Chapter 2
2
T he massive dining room paneled in deep mahogany housed a long sideboard, a cabinet holding all the family porcelain and silver, and a dining table that could easily seat twenty-four. And it often had in the past. But for the family’s Thanksgiving dinner, three of the leaves had been removed to accommodate the ten family members: Brock, his sons, his brother and wife, his mother. And Yvette and her girls.
The light of two crystal chandeliers shone down on them.
Yvette hated these holiday dinners. She came only for the girls’ sake. She’d done her best never to color their emotions about the family with her own. They would have to make up their own minds about their grandmother.
But of course, around them, Adeline was on her best behavior.
The only good thing about the holiday was that the girls were home from San Luis Obispo, where they attended Cal Poly State University. They sat on either side of her, Kacey, twenty-one, and Jodi, nineteen. They both had the Donnelly dark hair and blue eyes like their father, and nothing much of her, other than her lithe figure. She was light where they were dark, even her eyes a paler shade of blue than theirs. She could only thank God that neither of them had their father’s temperament. If they took after any Donnelly, it was Brock. Both studious, they made the honor roll every quarter. Smart as a whip, Harris, their grandfather, had often said. And they were beautiful, like all the Donnellys.
It was only because of them she’d remained part of the family. She could never have abided Adeline’s viciousness toward her if not for them. To them, Adeline was just a sweet old lady, the grandmother they loved. She never showed them the other side of herself, the nitpicking, even nasty side Yvette had seen all too often.
Mrs. French, their robust cook with a head of silvery curls, pushed open the wood-paneled swing door to the kitchen. She signaled Brock, who was seated at the head of the table, the place his father had always taken until the day he died.
Rising, Brock said, “I believe our turkey is ready.”
They’d started with butternut squash soup, and while the staff had already set out the side dishes on the sideboard, tradition dictated that the head of the family should carry in the turkey and do the carving.
Brock headed to the kitchen. He was a handsome man, like all the Donnelly men, like her husband Pierce had been, at least until his bad habits had gouged deep furrows along the sides of his mouth and across his forehead. But Brock, five years older than her age of fifty-three, was tall, toned, and distinguished, his dark hair shot through with silver. Age had only added to his handsome features.
Yvette didn’t watch him disappear through the door, leaving it swinging behind him, as Brock’s son Malcolm said, “Grandmother, have you ever thought of doing something different at Thanksgiving? Like baked ham? Turkey isn’t one of my favorites.”
Eighteen and several months younger than Jodi, he was the youngest of Adeline’s grandchildren. A Donnelly through and through, just like his father Brock, he was well over six feet, dark hair, blue eyes, handsome face. Like all the Donnelly sons, he attended Berkeley. And like all the Donnelly sons, after university, he would work for Donnelly Shipping. None of them had broken tradition. Yvette didn’t think any of them ever would.
Adeline didn’t snap at him the way she would have snapped at Yvette. “My dear boy, turkey is tradition on Thanksgiving in this family. Turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving.” She smiled. “Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding at Christmas.”
Tradition also had the entire family gathering for holiday meals. Though Brock had been divorced for three years, and his ex-wife Corrine remarried, the boys still attended holiday dinners with the family, going to their mother’s the day after, no matter what holiday it was. That was Adeline’s power.
Mrs. French once again pushed through the swing door, holding it open as Brock carried in the turkey on its silver platter. He walked the length of the dining table, the scent of perfectly roasted bird following him. Yvette’s mouth watered. Unlike Malcolm, she wasn’t tired of turkey since she ate it only once a year.
Easing the turkey down on his place setting, Brock pushed his chair back, giving himself room to carve. Mrs. French followed with the carving knife, a large fork, and another silver platter for the meat. But before he set to the task, he looked at his brother Trevor. “Why don’t you do the honors this year?” He held out the utensils.
Trevor, thirteen years younger than his brother, looked at Adeline as if he needed her permission. Yvette expected her to say it wasn’t tradition. Harris, the patriarch and her husband, had always carved the turkey. He’d never offered the honor to any of his sons. But then, more likely, it was Adeline who hadn’t offered it.
Seemingly in a rare mood, Adeline gave a slight nod. And Trevor rose from his seat next to Lorna. His wife put her hand on her belly, almost protectively. A pretty, smiling brunette, she was almost seven months along, the baby due around the beginning of March.
The family sat silent as Trevor took the knife and fork, and Brock stepped aside.
When Yvette was young, holiday dinners, any dinners in fact, were filled with laughter and chatter. Her father had died before she could even form memories of him, and she and her mother had lived with her grandparents. They lacked for money but not love. Whereas the Donnellys had more than enough money, but lacked the laughter, and yes, much of the love too. Though she didn’t doubt that Trevor adored his wife or that Brock loved his boys.
With the bird carved and the stuffing spooned out, Adeline clapped her hands. “Good job, Trevor,” she said, as if the man was barely out of prep school instead of the CFO of Donnelly Shipping.
