The Sweeney Sisters Read online

  As the band segued into Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic,” Maggie cued the lights and the sails and spinnakers came to life. The effect was breathtaking as the glowing fabric, lit from behind, blew in the breeze in the darkening sky. The crowd clapped as the band sang, “Let your soul and spirit fly.”

  As Liza and her family led the informal procession from the boathouse to the patio, she scanned the guests. She wanted to remember who was there that day and how they fit into her life. Her father’s sister, Aunt Frannie, wiped her eyes and smiled at Liza. She still lived in Hamden, taught middle school social studies, and sent her nieces birthday cards with cash inside, as a kind of wink to the fact that they were all grown-up now.

  There was David Remnick from The New Yorker, surrounded by several other editors, as well as writers and sometimes rivals like Richard Ford, John McPhee, and Don DeLillo. Her father’s publishing house, represented in person by the editorial team and the senior marketing staff, had sent flowers and a special selection of green-only M&M’s, a reference from Bitter Fruit. And, of course, his agent Lois Hopper in a black hat and sunglasses even after dark and her longtime assistant, Robert.

  Here was a crew from the Pequot Yacht Club in blue blazers and matching club ties, and the regulars from the public boat ramp, fondly called Ye Yacht Yard, in slightly less-well-cut blue blazers and ties emblazoned with buoys, both groups there to pay respects to a fellow sailor. Neighbors from up and down Willow Lane came, wives in navy or black Talbot dresses and husbands wearing sober faces because knowing Bill Sweeney had brought a special something to their suburban lives and now he was gone. Childhood friends of the sisters, the sons and daughters of Southport, showed up, the younger versions of their parents, now replenishing the gene pool with attractive children and expensively highlighted hair.

  The Yale contingent turned out in full strength from tweedy deans to fellow lecturers to dazzled grad students, who seemed overwhelmed to be at their idol’s house. One tall blonde with a familiar face stood out to Liza. Was she a colleague? Or something more? Liza had seen her before, for sure. Maybe she was one of the “after coffee” women she would see slip out the side door on Willow Lane as she came in the front door to check on her father. Liza couldn’t place her and didn’t really feel like talking to a stranger.

  Even a few actors turned up, like Ed Harris and Willem Dafoe, both of whom wanted to option the Vietnam book for a movie, which Bill declined but they all became friends anyway.

  Tricia had turned out the right people, Liza thought. She’d always understood the big picture. Then she locked eyes with an unexpected face in the crowd. Jesus, what the hell is he doing here?

  Maggie, walking behind her, noticed the same face at the same moment and whispered to Liza, “Holy shit. Is that Gray Cunningham? I haven’t seen him in fifteen years.” Maggie recovered from sobbing to man-spotting in an instant. “My God. He looks fantastic.”

  Of all the events over the last few days, none rocked through Liza like the appearance of Gray Cunningham. The boy who was everything Liza wasn’t: cynical, dark, reckless. The boy who made her defy her father and disappoint her mother. The boy who broke her heart and left her for the West Coast when her mother was dying. Liza rebounded by having a whirlwind romance with steady, solid Whit Jones and walking down the aisle with him six months later, so her mother could be at her wedding. After many years, she’d managed to contain her thoughts of being with Gray to middle-of-the-night hours when her mind wandered. She hadn’t even Googled him lately. Why was he here now? Was he a plus-one to one of Tricia’s friends from prep school or with Maggie’s small cohort of weed smokers from back in the day who had shown up uninvited, but somehow talked their way in?

  Liza turned in the other direction, to look at Whit, who had waited a full forty-eight hours before getting on the plane home after her father’s death. He’d avoided any confrontation by attaching himself to the twins, whose tear-streaked faces broke her heart. Good, a distraction. Liza was going to need a drink before she spoke to Gray Cunningham. She turned back to respond to Maggie, but her sister was already headed in his direction.

  Of course she was.

