Chapter 2
The house looked perfect when the children arrived.
The tree was lit, hung with their familiar decorations.
Sabrina had brought many of their favorite paintings with her from Bel Air, and had put a number of them in storage for the children to have later when they had proper homes, not just small student apartments.
None of the children were established yet, and two were still in school.
They were only in their twenties, and she and Malcolm had bought many important paintings they loved.
Sabrina had hung several of his favorites in their bedroom when she moved.
Just seeing them was a warm reminder of him.
It was bittersweet when she woke up in the morning after a few hours’ sleep, glanced at the paintings, and remembered when they’d bought them and how much he loved them.
She’d hung some bright happy paintings from her gallery in the living room when they decorated the house.
Malcolm had liked them too. She had intended to do a mural in the dining room and hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
She had time to do it now, but she didn’t have the heart.
Without Malcolm there to see it, it seemed irrelevant, and she didn’t plan to entertain without him.
The children were arriving that afternoon.
Coco had flown to New York from Milan the night before and stayed with Lizzie.
They were flying to L.A. together that afternoon.
Justin was taking a direct flight from London and would be arriving an hour after his sisters.
By dinnertime the house would be full of laughter and noise, with the music the children played drifting from their rooms. Sabrina was excited.
For the first time in months she had something to look forward to.
—
“How do you think Mom is doing?” Coco asked her older sister as the plane took off from New York.
She worried about her mother, but it was hard to make the time difference work to call her.
Coco worked long hours in Milan and it was always the wrong time to call when she got home, or she fell asleep, exhausted, and forgot, or she was too late for work in the morning to call her mother.
“I don’t know,” Lizzie answered. “She says she’s fine, but she doesn’t sound great.
And Hallie told me she hasn’t been to the gallery in months.
I don’t know what she does all day. Her life is pretty empty without Dad, especially with none of us at home.
Her whole life revolved around him.” Coco nodded, pensively.
She felt guilty about it at times, but it was the life Sabrina had chosen, to be a full-time wife.
She’d been busy with the gallery for the past few years, but if she wasn’t going there, and their father was gone, she had nothing to do, except think about him.
“We’ll know how she is when we see her,” Coco said quietly.
“There’s not much we can do at a distance.
” Coco was as fair as her mother, though not as tall.
And Lizzie had dark hair and looked more like their father.
Justin was the image of Malcolm in his youth.
Coco was as thin as the models she worked with at Prada, while Lizzie had a slightly fuller figure.
They were both beautiful young women, and several men had noticed them as they got on the plane.
Coco had a decidedly fashionable European look, with a big battered vintage Hermès alligator handbag.
She was wearing black jeans and a black sweater with a synthetic leopard-printed coat that looked real, her blond hair pulled back sleekly, and a big gold bracelet on her arm that their mother had given her for Christmas the year before.
Lizzie was wearing jeans, a navy blue down jacket, and sneakers, and looked like the student she was.
They were looking forward to being all together.
They hadn’t been home since their father’s funeral, although they tried to call their mother every few days.
It was easier for Lizzie from New York. Coco texted her every day, and Justin texted her a few times a week, when he thought of it.
They chatted during the meal, and Lizzie watched a movie when Coco fell asleep.
She had told her about the job in Milan.
She was loving it and being in Europe. She had been to Paris twice on weekends when she wasn’t working, and went to Rome frequently with friends.
Neither of them had had time to visit Justin in London.
He had an English girlfriend now, Arabella, whom none of them had met, although they had FaceTimed with them.
He had met her at school the year before and she had a job now at the London office of Goldman Sachs.
They were both pursuing careers in finance, and Justin had told them that Arabella’s father was in the House of Lords and an earl, and Arabella was Lady Arabella, although she didn’t use her title.
She came from a distinguished family. The three siblings stayed in close touch and texted each other frequently, even more so now since their father had died.
It had been a hard blow for all of them, and they were worried about how hard the holidays would be without him.
“It’s going to be weird not seeing Dad when we go home,” Coco said sadly when she woke up when they landed. It had just hit her again that he wouldn’t be there.
“It would have been harder in Bel Air,” Lizzie said. There were too many memories in their old house. At least a different location might help. They thought it would be better for their mother too.
At the aiport, they rented a car that they were going to share.
None of them kept cars in L.A. anymore. They didn’t spend enough time there to use them.
They only got to L.A. once or twice a year now.
Lizzie was swamped in her last year of law school, and L.A.
was a long way for Coco from Milan. They were just glad they would have Christmas together.
Lizzie drove to Malibu from the airport, and they chatted on the way.
They had always gotten along well. They were only two years apart.
There had never been any rivalry between them.
Their parents had encouraged kindness and close family ties.
They got along well with their brother too.
“I hope Arabella doesn’t try to change that,” Lizzie said as they drove home.
She wasn’t coming to L.A. with Justin. She was going to be with her own family for the holidays at their country home.
Arabella had two sisters and a brother of her own, and was the youngest, she had told them on the phone.
She seemed like a nice girl and Justin said she was very bright, and had landed a very good job.
She was twenty-six, a year older than Justin.
The house in Malibu was an hour from the airport in afternoon traffic, but the time went quickly as the sisters chatted, and then they saw the gates to their new family home.
They’d been there before but not often, since their parents liked to go there alone, and the children teased them about it.
Malcolm and Sabrina had been careful over the years to set time aside for each other.
It annoyed the children at times, but had kept their relationship solid and strong.
“It used to bother me as a kid that they were still so romantic. Now I hope I have a relationship like theirs one day,” Lizzie said, as she pressed a buzzer and the gates swung open and they drove in.
“I think it’s pretty rare,” Coco said, thinking about her parents.
“I’ve been in Italy for six months, and I’ve only had one date, and he was a jerk.
All the guys I meet are gay. Meeting straight guys in fashion isn’t easy,” she commented, as they rolled up the driveway.
You couldn’t see the house from the gate.
“All the guys I meet are nerds,” Lizzie said with a laugh. “And no one has time to date. We’ve either got papers to turn in or exams. It’s pretty intense. I’ve got a paper to do over Christmas. I think it’s going to be rough until we graduate in May.”
“I have to start work on our February show as soon as I go back,” Coco said, as the house came into view.
It was an elegant two-story home on a large piece of land, which was rare in Malibu and why the property had been so expensive.
Their mother was waiting in the driveway for them, in white jeans, a big white sweater, a silver down jacket, and silver Chanel ballerinas.
She was smiling in anticipation, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail like Coco’s.
“She looks good,” Coco said, checking out her outfit.
Sabrina always looked chic and pulled together, even in casual clothes.
“No, she doesn’t,” Lizzie said in a soft voice.
“Don’t look at the outfit. Look at her face.
She looks ravaged, she’s lost weight, and she’s not wearing makeup.
” When Coco looked closer she saw that her sister was right, and their mother had dark circles under her eyes she hadn’t bothered to cover.
She was standing next to the car by then, and as soon as Lizzie turned off the engine, Coco jumped out of the car and hugged her mother tight.
Even in the down jacket, she could tell that Sabrina was skin and bones.
But she looked genuinely thrilled to see her daughters, and she hugged Lizzie an instant after Coco.
The three of them walked to the patio and the girls could see the lights in the trees.
“The trees look so pretty, Mom,” Lizzie said, admiring what she’d done. “Did someone do that for you?”