Mrs. French, who’d been standing in the corner, whisked the platter of turkey and stuffing over to the sideboard, while one of her staff returned the carcass to the kitchen.
Brock, still standing, flourished a hand toward the row of chafing dishes. “Don’t let the turkey get cold.”
As Adeline started to rise, Garth, who’d been sitting next to her, jumped up to help her out of her chair. Not that Adeline Donnelly, even at eighty years old, was frail. Despite her arthritis, which seemed to affect only her fingers, she stood tall, and Yvette was sure she hadn’t lost more than a quarter inch of her five feet six inches. Though Yvette was still taller by an inch—three inches when she wore high heels as she did now. That Adeline was shorter had never stopped her from lording it over Yvette.
But as the woman headed to the sideboard, Yvette noticed for the first time how she put a hand to each chairback as she walked, as if she needed that small bit of help to keep her balance. Maybe the arthritis was moving to her knees. Not that Adeline would ever admit it.
Trevor guided Lorna to her feet, who was pregnant enough to feel awkward. Yvette remembered the changes in her body as each of her babies had grown inside her. It was a beautiful time, even more special when your husband doted on you the way Trevor doted on Lorna. Yvette joined the line behind them, then Kacey and Jodi, and finally Brock’s boys. Brock went last.
Mrs. French had prepared all the traditional Thanksgiving fare, candied yams, mashed potatoes, an assortment of roasted vegetables from beans to carrots to broccoli and cauliflower, along with homemade gravy for the turkey and potatoes, and a creamy cheese sauce for the vegetables.
Adeline didn’t wait to eat until Brock was once again seated. She didn’t like her food to go cold. Yvette’s former mother-in-law—goodness how she loved that word, former —was a dainty eater, setting her knife and fork down every third bite.
In one of those breaks, she smiled, looked from Kacey to Jodi and said, “Now that you’re both at university, it will be perfect if you each had a suite up here in the big house. There’s no need for you to stay in the gatehouse anymore.” She made it sound as if Yvette’s home at the bottom of the long drive, the girls’ home where they’d lived since they were toddlers, was no longer appropriate for two college-age Donnelly women.
Yvette’s heart pumped faster, and heat rushed to her cheeks. Trust Adeline to bring this up in front of everyone at the holiday dinner.
With a sickly sweet smile on her lips, Adeline added, “Then your mother can feel free to find a lovely apartment anywhere she wants.” As if a lovely apartment was a bone she threw for Yvette to chew on. “And Trevor and Lorna can take over the gatehouse where they can have privacy to start their new family.” She beamed a smile at Lorna.
Yvette wanted to smack it right off her face.
When the girls were young, Adeline had fought like a mother bear to keep Pierce installed in the big house. Yvette had wanted her own home. She’d wanted to get away from Adeline.
Life in the big house had been tolerable, though barely, when Harris was alive. But after he was gone, Adeline no longer felt the necessity to curb herself. Even Corrine, Brock’s wife, had gotten in on the act. She’d been the perfect daughter-in-law who’d loved raising her three boys in the big manor house. She’d adored their massive suite of rooms, like they were all one big happy family. And, since the suite had its own entrance, Adeline couldn’t see Corrine’s comings and goings. Especially when the boys were in their teens.
Finally, Yvette had compromised by moving into the gatehouse. Though Adeline—and this still made Yvette want to either laugh or scream—had suggested that Pierce could stay in the big house and visit the girls and Yvette whenever he liked.
How sweet of her.
Yet now, Adeline was eager to send Trevor and Lorna down there.
Of course, the real reason was so she could finally rid herself of Yvette.
While Yvette truly wanted to keep the home for her daughters to have their old rooms to come to on holidays and breaks, she had to admit she also didn’t want Adeline to win. She would go when she chose. Not when Adeline wanted to throw her out. When the girls had graduated and gotten jobs, whether or not they chose to work at the family company, then she would leave.
And Adeline could stick it where the sun didn’t shine until then.
The thought brought a smile to her lips.
Until Adeline wiped it off with her next declaration. “Brock has even offered to subsidize an apartment in the city for your mother. What do you think of that, girls?”
Yvette flashed Brock a glare. That traitor. How could he?
Adeline turned her phony smile on Yvette. “And you’d be so much closer to work, dear. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Where once Yvette had been Pierce’s administrative aide, she’d gone back to work after the girls were both in school, and she was now Brock’s executive assistant. Every morning she, Brock, and Trevor were driven to work across the Bay Bridge in the family limousine.
Brock set down his knife and fork. “Adeline, you know I said no such thing. You made the suggestion. I never ratified it.” Then he turned to the girls. “You and your mother are welcome to stay in the gatehouse as long as you’d like.”
She could tell by the flare of his nostrils that he was angry with his mother. She knew very well that Adeline had been griping at him incessantly since the girls had started university. Probably even since Pierce had died.
But that made Yvette even more solid in her resolve, and she said, “What a lovely offer, Adeline.” Her clipped tones meant exactly the opposite. “But as I’ve always said, the girls and I plan to stay until they’ve graduated.”
