Chapter 4 #3
“Have you heard from Char in Paris?” Olivia asked her.
“She sent me a photo of the kids in the front of the Eiffel Tower all lit up red, and she said they’re having a ball.
I’m glad they went,” Veronica said, smiling.
“And I’m glad we’re going to the farm.” She didn’t tell Olivia that Anson had told her to cancel.
She didn’t want Olivia to worry about her.
“I’m glad too,” Olivia said. “I brought my homework with me. Three of Mom’s books. I should be able to get through them over Christmas.” Veronica had sent each of them a reading list, so they wouldn’t read the same ones.
“I brought two, and two textbooks on intellectual property laws. It’s a little dry, but applying it would be fun. I haven’t read a law book since I passed the bar. I’m a little rusty, but it comes back to me as I read.”
When they got to the farm, Ellen had mushroom soup and sandwiches waiting for them, and they showed her the decorations they’d brought with them.
“They were our mother’s,” Olivia explained reverently, and Ellen smiled and disappeared. She came back a few minutes later with stacks of boxes piled up in her arms.
“And we have lots more,” she told them. “Your mother loved Christmas. We have some beautiful antique decorations she bought. She used to string little lights in the trees outside too. She did it herself with a ladder. Mr. York loved it. They did it every year.” She brought them the cartons of lights a few minutes later.
And after lunch, they got to work decorating.
They used up all the decorations from the city apartment quickly, and Ellen showed them where Felicia had placed the others every year.
There was a beautiful crèche, Ellen said, that Spencer York had bought her in Italy.
“The gardener will chop down a tree for you, if you want, we have a stand for it.” By the end of the afternoon, Ellen was their best friend, with stories about their mother, and she showed them Felicia’s favorite decorations and where everything went.
The gardener promised them a tree by the next day, and once it was dark, before dinnertime, Veronica and Olivia went outside to put the lights in the trees surrounding the house.
Ellen had already put wreaths on the front and back doors.
Olivia was the lighting director, observing from her chair at a little distance, telling Veronica where there were holes and when to move a string to the right or the left.
It took them two hours and the trees looked magical when they were finished.
They were just walking back into the house and taking their coats off when Veronica’s cellphone rang. She saw the call was from a blocked number, and wondered if it was Anson. She felt guilty when she answered, and was surprised that it was Scott Freeman.
“Hi, Scott, how are you?” she said easily.
“Fine. I have some papers for you to sign, nothing serious, just tax stuff. I can run them uptown for you if you like,” he suggested.
“Are they urgent?” she asked him.
“No, but they need to be signed by the end of the year. I’ll just bring them up, have you sign, and take them back with me.”
“That’s nice of you, but I’m in Connecticut, at the farm with Olivia. And we’re here till after New Year’s.”
He hesitated for a moment and sounded cheerful when he answered. “No problem. I’ll drive them out to Connecticut for you tomorrow, if that’s okay with you.”
“I feel terrible having you do that. That’s a long drive for a signature,” but she didn’t want to go back to town just for that.
“They need original signatures. Charlotte and Isabelle sent me theirs before they left town, and Quinne promised to drop hers off tomorrow. That leaves you and Olivia. I honestly don’t mind coming. It would be nice to see you both again. I’ll bet it’s beautiful out there.”
“We just finished decorating. Olivia is the artistic director. My mom loved Christmas, and we used all her decorations.”
“I’d love to see it,” Scott said warmly, sounding casual. “I seriously don’t mind coming out to you.”
“All right. If you’re sure.” She wondered why he hadn’t sent her the papers before.
It was getting close to Christmas, and she told Olivia about it over dinner.
Ellen had roasted a chicken for them, and they were both starving after two hours outdoors, working steadily.
“It’s nice of him to do it,” Veronica commented.
“He’s a nice guy,” Olivia said, delighted with their day’s work, and they still had the tree to decorate the next day when the head gardener brought it.