  As the night wore on, the mood went from somber to celebratory. The guests polished off all the food and most of the drink, including her father’s favorite lobster rolls, trays of roast beef sandwiches, and Garelick & Herbs jumbo cookies, plus a case or two of Jameson’s whiskey, several kegs of local beer, and a keg of Guinness. The more alcohol that was consumed, the faster the barrier between locals and literati disappeared. Dancing started, followed by singing. With every song break, there was another toast or tribute to Bill Sweeney, from bawdy stories to badly recited Seamus Heaney, courtesy of the local fire captain, to a terrible version of “Danny Boy” from the drunk fishermen because there had to be at least one at any Sweeney celebration. There were tears born of sadness from a handsome Yale colleague, a librarian whose sincere admiration for William Sweeney was evident in the charming story he told about his last conversation with him the previous week, and tears born of laughter when Ed Harris did his “Bill Sweeney in a Hollywood Meeting” imitation.

  Through it all, the sisters danced, laughed, and sang along with the band. Liza and Tricia made the rounds. They wandered informally through the guests, thanking all for coming, listening to their stories, accepting condolences. Maggie spent most of the night with Gray, engaged alternately in intense conversation or intense flirting. When Tricia caught up with Liza, who was taking a breather on the patio, looking down on the crowd on the temporary dance floor on the lawn, she motioned toward Maggie, who was twirling around barefoot, her black maxi dress slipping off her right shoulder. Gray was with her, breaking out a modified jig to the Irish classic “I’ll Tell Me Ma.” “She looks pretty broken up,” commented Tricia.

  “She’ll be worthless tomorrow and no help on the cleanup,” Liza snapped. “You know I have to get the kids on the camp bus. I can’t do everything.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her. And when has she ever helped clean anything up? Seriously.” Liza relaxed and they both laughed because they knew Maggie was always the first to duck out when manual labor was required. She’d be long gone by the time they were taking the garbage out. “She really outdid herself on the sails, though.”

  “I know. She’s talented—if she could only . . .” Tricia didn’t bother to finish the sentence. She and Liza had had this same conversation for the last ten years about Maggie. Instead, she changed the subject. “Did you talk to Gray? He’s back, you know. He’s living in his parents’ house on Harbor Road.”

  “That explains why that place didn’t go on the market when the Cunninghams moved south,” Liza responded. “I can’t deal tonight. I need a few days and then maybe I can absorb everything. But not him, not tonight.”

  “I barely had a chance to say hello. Maggie had him sequestered. Do you want me to gather some further intelligence? I can do some digging.”

  “Please don’t,” Liza said. “I have a whole different life now.”

  “Where is your whole different life, anyway?” Tricia asked, looking for Whit. She felt he’d been a background figure for most of the last few days, not really rising to the occasion of losing his father-in-law. Her experience with men was mostly limited to relationships defined as boss or nemesis, thanks to her competitive streak. She saw every guy in college or law school as an academic or athletic rival. Her list of former boyfriends was very short and nothing had been very serious, except a short and inappropriate relationship with a client a few years ago that she’d blocked out for many reasons, not the least of which was her ethical breakdown. Tricia would never presume to understand marriage, especially Liza’s marriage, but it had surprised Tricia that Whit wasn’t more supportive of his wife or her sisters. The only one Whit seemed to have any empathy for was Jack the dog.

  “He took the twins home about an hour ago,” Liza answered as she took a sip of beer, then put the glass down on the
stone wall. “Ugh. Don’t let me drink any more of that.” Liza and Tricia stood on a rise watching the dancers in silence for a while, then Liza asked, “Who is that blond girl? I noticed her before. Do we know her?”

  The blonde in question was out on the dance floor, moving to the music but not dancing with anyone in particular. She was tall, thin, and fit, her body the product of equal parts genetics and athletics, with her thick blond hair clipped back off her face. She wore elegant black pants and a black silk shirt. She appeared to be about their age. She was sort of attached to the Yalies; Liza had seen her talking to some of the neighbors, too. Liza’s mind was a blank.

