Maeve's Girls Read online

  Maeve’s Girls

  Christine Gael

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Maeve

  2. Lena

  3. Kate

  4. Sasha

  5. Maggie

  6. Maeve

  7. Lena

  8. Kate

  9. Sasha

  10. Maggie

  11. Lena

  12. Sasha

  13. Lena

  14. Kate

  15. Maggie

  16. Sasha

  17. Maggie

  18. Maeve

  19. Kate

  20. Lena

  21. Sasha

  22. Lena

  23. Kate

  24. Lena

  25. Maggie

  26. Maeve

  27. Sasha

  28. Lena

  29. Lena

  30. Kate

  31. Lena

  Introduction

  La Pierre, Louisiana had never seen anything like Maeve Blanchard, and they never will again. After 75 years, five husbands, four daughters, and one bootleg whiskey ring, Maeve has finally been called home to be with the Lord...or with someone, somewhere, at any rate.

  But while Maeve took her impending demise in stride, her four girls have had their worlds turned upside down.

  There's 54-year-old Lena, Maeve's love child who left home at sixteen to get away from the stain of her mother's wild life and never looked back. Kate, who married far too young and lost herself somewhere along the way. Sasha, who has followed in her mother's high-heeled footsteps and is forced to come face to face with the demons from her past. And Maggie, Maeve's niece who she raised as her own.

  Despite the complex relationships they shared with their mother in life, Maeve's girls each need to make their peace with her in death, and they're finally ready to come home to La Pierre to do it. The only question now is whether La Pierre is ready for them...

  Maeve

  If you're reading this, that means I've gone to the big casino in the sky. And frankly, I’m not sorry. Especially if it’s hurricane season.

  I know some of y’all aren’t going to be happy about being back in La Pierre (especially you, Lena, bless your heart). But I have faith in your ability to survive most anything, for a time. It’s a trait you girls share with your mama…and cockroaches, ha! But it’s also a trait that has served me very well. And, now that you’ve each had a chance to get a little more living under your belts, I hope you’ll realize that it’s served you well, too.

  What comes next will probably seem like a punishment to at least two out of the four of you, but time is short, and I can’t be fussed to write out the whole thought process behind my decision with the little I have left. For now, I hope you’ll trust that this wasn’t some random scheme I cooked up just to get on your nerves one last time.

  For starters, as you know by now, I’ve advised Alistair that y’all need to come home for the reading of this will. There will be no disbursement of funds or property until or unless that happens. I’ve already told him that calling in on some newfangled video program like MyFace, or some intercom doo-hickey, doesn’t count. I want all four of you, same room, no exceptions (unless one of you has beaten me to the grave after the writing of this letter, something I pray to any god that has a mind to hear me won’t be the case). If you’re listening to this, though, that means you’ve all done what you were told for once, and I’ve already achieved in death what I couldn’t in life. Somebody get the holy water, it’s a miracle! But that also means each of you is struggling right now. Whether it’s because I’m gone, or because you’re here in La Pierre, try to be kind and patient with each other. It’s going to be a long three months.

  ‘Why?’ you ask?

  Because that’s how long the four of you will need to live in Blanchard Manor before the deed and ownership of everything inside it will be transferred into your names. What you do with it after that is none of my concern. Sell it. Raze it. Make it into a hippy commune or a taco stand. I don’t care. Beyond that, I ask of you the following:

  Check on Harold for me. He’s not the same since Annalise passed and he needs looking after.

  Be careful with the jewelry. Lord knows, I love it gaudy, but some of it looks fake even though it isn’t. Whatever you do, though, don’t get it appraised down at Elsie’s Gems and Antiquities. (Sorry, Alistair, I know she’s your sister-in-law, but we both know she’d rob a blind man of his cane if she had the chance. Plus, she’s never gotten over me winning that blue ribbon with the pecan pie I picked up at the Piggly Wiggly back in seventy-nine.)

  And, last but not least, when clearing out the house, start from the attic and work your way down. That seems to be the order of things, doesn’t it? The dusty old memories at the top, down to the stuff we use every day in our living spaces. But I’m also hoping that you’ll come to view me a little less harshly if you start at the beginning. If you still feel the same way about me in three months as you do now? Well, that’s all right, too. At the end of the day, closure is what I’m looking for here. Both for you girls and for me, too. Even if that means some of y’all closing the door and never looking back again.

  Most of all, know this…

  I did the best I could with what I had at the time, and gave you all the love I had to spare.

  * * *

  XOXO

  -Maeve

  Lena

  Alistair Raynaud, Attorney at Law, slipped off his glasses and cleared his throat as he laid the swath of papers on his desk. “I’m afraid that’s all, for right now.”

  Lena wasn’t surprised to see the sheen of tears in his tired eyes. Alistair and her mother had known each other for nearly seven decades, and he’d been on retainer since the Nixon era. He’d handled all of the details of Maeve’s annulment, both late in life divorces, and the untimely death of two spouses, making sure her interests were always looked after. He’d also kept her out of the slammer more times than any of them could count.