Adeline pursed her lips, the only sign of her annoyance. She thought she’d get the better of Yvette by broaching the subject in front of the girls, but the moment Yvette had spoken, her daughters shut up. They knew their mother was adamant about staying, even if they didn’t know her true reasons.
Before Adeline could say anything else, Trevor spoke up. “Lorna and I are perfectly fine staying in the big house. Since Brock gave us his suite, we’ve got more than enough room.”
After he and Corrine divorced and the boys were out of the house, Brock had switched suites with Trevor and Lorna. Though he’d had his own entrance installed in the smaller suite he took over.
“Well, since Yvette has made up her mind,” Adeline said with a snap in her words, “I suppose that’s that.” And she dusted off her hands.
Yvette knew that wasn’t the end of it. Adeline wouldn’t give up. She’d find another way.
Adeline clapped lightly. “There’s plenty of seconds left. Let’s not let all this food go to waste.” She stood, carrying her plate to the sideboard.
As everyone else got up, Yvette debated. While she wasn’t hungry anymore—after Adeline’s attempted power play—it would at least give her something to concentrate on. And perhaps keep her out of Adeline’s crosshairs, at least for the rest of the meal.
Everyone followed Adeline’s edicts. Because that’s what they all did. Yvette got in line after the kids, Brock taking up the last position as he had before.
With the brush of his hand against hers, a frisson of heat washed through her and her cheeks flushed.
She looked at him. He smiled. And an undeniable shiver ran through her.
As she picked through the seconds on her plate, she reflected on how her life was tied to this family. It wasn’t just marrying Pierce. It wasn’t bearing his children.
It started long before that. Her grandfather had once worked as Harris’s chauffeur. But even after he retired—or rather after Adeline put him out to pasture, Yvette was never sure which— Harris had come by to see him often, talking with Grandpa Remy as if he was the only man Harris felt he could be himself with.
Harris had grieved with her mother when Yvette’s father died, and he’d helped with cash infusions. He’d even wanted to pay for her college education, but her mother had refused. Yvette hadn’t gone to college. She’d began work in a department store right out of high school, intending to work her way into management. But her grandparents had both been sickly by then. She’d clocked out on time, often having to take days off to help Mother care for them, and her bosses claimed she didn’t have the proper initiative. Then, soon after her grandparents passed, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Yvette went to Harris, asking for a job, one with a better salary than the department store. When Harris offered to pay for a caregiver to come in while she was at work, Yvette gratefully accepted.
Harris put her to work as Pierce’s administrative aide. He claimed Pierce was still sowing his wild oats, even though Pierce was twenty-seven at the time, a year younger than Yvette. “You’ll be a good influence on him,” Harris had told her.
And Yvette thought she had been. Pierce was charming—he charmed his mother, his father—but Yvette prided herself on resisting those charms, at least as long as she could.
Of course she had the inevitable fall. Just like everyone else, except Brock, who’d never found his brother’s antics charming.
Still, back then, Yvette believed she’d been a good influence on Pierce. She’d wanted to believe he was a changed man, a better man. It was only after she’d married him, after she’d moved into this house, after Kacey was born, that she realized he’d never changed at all. He was still a drinker, a gambler, a skirt chaser.
And he always would be, until the day he died.
After clearing the plates away, Mrs. French and her staff carried in freshly baked pumpkin pies topped with hand- whipped cream. Brock tapped his spoon against his wineglass, the sound tinkling in the air. “I have an announcement.”
Yvette’s heart raced.
But then he said, “I’ve booked a trip for all of us to the Caribbean over Christmas.”
Jodi clapped her hands, Kacey put a hand over her mouth, and Malcolm punched the air.
“We’ll leave on the Sunday after Berkeley lets out for the break and come back a couple of days before Cal Poly starts the winter quarter.” The two universities had different holiday schedules, and Brock had accommodated both. “That means we’ll have almost two weeks over the winter break to bask in the sun. I’ve booked a private cove with several cottages on it. We won’t all have to crowd into one house. The compound comes with a cook and a maid, so we don’t have to do anything except enjoy ourselves. The island is fairly small, but that means there won’t be a lot of tourists. There’s nightlife in the town and plenty of activities, swimming, snorkeling, horseback riding, zip-lining.”
When Kacey raised her hand, Brock answered before she could even ask the question. “And yes, you can each bring a friend.” He winked at Kacey. “Or boyfriend.” Then looked at his sons. “Or girlfriend.”
While Kacey still maintained an immaculate grade point average, she’d recently fallen for a senior, and could talk of nothing else but the wonderful Darryl.
Adeline rapped her knuckles on the table. “But we will have a girls’ dormitory and a boys’ dormitory.” She stretched her mouth in a smile or a grimace. “I’m still old-fashioned.”
Yvette had a feeling there would be a lot of sneaking back and forth.
But she had to trust her daughter to take care of herself. She didn’t want either of the girls to end up like her, knocked up by her boss and having to get married.