The Better Sister Read online

  It was a small shindig by Catherine’s usual summer standards. Just me, her, Nicky, Bill Braddock, and two new-to-me friends of hers: Christof DeJong, a sixty-something-year-old Dutch artist whose large-scale steel sculptures were regular sightings on the East End, and Liam Ricci, who, I gathered, was a former model, now tattoo artist, hoodie designer, and general cool guy.

  “Now, Chloe, I want to know everything about where you are on this book project of yours. You said it was two books, right?”

  That’s what Catherine would do at these parties—throw out little questions like it was a cultural salon crossed with a talk show. She knew all the details of my publishing deal, but wanted to give me a chance to share some tidbits with the rest of the crowd. I finished swallowing the bite of quail that was in my mouth before I answered. “Things have changed a bit since I first signed the contract. It was the Them Too series that got me a book deal, and then the memoir was sort of an add-on. But, with recent events, I guess the demand for the memoir is pretty high.”

  An awkward silence fell over the table, which never happens at a Catherine party. I should have known she’d ask me about the status of the books. I wished I’d had a better answer prepared, but I wasn’t feeling up to a conversation with strangers, and even a mention of the memoir was enough to make my stomach hurt. When I pitched the idea to publishers, I was picturing an up-with-career-girls, how-I-climbed-the-ladder story. Now the editor wanted to know about Adam, Ethan, Nicky—my actual personal life. I was tempted to walk away from the contract, but I had heard rumors that a few members of the board were discussing the possibility of “changes” at Eve while I was “distracted” by my “family situation.”

  Bill held up his wineglass in my direction. “More power to you. If I wrote a memoir, I’d have a long list of enemies lined up on Montauk Highway, waiting to exact their revenge. Your book—I am confident, Chloe—will be an inspiration to millions of young women who are struggling to find their voice.”

  I was still forcing a smile when Catherine turned to Nicky. “Nicky, can I say how pleased I am to finally have a chance to meet you in person? Chloe talks so much about you”—I didn’t—“but she never told me what a great chef you are. Watch your back, Ina Garten.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Nicky said sheepishly. “But, ‘Yeah, bitch, watch your back!’”

  I tried to hide my wince and was relieved when everyone laughed.

  Nicky had insisted on bringing a giant Tupperware of gazpacho even though I told her that Catherine did not like other people’s food at her parties. Ever polite, Catherine had served it in cups as an amuse-bouche. At least it had been good.

  Nicky had been dealing with our shared despair by cooking constantly. She was operating a full-time test kitchen, scouring my cookbooks, tinkering with recipes, and asking me which dishes I thought Ethan would enjoy most. She liked to say that when he came home, he was going to eat like a king.

  “What do you do besides make delicious cold soup?” The question came from Christof the sculptor, who apparently assumed that anyone he met at a Catherine party would have an answer to the question “What do you do?”

  I blurted out a nonresponse. “Nicky’s visiting from Cleveland.”

  “I’m a jewelry designer,” she said.

  “Excellent,” Liam the tattoo guy said. “What company?”

  “Oh, just myself,” she said, waving a hand. “I sell stuff online. But I get to do my own designs. Work my own hours. Keep all fifty dollars to myself.”

  I was mortified, but everyone pretended to laugh, which was nice. Nicky was doing a better job than I was of keeping up with the party chatter.

  “Is that one of your designs that you’re wearing now?” Catherine asked.

  Nicky glanced down and fiddled with the necklace around her throat. The chain was some kind of blackened silver, ending in an amalgam of hammered metal jigsaw puzzle pieces. It was . . . a lot.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do those pieces come apart?” Liam asked. “It looks like they’re barely together.”

  “Nope,” she said, tugging at the pendant in different directions. “All welded tight. But, yeah, that’s the intended effect. Tough industrial materials, but it still looks fragile, right?”

  Christof and Liam both agreed it was cool.

  “You should sneak a promo for her work into Eve,” Catherine suggested.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” Bill warned with a wagging index finger. “As her lawyer, I happen to know that would present a conflict of interest that would put her in breach.”

  “Well, someone should discover you,” Catherine announced. “Now, who wants dessert?”

  When I trailed Catherine into the kitchen to see if she needed help, she had already placed six perfectly sliced pieces of peach pie and was topping the plates with fresh whipped cream.

  “So much for helping,” I said.

  She flashed me a quick smile. “I’m glad you’re here with me, though.”

  I nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Is it okay to ask about Ethan? I just can’t imagine.”

  “He’s holding up,” I said softly. “Thanks.” She started a follow-up question, but I grabbed two of the prepared plates and made a dash for the dining room. “Don’t want the cream to melt!”

  I stopped even pretending to pay attention as the pie was consumed. Ethan wasn’t “holding up” at all, not as far as I was concerned. Because of the severity of his charges, he didn’t qualify for what they called “nonsecure” detention. Despite what the detention center’s website claimed about providing “holistic services” for the sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds housed there, the place seemed no different to me than a jail.