  By Lena’s estimation, Alistair was probably weeping for the loss of his best client as much as he was at having to say goodbye to a friend.

  From her vantage point directly behind her sisters, Lena could see Sasha’s tanned, bare shoulders shaking, and Kate as she dabbed at her own cheeks with a handkerchief, while Maggie’s soft sobs filled the otherwise silent room.

  But Lena’s eyes were dry as a bone.

  Maeve was dead right when she’d assumed that her eldest daughter would rather chew off her own leg than be back in the bear trap that was her hometown of La Pierre, Louisiana. In fact, Lena would’ve given up her entire inheritance to be anywhere else right now…

  On that note, she stood and slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder, her legs surprisingly shaky.

  “Look, I know my sisters are going through a tough time, and I don’t want to add to that, so I’m going to make this quick and to the point. I don’t want it,” she said firmly. “I don’t want any of it,” Lena repeated for good measure, shooting a stiff smile at Alistair. “If you can just write up a release of some kind that I can sign in order to hand my share over to my sisters, I’ll be on my way. I’m happy to pay you for your time.”

  She spared a quick glance at her watch and winced. Her flight back to Seattle didn’t leave for another ten hours, which meant she had a good seven to spare. She made a mental note to check the movie times at the cinema near the airport. A double feature with a large popcorn there, followed by a double scotch and soda at the airport, and just maybe she’d get rid of the bad taste in her mouth.

  She looked up to find Sasha staring at her over her shoulder, wide cornflower eyes full of resentment. “Are you serious right now? Mama is dead, and you’re going to breeze in and breeze out in less than twenty-
four hours like it’s nothing?”

  Lena resisted the urge to turn on her sensible heels and walk. This was one of the seven hundred reasons she hadn’t wanted to come back here. The drama. Everything Maeve-related fairly oozed with it. Get too close, it’d rub off on a body and cling, like the sticky underside of a garden snail on a cobblestone pathway.

  Worse, though? Once it was on you, there was no way to ever truly get it off. Nobody knew that better than Lena.

  She took a steadying breath and met Sasha’s accusing gaze, once again momentarily taken aback by how much she favored Maeve. Ten years younger than Lena, at 44, Sasha could’ve easily passed for 39 and, if Lena were to guess, probably did whenever possible. Her face was heart-shaped, like their mother’s, only slightly more round, which gave her an air of innocence. Her almost preternaturally blue eyes tilted up at the corners just a little, and glinted with mischief, as if to say, “Dare me”. The contrasting effect was lethal. Men desired her almost as much as other women despised her.

  Dolly may have pled for the mercy of an intoxicating temptress named Jolene, but she might as well have been singing to Sasha. That apple had fallen directly in front of the tree that was Maeve. Maybe that was why Lena couldn’t hold her sister’s gaze for very long without looking away…

  She shoved those thoughts aside and tried to keep her tone even and calm as she tried again. “Having me here is only going to make things worse for you three,” she reasoned. “I’m not good at pretending. Never have been. You all know it,” she added, sparing a glance at her other two sisters, who had turned and now looked on in silence. “Why do that to yourselves?”

  Or me.

  “Ah, actually,” Alistair said, his voice cutting through the tension vibrating like a live wire between them, “I’m afraid that isn’t really an option anyway, Lena.”

  Her pulse skittered as she turned her attention to the old man behind the desk.

  “What does that mean?” she demanded in a low voice.

  Alistair shifted his considerable girth in the chair, making it squeal in protest, before reaching for a second, unopened envelope on his desk.

  He held it up with a wry smile. “For what it’s worth, I advised her against this, girls…”

  Lena instantly bristled at the way he addressed them—even her youngest sister was over forty, for crying out loud—but her irritation fizzled away as she read the words scrawled across the front of the envelope in her mother’s no-nonsense handwriting.

  * * *

  Part deux, to read when Lena tries to walk out…

  * * *

  Ah, Maeve, you wily old so and so. Lena let out a breath, shoulders going ramrod straight. Amazing that her mother was no longer of this earth and still found a way to get under her skin so completely.

  She inclined her head but refused to retake her seat. “Get on with it, then.”

  Alistair tore open the envelope and perched his glasses on the end of his nose before beginning to read.

  * * *

  Should any of my children leave town before the three months is up, or forfeit their share, my entire estate will go to the La Pierre Improvement and Beautification Committee, in honor of the city I loved so dearly. The estate will be split four ways, or not at all.

  * * *

  Meaning, if she left before the three months was up, not only would her sisters be left with nothing, but the town that had been an albatross around her neck since the day she was born would get a three-quarter of a million dollar makeover. Because, apparently, Maeve had decided that a right hook was always better when followed by a bone-jarring uppercut.

  Lena pinched her eyes closed and shook her head slowly, a low laugh escaping her lips.

  Well played, Mother.

