Each of them had been lucky to find their chosen path early on, just as their mother had. Their father had had a distinguished career in investments and was respected in the financial community. Everyone knew and liked Wallace McCarthy. But none of the girls was drawn to the world of finance. He was the perfect balance to Rose, serious and grounded while she was creative. He had been a devoted father, interested in each of them, encouraging them at the start of their careers. He had died young, four years before, at seventy-two. Orphaned while he was in college, he made his family all-important to him once he married Rose and the girls were born. He was ten years older than their mother, and although old-school and traditional, he wasn’t stuffy. He had liked Ben and Nicolas immensely, and eventually got used to Joe and saw his merits, although he was somewhat unorthodox and informal, by their father’s standards. He had always worried that Harley was too old for Olivia, particularly since they married when Olivia was still in law school, and Harley was in his forties. Harley was closer to her parents’ age than to hers, but the marriage had proven solid, and her father had finally given up his objections, and had a good relationship with Harley. As Rose pointed out to her husband, his concerns about his daughters’ choices of men wouldn’t change anything anyway. Olivia had always been headstrong and did what she wanted fearlessly. In Harley’s case, her instincts had been right. She was still happy with him fifteen years later, more now than ever.
The girls had lived well growing up on the Upper East Side of New York in a brownstone their parents had bought before it cost a fortune to buy one. They didn’t live lavishly, but they were more than comfortable and had everything they wanted, went to private schools and the best colleges. They had all gone to Spence, a fancy venerable private girls’ school. Venetia had made her debut, after Athena had refused to. Venetia only did it so she could wear a fabulous white dress and have a Cinderella night at the cotillion. Olivia had objected to the whole concept, politically, at eighteen, and refused. Nadia had made her debut because she knew her parents wanted her to. She knew how much it meant to them, which hadn’t concerned Athena and Olivia.
Nadia hated disappointing her parents, and tried hard not to. She was the most traditional of all of them. Olivia was extremely liberal politically in her teens, and was influential in women’s causes, but grew increasingly conservative with age, and under Harley’s influence. Athena had no politics, except where it affected dogs, and animal testing of any kind, and she was against capital punishment. Olivia was in favor of it now. Venetia got the news of the world filtered through the eyes of Women’s Wear Daily, the influential online trade publication of the fashion world, and the rest she read in Vogue and The Business of Fashion, also online. Nadia liked to read The New York Times, Le Figaro, and The Wall Street Journal when she had time to stay abreast of the news in the States. That way, she could talk intelligently with her clients and knew what was going on. Athena wrote articles for culinary magazines, and the readers loved them. She’d had a Q&A column for years in Gourmet magazine, but now wrote a blog on her website instead, and she posted beautiful photographs of food on her Instagram every day. They were happy, secure, stable women, who were each on the right path for them. And they had made good choices as adults, about their men, their careers, and their lives.
“I don’t know how you have time for that,” Olivia had commented to Athena while she was cutting and chopping things for their dinner that night. She was preparing tiny, delicate fraises des bois for dessert, with crème fraîche, which looked irresistible, and she photographed them for Instagram.
“Social media is so time-consuming,” Nadia complained to her.
“It’s an essential tool for communication today,” Athena said, and Venetia nodded. She and Athena followed each other’s Instagrams. Nadia did less of it. It wasn’t quite as popular in France, although she had gotten clients both as a result of her work being photographed frequently in decorating magazines and from her website, which was stylish and well done. Nicolas had helped her with it. He was much more familiar with social media and the internet than she was.
They all went to bed early that night, and were looking forward to a day at the beach the next day. They were up bright and early, and arrived at the kitchen at the same time to make breakfast. Nadia had already fed the girls, who went back upstairs to dress while their aunts sat around eating croissants Athena had made, drinking coffee, and laughing. And then they all got ready to go to the beach.
They felt like kids themselves swimming and playing with their nieces all day. And they had dinner at a fish restaurant in Trouville that night before coming back to the château. They ate bouillabaisse, sea urchins, and other local delicacies from the sea, and were happy and relaxed on the way home.
They got home at eleven o’clock, as Nadia glanced at her watch. Sylvie and Laure went straight up to bed. “Mom must be on the plane by now,” Nadia said as she followed her sisters up the stairs. It had been a perfect day, and she hated to think their weekend was already half over. It restored her soul just being with them, and made her feel young and carefree again. They had all talked to their respective partners that day. Ben had taken the children to two barbecues and a picnic for the Fourth of July, and Harley and Will had placed third in the regatta, which was honorable. Joe had dutifully reported that the dogs were doing well.
Nadia knew that the dynamic would change slightly the next day, once their mother was there. Rose was such a powerful, driving force. Even without Rose saying anything, there would be just a little less room for each of them. She didn’t mean to take over, and knew how not to overwhelm them, but they were each influenced by her and still wanted to please her. They cared about what she thought, and wanted her approval, which seemed childlike in a way. But she had stepped into the role of matriarch with natural grace while no one was looking, even before she lost her husband. It was the role she had at the magazine too. She was the matriarch of her family and the magazine, the person on whom all the decisions and responsibilities rested. In a sense, she wore a crown that no one could see but everyone knew was there. Along with it went the burdens. She never complained about what the role entailed or shirked her responsibilities. She was a living legend and had served as an example to all of them, each in a different way, according to their needs and perception of her. They had emulated her work ethic without hesitating for an instant, and for each, in their own field, success was a given, although hard earned, and richly deserved.
* * *
—
Nadia heard the car pull up to the house on the gravel driveway early Saturday morning and went downstairs to greet her. Rose looked as immaculately put together as always, in white slacks, a crisp white shirt, a trim navy linen blazer, and a straw hat, with the familiar black alligator travel bag. They spoke softly so as not to wake the others. Sylvie and Laure appeared in their nightgowns and threw their arms around her. They walked her to the largest bedroom, which Nadia had saved for her, with its own dressing room and pink marble bathroom. Rose loved coming to the château, and appreciated how simply and elegantly Nadia had helped Nicolas renovate and redecorate it when he had inherited it. It remained true to its original look, with beautiful antique parquet floors, wood paneling and moldings throughout, and she had added just a touch of modern, in order to make it comfortable but not look incongruous. It was a perfect example of a three-hundred-year-old home smoothly brought into the present. It was the ideal showcase for Nadia’s decorating talent.