Page 62 of We Were Liars

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, Johnny, and Mirren at Red Gate, where there was an outdoor shower. Mummy, Bess, and Carrie sat around the Clairmont coffee table.

I brought wineglasses for the aunts as Granddad entered. “So, Penny,” he said, pouring himself bourbon from the decanter on the sideboard, “how are you and Cady doing at Windemere this year, with the change of circumstances? Bess is worried you’re lonely.”

“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 Penny’s alone now and won’t need it.”

“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 spinning because Gran had died. I was to beg him by praising him—never acknowledging the aggression behind his question.

My mother and her sisters were dependent on Granddad and his money.

They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand connections, and still they’d ended up unable to support themselves.

None of them did anything useful in the world.

Nothing necessary. Nothing brave. They were still little girls, trying to get in good with Daddy.

He was their bread and butter, their cream and honey, too.

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

No one spoke as I left the room.