  Olivia had scared all three of us away from making any mention of the case whatsoever, because conversations were monitored, and Olivia seemed to think the prosecution might call Nicky and me as witnesses. So our visits were made up of small talk about how the cat was doing and whether Ethan was reading any of the books I was bringing him. The only time he mentioned his father was to ask where he was buried. When I told him Adam had been cremated, he broke down in tears, and I realized what a mistake I had made.

  Not to mention that the mandatory mental health assessment he’d undergone at intake had led to a prescription for an antidepressant. I was adamantly opposed at first, but Nicky, who had more experience with that world, was open-minded. After consulting with Ethan’s pediatrician, we had consented to the medication, but I was nervous about the long-term consequences. I was even more terrified that there would be no “long term” for Ethan at all—or, at least, not a normal one.

  Nicky helped me clear the dishes when desserts were finished.

  “That Liam is smoking hot,” she said as I used the sink sprayer to rinse the plates.

  “Please don’t make the moves on him, Nicky. I’m begging you.”

  “Oh, jeez. I was just kidding.” Nicky had mentioned two weeks earlier that the nameless, childless fifty-two-year-old divorcee she’d been seeing in Cleveland had finally told her that she should “do what she needed to do in New York” and wished her all the best. “You told me not to embarrass you, and I didn’t, right? The soup was good. Everyone liked it, just like I said.”

  She was right. I knew she was. But the truth was, I still didn’t want her here.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t sleep any nights. From my bed, I stared in the darkness at the armoire, knowing it contained the urn that contained Adam. The medical examiner’s office could only keep him so long, and then the funeral home they suggested needed a final answer, too. We couldn’t even have a memorial, not without Ethan, and so I had done what sounded like the simplest thing. Adam always was practical.

  Now Adam’s “cremains” were in an urn, where they would stay until Ethan and I could go out together on a kayak to watch the sunset and spread them on the water. In the meantime, I couldn’t even put the urn on display, because I was terrified that Panda was going to knock
the container over. The cat was still getting adjusted to life in East Hampton, where we had relocated to be closer to Ethan’s detention center.

  It was nearly three in the morning by the time I gave up, got out of bed, and went looking for my briefcase. My assistant had forwarded a pile of mail from the office.

  The fourth envelope I opened was a sympathy card from London, signed by Carol and Roger Mercer, the in-house counsel for the Gentry Group.

  I picked up my iPad from my nightstand, opened my contacts, and started a new email message to Carol:

  Dear Carol and Roger, thank you so much for keeping me in your thoughts. I’m sure it’s proper etiquette to say I’m doing fine under the circumstances, but the truth is, it’s been a struggle. I know this is an odd question, but, Roger, do you know if Adam had any meetings relating to the Gentry Group last May? I find myself trying to piece together every minute of his last days. Anything you know would help. With love, Chloe

  I read the message three times, making sure it sounded like the somewhat understandable musings of a bereaved widow.

  I hit the send key and tried again to find sleep.

  25

  Four Months Later

  Olivia hadn’t been kidding when she assured me she’d do everything she could for Ethan. It was the Thursday before Halloween, and she came by the East Hampton house because she was out for the weekend and wanted to check in on Nicky and me.

  “That’s quite the display out there,” Olivia said as she stepped inside.

  Nicky had gone to HomeGoods and bought an entire shopping cart of Halloween decorations. I had no memory of her enthusiasm for Halloween when we were younger, but apparently, she had become one of those adults who lived to answer the door all night for candy-demanding children.

  Once we were settled into the family room—I still couldn’t bring myself to sit in the living room, where I’d found Adam—Nicky asked Olivia if she really thought that Ethan’s trial was going to start this time. In theory, it was scheduled for next week, but it had been set over twice before.

  “It’ll be Thanksgiving soon,” Nicky said, “then Christmas. You told us at the very beginning that it would be a long process. I thought it would be next year. I want this all to be over sooner rather than later, but does that mean they’re confident if they’re ready now?”

  “Or they don’t want me to have more time to prepare? Or they have a hundred cases and will figure out on Monday that the timing doesn’t work. Try not to read into it either way, okay? I still feel good about where we are.”

  I knew that Nicky found comfort in Olivia’s original promise that she would tell us if she thought we were going to lose.

  “Just think, though,” I said. “If we really go to trial and it all goes our way, Ethan could be home for the holidays.”

  The possibility didn’t even seem real. Nicky and I had each found ways of breaking out from the paralysis that had weighed on us during much of the summer, but I felt like I was living two separate lives: one where I could be a normal person doing normal things when other people were around, and one where I was in complete panic and despair the minute I was alone with the idea of having absolutely no control over what was happening to Ethan.

  Nicky made the drive to Islip to see him nearly every day, but I could only visit twice a week in my status as his aunt. I could see how nearly six months of confinement had worn on him. His face still lit up when he saw me, but his affect would quickly flatten. The irreverent and persistent sense of humor that I had once tried to tame was now undetectable. It seemed as if he was ready to go back to his “room” earlier and earlier with each visit.

