Chapter 2
Charlotte and Olivia rode in the car with Quinne, who drove them in the battered station wagon she and Cooper had purchased jointly.
They shared it, and he had auditions that day and didn’t need it.
Charlotte complained that they should have taken her car.
With the profits from her business going through the roof, she had just bought a new Mercedes, but she didn’t feel like driving, and Quinne didn’t mind.
She was always willing to accommodate the others.
It was a freezing cold December day and was liable to snow before they got back to the city, and Charlotte didn’t like driving in bad weather, so she was happy Quinne was driving.
Olivia was comfortable riding in the back seat.
She was in great shape and agile with the exercise routine she followed every day to keep her upper body strong.
She was glancing at a magazine, and joined their conversation from time to time.
She liked being with her sisters, and all three of them were busy, so they didn’t get together as often as they used to.
Olivia had her ballet classes to teach, and numerous charitable activities.
Charlotte had her business to run, and her daughter Julia, at sixteen, still kept her occupied, driving her places and keeping an eye on her.
She was a good girl, more so than her mother had been at her age, but the two of them had been engaged in constant battle for the last year over the rules that Charlotte imposed on her.
She was an attentive mother, as their own had been when they were teenagers.
Felicia always knew what was going on and stayed a step ahead of them.
She was less strict with the others than she had been with Charlotte and they had been better behaved.
Charlotte still groused about how strict Felicia had been, but the others never agreed with her.
Quinne was always busy with the TV productions she worked on, and she and Coop spent all their free time together.
Spending a morning or a day with her sisters in Connecticut gave them a chance to catch up and talk.
Charlotte and Olivia were both blondes and looked like Felicia.
Quinne had dark hair, but they all had a family look with blue eyes, and they were tall and slim as their mother had been.
Veronica had dark hair like Quinne, and Isabelle was a strawberry blonde, smaller than her sisters and very romantic looking with long wavy hair.
They were all strikingly attractive women, and were in good shape, as their mother had been with her marathons.
Charlotte went to a gym at six o’clock every morning before work.
Quinne had to be on set too early to go to a gym when she was working, but she and Coop played tennis on the weekends, and swam frequently.
And Olivia still went to a rehab center several times a week to maintain her upper body strength, which she needed in order to take care of herself efficiently, and be able to live alone.
The Connecticut countryside looked bleak and wintry, the trees were bare, and there was still snow on the ground from a recent snowfall.
“Why do you suppose Mom wanted us to meet at some godforsaken place in Connecticut about her will? Just to make things difficult?” Charlotte asked, as the countryside looked more rural an hour out of the city. They had left the city at eight-thirty in order to get there by ten.
“No,” Olivia said, “probably to make us spend some time together, so we’re not all running off in ten directions.
I had to get someone to take one of my classes for me.
Char is always in a meeting, Quinne is always on set.
Veronica cancels at the drop of a hat if Anson has an hour to see her, and Isabelle gets stuck at home with a sick kid, or the nanny is sick,” she said, and Quinne laughed.
It was true. They were close to each other, and called often and sent texts, but they hadn’t seen each other since their mother’s funeral four weeks ago.
“We’re not easy to pin down.” But they had all freed their schedules for the meeting in Connecticut.
They wanted to know what their mother’s wishes were.
She had left separate instructions about the funeral, but they didn’t know if she had left specific bequests for the things in her apartment, which they still had to pack up and vacate, and they didn’t know where she wanted to be buried.
Her ashes were still at the funeral home, waiting to be picked up.
There was an unsettled feeling for all of them, not knowing what was in her will.
They needed closure, and Isabelle’s husband, Ian, had reminded them that they would have to pay estate taxes, which Scott had confirmed, and they didn’t know the value of her estate.
They knew it wouldn’t be much, but whatever it was, they needed to settle the final painful details. They all hated the finality of it.
It was still shocking to think that Felicia was gone.
She had been so youthful and so alive, so strong and full of energy, and so loving.
The sisters had grown closer to each other just in the last month without her.
Charlotte had been grumpier than usual, Quinne admitted that she cried every time she thought about her, Olivia had had trouble sleeping, Veronica felt suddenly anxious, and Isabelle looked dazed when Veronica picked her up for the drive, since they lived near each other uptown.
They all agreed that they felt suddenly lost without Felicia, even though they didn’t see her all the time, but they knew she was there if they needed her, that strong, comforting voice that always knew what to do, would listen at any hour, and remained calm in a crisis.
She was the one person in their lives they knew they could always count on. What would they do now without her?
“I feel like an orphan,” Quinne said softly as she drove.
Charlotte stared out the window and nodded silently, and Olivia was glad they were together, and grateful for the time with them, even if it made no sense to drive all the way out to Connecticut to finally learn what was in their mother’s will.
It wasn’t about what they were going to get, for any of them, it was just about knowing what she wanted.
They were quiet for a while, thinking about her.
They were all well aware of how hard Christmas was going to be without Felicia.
Isabelle had been with her in-laws for Thanksgiving, while Charlotte had gone away with Julia to spend it with Sean at Stanford since he said traveling home would be a nightmare.
Veronica had been on call for Anson, who couldn’t come at the last minute so she’d been alone.
Olivia had volunteered to serve at a homeless shelter, and Quinne had stayed in bed and hadn’t acknowledged Thanksgiving at all.
They were all nervous about what Christmas would be like without her.
Felicia loved Christmas, she always made a big fuss, and they crammed into her small apartment on Christmas Eve, with a tree that was always too big, eggnog and hot toddies, a turkey she cooked herself, and a mountain of gifts for her children and grandchildren.
It was her favorite day of the year and she made it special for all of them.
None of them had had the heart to make their Christmas plans yet, as though a miracle might occur and she might come back, if they didn’t.
The three women in Quinne’s car were silent, thinking about Felicia, and Veronica came through the gates right behind them at the correct address, and followed them up a long tree-lined driveway.
The gates had been left open for them at the location they’d been given.
They were on time. The property had a rustic look to it but was neat and well cared for, and they wondered who it belonged to, and why their mother had requested they meet there.
It was a long way to the main house, and when they reached it there was a circular driveway, and a large stone house, with tall old trees all around it.
There were neat flowerbeds and a lawn, a number of cottages and outbuildings, and a pool.
It was a handsome estate and had a historical feel to it.
The farm, dating back to the days of the American Revolution, was more than two hundred years old, and was beautifully maintained.