  Tricia shook her head. “I don’t know. She does look sort of familiar, but I could have met her at some Yale thing. It looks like she’s hearing the Grateful Dead in her head even though Sean is playing the Clancy Brothers.” The sisters laughed, then Tricia turned the topic. “A few people brought plus-ones, even though it wasn’t really that kind of invitation. Like, what is Gray doing here? He must have heard about it from someone, because I certainly didn’t invite him.”

  “I know, Tricia. I didn’t think you had,” Liza was done talking about Gray. “Is it me or is the lead singer now barely dressed?”

  The band launched into an especially lively version of “Born to Run,” which got everyone out on the dance floor because nobody can resist the Boss. And the sisters knew that this was the band’s signature last song. Plus, they’d played every song in their repertoire, including “Come On Eileen,” which they usually only played at weddings.

  Maggie abandoned Gray and danced over to grab Tricia and Liza’s hands. “Last song! Tramps like us gotta dance.” And for one last time at Willow Lane, the Sweeney sisters danced.

  It was time for the final toast since the last train was heading back into the city in about a half hour. Many of the guests needed to be on that train or they’d be spending the night on the rattan couches in the living room. That didn’t stop Aunt Frannie from stepping up to the microphone because she wanted the last word, like any bossy big sister.

  “My brother Bill was a lucky man because he had wonderful women in his life. He had me, his beloved sister.” Liza laughed along with the rest of the crowd. “He had my sainted mother, Bess.” Even Tricia snorted at that line, as Bess Sweeney’s drunken neglect was well documented in a famous essay in Harper’s that became a chapter in My Maeve. “He had Maeve, who was a better wife than he ever deserved and he knew it. And he had his daughters—beautiful Liza, mad Maggie, and clever Trish—who brought us all together for this lovely night. Bill . . .” Frannie said, looking to the heavens, then turning her gaze downward. “. . . Or maybe you’re watching from down there. Wherever you are, Bill, know that the greatest thing you ever created is your girls.” Frannie raised her glass, “To the Sweeney Sisters!”

  Liza, Maggie, and Tricia stood side by side, three redheads in a row. Collectively, the crowd raised their glasses and their voices. “The Sweeney Sisters.” Three glasses of whiskey appeared before them, courtesy of Willem Dafoe, who seemed to have been doling out his own secret stash all night. The sisters accepted the shots, clinked their glasses, and raised them up, as Liza whispered, “To us.” In the distance, the sails glowed and whipped gently in the light breeze.

  Chapter 6

  “May I offer you a scone? We found them on the front porch this morning, left by some real estate agents who are very sorry for our loss.” Tricia offered the oversized basket of baked goods to Cap. The basket included a card from the Miller Cromwell Agency, headed by local legend Nan Miller. Nan’s team included Maggie’s high school drama-club nemesis Lisa Jerusalem, so the baked goods created quite a stir when they were discovered. But they provided the carbs necessary to soak up the last of the whiskey.

  Cap Richardson had come by Willow Lane to discuss the will. He had waited until after the wake for the business of death. “Mourn first,” he’d said to Tricia, who wanted to wrap the details up a bit sooner so she could get back to work, but Cap had been insistent. “Trust me. I’ve been through this many times with clients, and, of course, you’re more than clients to me. Have a moment for your father and then you can move on.”

  But now, it was time to move on.

  The sisters and Cap had seated themselves in the formal dining room, looking out across the lawn to the water. Everything about the room was familiar to Cap—the painted mural, the slipcovered chairs, the Oriental rug—but the view always delighted him. The water sparkled, hinting at summer. Maggie and Tricia had lasted less than twenty-four hours at Liza’s place. The stress of watching their sister plan the wake and execute the camp packing simultaneously, plus her tendency to play innkeeper with elaborate breakfasts and repeated instructions on how to use the shower in the guest room, was suffocating. Maggie cornered Tricia in the hallway. “I feel like we’ve been taken hostage. Let’s just go back to Willow Lane. I don’t care if Dad’s ghost is wandering the hallways. Liza is making me crazy.”