  I was starting to worry he was going along with the visits more for us than himself at this point. It was almost as if he was resigned to his current life in the detention center, which we disrupted with reminders of the world he had lost. As far as the timing of the trial went, I didn’t know whether to hope for another delay to postpone what might be an eventual conviction, or to hope for a quick disposition so we could bring him home before this experience transformed him into a stranger.

  I hugged Olivia before she left, wishing her a good weekend, realizing I knew nothing about whom she’d be spending it with. I knew nothing about her at all, really, and yet she was in many ways the most important person in my life at that moment.

  Once she was gone, I told Nicky I was going to a Soul Cycle class and then might drive out to Montauk to run the loop used for the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Two years earlier, I had placed second in my age group for the 10K, which wasn’t particularly competitive given that the loop was designed for a 5K, and only weirdos like me were willing to run it twice.

  “Hard pass,” she said. “I’m going to ginsu this here pumpkin with jewelry designs for my Etsy page. Unless, of course, you want to help me.” She was at the kitchen counter with a perfectly shaped pumpkin, my best knife, and an array of jewelry parts lined up on a dish towel.

  “Go to it, Holly Hobby. I’ll be back for dinner.”

  Two hours later, I was catching my breath at Jake’s, the sheets piled at the foot of the bed. He used a remote control to trigger the ceiling fan.

  “I remember when you didn’t want me to see you completely naked,” he said.

  Those days were definitely over. I was lying in what the yogis called the dead man’s pose, arms and legs splayed. The air circulating over me felt like magic.

  He turned on his side and kissed my shoulder. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  We hadn’t seen each other in ten days. I tried to keep my distance when Adam was killed, but I found myself calling him over and over again about Ethan’s case. I trusted Olivia as much as I could trust someone I didn’t really know, but my inner control freak needed to run her every decision by another lawyer—which turned out to be Jake.

  Before Adam died, I never allowed Jake to get too close, convincing myself he was simply a periodic escape from a temporary rough patch in my marriage. But once Adam was gone, and Jake was there for me—truly there for me—I remembered what it was like to feel not only loved but cared for. Protected. Safe. Adam and I had become broken, for reasons only we understood. And now I was the only one left, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone. It didn’t matter anymore. I was free to have a second chance—with Jake.

  By July 4, we were seeing each other again. Now we actually felt like a real couple, at least when we were alone.

  I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until he was twitching next to me, muttering something about being wrong and that someone needed to stop. When it seemed like he was living inside a full-on nightmare, I shook his arm gently to wake him.

  His head jerked from the pillow. “What?”

  “You were having a bad dream.” I rotated to face him and wrapped my arm around his waist. “What was it? Driving off a cliff? Teeth falling out? An exam in that math class you totally forgot you enrolled in? That’s my biggie.”

  He rubbed a palm against his close-cropped blond hair, as if he were trying to wake himself up. “If only it were so easy. Real-world bad dreams are much worse.”

  I said nothing, wondering if he would tell me more. Real couples talked about real problems.

  “It’s about that client at the firm, Gentry.”

  That single word felt like a jolt of electricity up my spine. I hadn’t thought about the company for months.

  “See? That’s why I hadn’t mentioned it to you. It’s a reminder of Adam.”

  I assured him it was okay and that I wanted him to tell me.

  “The federal government’s investigating them. A couple of employees—middle management, but high enough—got separate counsel, which means they’re probably cutting deals with the US Attorney’s Office. The hammer could drop any day with indictments of the CEO and CFO, if not the entire corporation.”

  “So why the bad dream? Adam had clients get investigated and charged all the time.”

  “But he was a criminal defense attorney, and I
’m not.” His index finger was tracing an invisible circle on my shoulder, a distraction as he talked to his dead law partner’s widow in bed. “And we weren’t working for Gentry on a criminal matter. It was strictly M&A.”

  Mergers and acquisitions. I remember telling Adam that he should have been happy about doing noncriminal, transactional work for once. After all, he had been the one complaining about being on the wrong side of the courtroom as a white-collar criminal defense attorney.

  “So why is the government investigating?”

  “Gentry was doing a lot of foreign deals. Sometimes the players in other countries have expectations that the United States government has a problem with.”

  “Like, what kind of expectations?”

  “Paying off every person up and down the line. Some people brush it under the scope of ‘cultural due diligence,’ but the feds call it bribery. One of the reasons Gentry hired us was to help them get the deal closed without crossing any lines into corruption. R&B’s got a ninety-eight percent satisfaction rate two years after closing of international M&As.”

  “And you do that by helping them walk all the way up to the line?”

  “Hm-mm.” His finger had stopped its rhythmic tracing. He had fallen back to sleep, just like that.

  I tried to do the same, counting my breaths and timing them with his. It didn’t work.

  I crawled out of bed, pulled on my T-shirt and underwear, and made my way to his kitchen. One of the many things I liked about Jake was that he had good taste. Both his apartment in the city and house in East Hampton were clean and modern, with a masculine touch, a mix of neutral colors and surprising textures. As I sat on a steel barstool and opened my laptop on his butcher countertop, I could picture myself hosting a dinner party here.