asked her.

Olivia was the younger twin by four minutes, as Valerie always reminded her.

“I’m doing a triptych,” Olivia answered proudly. “The panels are six feet tall, it’s a commission for a huge house in Malibu. The gallery is really busy,” she said happily.

Halley went to turn on the lights in the kitchen, and light the candles. She had set a pretty table. The elegantly set table in the dining room was for the next day. The girls liked dinner in the dining room for special occasions, but they preferred the kitchen. It was cozier and warmer.

They had fresh crab for dinner, which was one of the girls’ favorite meals, Halley liked to spoil them when they came home, like with the caviar she’d ordered for the next day.

It had just been delivered before the twins and Seth arrived.

Everything else was there for her to fix the next day.

She had everything organized, as always.

Over their champagne, Valerie told her mother about the movie she’d watched on the plane and said she would love it.

It was about a woman who took in a homeless boy who was later alleged to be a murderer.

He told the court that an intruder had killed his parents.

He was then accused of murder, and a famous lawyer took his defense, and it turned out that the father’s girlfriend had killed the parents.

The boy knew about her, but didn’t tell anyone that his father had had a girlfriend.

He was afraid his father would kill him if he did.

The girlfriend was arrested for murder at the end.

“Movies like that make me anxious,” Halley said.

“Me too,” Olivia said. “I watched The Sound of Music again on the plane and fell asleep.” Halley smiled.

It was so nice having them home. The casual banter continued over dinner.

Seth and Valerie talked about their honeymoon in Italy, and how incredible Venice had been.

They’d both been there before, but it was even more special on a honeymoon.

They had stayed at the Cipriani, and had wandered all over Venice, visiting little churches and artisanal shops.

And in Portofino they stayed at the Splendido.

The beautiful warm fall weather had held up until they left.

It was a time they would never forget. And it touched Halley to see how happy they were together.

—

It was a warm, cozy meal in the kitchen.

Seth loved being with all three of them.

Although there was no father present, they felt like a real family.

His own parents had been so dysfunctional when he and Peter were growing up, too often married and more interested in themselves than their boys.

Seth and Peter got along with their mother now, but their childhood memories weren’t pleasant.

Both parents had remarried and divorced several times, in true Hollywood style, and as a result, the holidays had been a nightmare, with Seth and Peter being pulled between warring parents and dividing their time, with stepparents who were inhospitable to them, and with stepsiblings they barely knew.

The Parkers were a poor role model for their sons’ relationships later on.

Both Seth and Peter had been divorced. And Peter was making up for lost time, casually dating many women.