  Liza wasn’t happy about her sisters abandoning her for their childhood home, but she had to make one more run to Old Navy for green T-shirts and boxers and didn’t have time to argue. “Fine, just make sure you don’t make a mess,” she’d said. It was an unnecessary comment for one grown woman to make to two other grown women, but Maggie and Tricia let it go so they could escape her oppressive regime.

  The fact was that Willow Lane was already a mess. It needed a new roof, new electrical, every room painted, and the floors redone—and that was for starters. But the reality that Willow Lane would have to go up for sale and that real estate agents were circling in the water unnerved Liza. “Tricia, I don’t know how you can joke about those scones and selling this house. Doesn’t it upset you that we’re getting pressured less than a week after Dad died?”

  “Not really,” Tricia responded. “It would upset me more if they weren’t circling, because that would mean the market is collapsing. Right, Cap?” The two lawyers communicated on a different level. To Liza and Maggie, Cap would always be a benevolent uncle; to Tricia, he was a colleague and mentor.

  “I had several people make offers at the wake. All cash. Good numbers,” Cap responded, selecting a blueberry scone and setting it down next to his coffee. “I don’t think they’ll remember making the offers, but I think a couple of them could actually afford the place. I should have had them sign something.”

  Tricia and Maggie laughed out loud and Liza tried hard not to smile imagining the offers Cap had fielded. She wanted to remain slightly put out by the thought of selling her childhood home to some drunken bidder. (They’d only gotten rid of the last of the mourners a few hours ago, finding a couple of fishermen asleep on the leather couches in the library.) The property alone at Willow Lane was worth several million dollars. Cap hoped that once he had delivered all the news—the good and the not good—the sisters would agree that now was not the time to be sentimental. This property had the potential to be their asset and they would have to maximize its value. He hoped they were ready to hear that. “Should we go through the documents now? This may take a while.”

  The three sisters let the news settle in and then Tricia spoke. She had been taking notes on a yellow pad the entire time as Cap took them through the will and then the financials. She had filled up several pages, but it really all boiled down to a few questions. “So, there’s very little cash, the house is overleveraged, and the manuscript for the memoir Dad owes his publisher is somewhere, but we don’t know where. Is that all correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Well, at least Dad had the sense to name you his literary executor and not the bartender at the Shoe. You have a broad understanding about the options for all his intellectual property. I’m curious about the royalty income. I never knew the exact figure, but Dad had mentioned to me several times that it was solid. He said if high school teachers and college professors kept assigning his books, we’d be set for life. What’s happened to that money?”

  “T
here is some, but I think your father may have been exaggerating when he said that you were set for life. It’s in the low six figures annually, very low six figures. After Lois takes her commission, you all would split less than a hundred thousand annually.”

  “That’s a surprise. How did it happen? I mean, I know you weren’t his keeper and it’s not your fault, but how did he blow through a half-million-dollar book advance and why so many refinances on the house? And, please don’t say he bought a lot of rounds at the bar. That’s what he used to say to our mother when money was tight and we all knew it was a lie back then.”

  “Your father was generous with money. He bailed out his sister Frannie after her divorce and paid for Sean’s education. He invested in some get-rich-quick schemes that didn’t get him rich quick and made some loans to friends that were never paid back. He loaned one gentleman the money to buy a commercial fishing boat and the guy died the next year. Bill didn’t have the heart to collect on the loan from his widow. But he also had a reckless streak, as you know. Some of it was gambling. It was an issue for him and he thought he’d put that behind him. But betting on sports sucked him in again. College basketball, football. I think he even placed bets on the America’s Cup. He didn’t tell me much about it, but he had some big losses in the last few years that ate up the advance.”

  “Did he use a bookie? Or go to Atlantic City?” Tricia knew enough about gambling laws to know that neither Connecticut nor New York allowed sportsbooks, but New Jersey did.

  “Atlantic City. Never a bookie. He didn’t want to get back into that again. But he thought he could handle a couple of trips a year to Atlantic City.”