  Diabolical? Yup. Manipulative? Definitely. Risky? Always. But in life, as in death, Maeve Blanchard had never been stupid. She’d known exactly what she was doing.

  Lena didn’t wait to hear more as she forced her feet into motion.

  “Where are you going?” Sasha demanded, her voice shrill.

  “Lena, at least listen to what else Alistair has to say,” Maggie added.

  But it was Kate’s words that stayed with her long after the door closed behind her.

  “Leave her be. She won’t go far. She just needs some time to get her head straight.”

  “Double scotch and soda with a twist, please.”

  Lena settled onto the barstool with a groan and kept her eyes cast down as the bartender shuffled off to make her drink. It had been years since she’d shown her face in La Pierre. Prior to that short visit, it had been almost a decade. Surely no one would recognize her. She looked nothing like the brash young woman who’d left town at age sixteen as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. She’d made damn sure of it.

  “You’re one of Maeve’s girls, aren’t you?”

  Less than two minutes, and the jig was already up. Swallowing a sigh, she turned to find a man in his late sixties seated at the short section of the L-shaped bar, eying her with something akin to pity. The only question was, did he feel sorry for her because her mother had died, or because Maeve had been her mother at all? Both would check out.

  “I am, yes,” she acknowledged with a nod. “Lena.”

  He squinted, scratching at one bushy eyebrow with a greasy fingernail as he studied her. “One of Vinnie’s daughters?”

  “Nope. That would be my sisters, Kate and Sasha.”

  The bartender returned with Lena’s drink and set it on the bar before hitching a hip against a cooler filled with frosty beer mugs.

  “Claire’s daughter, then? That was a dang shame, her passing so young. Car accident, yeah?”

  “Actually, that’s my sister, Maggie. Maeve adopted her when my Aunt Claire died in the wreck.”

  This was what happened when your family tree was more like a tawdry tangle of gnarled branches than it was a mighty oak or a proud sequoia. People asked questions…made judgments. Didn’t matter that she was now a fifty-four-year-old tenured professor at one of the finest universities on the West Coast, with two doctorates under her belt. When she came back to La Pierre, at one point or another, she reverted back to that shame-filled little girl without a daddy.

  “So you’re Clyde’s, then?” he asked, frowning.

  “No,” she snapped coldly, not qualifying her answer this time.

  “Criminy, Pete, get off the woman’s back already,” the bartender said, rifling through her apron pockets. “I’m sure she’s had a hard day already and doesn’t need you grilling her like a T-bone right now. Here,” she said, handing him a wrinkled dollar bill. “Go put something happy on the jukebox, would you?”

  Lena met the other woman’s gaze and mouthed a furtive “thank you”. She hadn’t taken the time to notice before, but the woman looked faintly familiar.

  “Ruthie Fontaine,” the bartender supplied with a smile. “We were in high school together before you…” She trailed off, picked up a white rag, and began to wipe down the well-worn bar top.

  Ruthie Fontaine.

  Lena cast her memory back and tugged out the cobweb-covered image of a young girl with golden hair, bright eyes and a quick smile, just a year ahead of Lena.

  “I remember, now. You were valedictorian,” she recalled out loud before she could stop herself. She was usually pretty good in social situations, but reminding Ruthie of that fact while she was in the middle of a Tuesday shift at a crummy bar in the same dead end town they’d both grown up in had surely been a misstep.

  Ruthie’s golden hair had faded to the color of dishwater, but her smile was as quick and easy as Lena remembered.

  “Yeah, I was kind of a big deal back then. That and a buck will buy me a coke,” she shot back, tossing the rag into the sink beside her. “Seriously, though, I had considered trying to work for NASA but then decided it would be way better for myself and future generations of Fontaines if I got knocked up my first semester at college, came home with my tail between my l
egs, and lived in my parents’ garage for ten years. Lucky thing, too, because otherwise I wouldn’t have all this.” She raised both hands to gesture around the bar, her wry grin still firmly in place and holding barely a trace of bitterness. “I’ve used my big old brain and done the math. By my calculations, I should be able to retire by the time I’m ninety-six, so…living the dream.”

  Lena was surprised to find that the tension after her awkward gaffe was gone and she was smiling back at Ruthie, her mood lifting a little. “Well, I think you made an excellent decision. It’s not like you can get endless, bottom-shelf gin and free pickled eggs at Yale, am I right?”

  Ruthie let out a guffaw that was so genuine, it made Lena chuckle in response. This was good. Exactly what she’d needed. A few minutes to shut her brain off and not think about Maeve’s death or the sticky mess that awaited her back at Blanchard Manor.

  Lena was about to ask Ruthie if she was allowed to have a drink on the job when the strains of a familiar tune poured from the jukebox, forcing a groan from the other woman.

  “Seriously, Pete?” Ruthie shouted across the room. “I said a happy song, for crying out loud.”

  It was only when the violin kicked in that Lena recognized the melody.

  Dust in the Wind.

  Perfect.

  Kate