Whoever they talked to, they had the impression that their mother had been greatly loved by the people who worked for her, and by Spencer York too.
They went to bed early that night, and woke up early the next day.
The gardener showed up right after breakfast with a ten-foot tree that he stood up in the living room, and it looked beautiful.
Ellen got the stand, and they filled it with water to keep the tree alive.
They couldn’t wait for Charlotte to see it too. It was worthy of their mother.
They were still decorating when Scott arrived an hour later.
He had left the city early and said there was no traffic.
Veronica was teetering on the top step of the ladder, perilously perched, and Olivia was warning her to be careful.
Veronica looked down at Scott with a smile as he held the ladder steady for her.
“Why don’t you come down,” he suggested.
“I’ll get the angel on top.” She came down the ladder then and handed it to him, and a minute later the beautiful angel was elegantly seated on top of the tree, and Scott was back down, and they both thanked him.
“I’m a full-service attorney,” he said. He was wearing a heavy cable-knit sweater, and looked very handsome.
They invited him to sit down. He had a cup of coffee, and he took out the papers for them to sign.
And after that, Veronica invited him to stay for lunch.
It was three in the afternoon when he finally left them, and they’d had a good time talking and laughing. It had been nice to have a visit.
“I think he likes you,” Olivia said with a grin after he left.
“I think he likes all five of us. He was very nice to everyone the day of the big revelations. That must have been stressful for him too. And I think he’s a good lawyer.”
“I mean he likes you. You know, like a guy.” Veronica stared at her with a frown.
“Don’t be silly. He likes you just as much as he likes me,” Veronica insisted.
“When was the last time a lawyer drove two hours to get a signature, and made a point of telling us he wasn’t charging for the time?”
“I told you, he’s a nice guy.”
“You are blind,” Olivia told her with a grin. “He lit up like a Christmas tree every time he talked to you.”
“No, he didn’t, and Anson would have a fit if that’s true. He doesn’t like it when men flirt with me or come on to me.”
“Then maybe he should consider leaving his wife,” Olivia said gently, “and not going on vacations with her.”
“That’s part of the deal,” Veronica said matter-of-factly.
“He never hid the fact that he’s married, and he never promised to leave her.
In fact, he told me he never would. He thinks a divorce would hurt him politically.
He has a heavily Catholic constituency. It’s just the way it is,” she said coolly.
“Is that enough for you?” Olivia asked her. “A guy who only sees you on the fly, and will never spend holidays with you?”
“I love him, and that’s the only deal he has to offer.”
“Don’t you want marriage and kids? We’re not getting any younger,” Olivia pointed out, and Veronica smiled.
“I’d want those things with Anson, but not someone else, and even if we could get married, which we can’t, he doesn’t want more kids.
He told me that in the beginning too. He has four and he thinks he’s too old.
When we started and I was twenty-six, I didn’t think it would ever matter to me.
Now I realize it does matter. But I’ve spent ten years with him and I love him.
A little of Anson is still better than a lot of someone else. ”
“He’s a lucky man. I hope he knows it.”
“I’m lucky too,” Veronica said seriously. “He’s given me a wonderful stress-free life and everything I could possibly want.”
“Except Christmas,” Olivia said soberly.
“For me, it wouldn’t be enough.” There hadn’t been a man in her life since the accident that severed her spinal cord and left her paralyzed from the waist down.
She had been madly in love with the French choreographer and planning to marry him when it happened, and she had broken it off with him and sent him away.
“Do you ever hear from Francois?” Veronica asked gently about the choreographer Olivia had been engaged to, and her face hardened when she answered.
“Never. And I don’t want to. He’s married now anyway.
” He had waited seven years for her and tried to convince her to come back to him, and he had finally married another dancer five years before.
She was well known in France. Olivia never let herself think about it.
There was no point. It was the past. She only lived in the present, and the future.
And she knew the future would be no different than it was now.