Each of the girls graciously assured her this was true.

“But time marches on. As you know, I’m not getting any younger. The ruins of Rome are upon me and I’ve come to accept that it’s time for me to move into a retirement home, where I will live among many of my friends and, importantly, be where I can take advantage of all the amenities that make life easier as I reach that certain age.”

Dora, who was sitting beside her, reached over to pat her hand. “You’ll always be ageless to us, Mamaw.”

“Thank you, dear. However, I’m not getting any richer, sadly. Which brings me to the business at hand. The three of you have carved out lives for yourself elsewhere in the country. You’re all busy; you have other places you want to travel to when you go on vacation instead of here. I understand this and must face the fact that your visits to Sea Breeze are few and far between. I’m not saying this to be the least bit critical. However, I’ve always been a realist.” She spread out her palms.

“I’m selling Sea Breeze,” she said with a bittersweet smile.

She saw their faces reflect a mixture of shock and sorrow.

Dora spoke first. “But it’s been in the family for generations.”

“Yes. True enough. I feel that burden keenly. I’ve done all I can, my dears.”

“Isn’t there some way we can keep it?” asked Carson. She looked stricken.

“I really don’t think so.”

“B-but,” Dora stammered, “I . . . I thought . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought.” She laughed with some embarrassment. “That you have chest drawers filled with money, I guess.”

Mamaw smiled indulgently. “We were well-off, to be sure. But our fortune has dwindled considerably. There’ve been bad investments, the ups and downs of the stock market, the high cost of living, and the expenses of illness and old age. After your grandfather retired, we lived on our nest egg. There was no new money coming in as expenses went up. If you knew what it costs to insure this place today, you’d weep!” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “And there were Parker’s expenses. The simple truth is that my son—your father—ate through a good deal of my money in his lifetime. It was my decision to support him, and I must accept my role in the way things turned out. But here we are.”

There was a silence as the girls digested this.

“He what?” Dora blurted, breaking the silence.

Harper said more softly, “I don’t understand. What do you mean, he ate through your money?”

Mamaw glanced at Carson. She sat rigid, her jaw set and her blue eyes glowing like acetylene torches.

“Parker never found himself,” Mamaw said, trying to couch her words with kindness. “Bless his heart, he tried so many different projects and he had so much potential. Sadly, that potential was never realized. He needed . . .” She paused, seeking the correct word that would be honest but fair. “. . . support over the years. And Edward and I gave it to him.”

Carson couldn’t hold back any longer. “Support? He depended on Mamaw’s allowance.”

“Wait,” Harper said, still trying to understand. “Are you saying that he didn’t earn any money? That Mamaw just gave him money?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Carson replied.

“What about his writing?”

Mamaw covered her eyes with her hand when Carson let loose a hoot of derogatory laughter.

“His writing?” Carson asked incredulously. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Quite,” Harper replied unflinchingly. “I always understood my father was a writer.”

An uncharacteristically cruel smile eased across Carson’s face. “Did you? No, Harper. Our father wasn’t a writer. He was a writer wannabe,” she replied. “Or rather, he didn’t want to be a writer as much as he wanted to be famous. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t have to be so cruel,” Harper admonished her, looking Carson straight in the eye.

Carson shrugged. “Me, cruel? You know his great American novel never got published, right? You ought to know that. Your mother was the first editor to reject it.” There was ringing accusation in her voice.

“Yes,” Harper replied tightly, keeping herself rigid. She continued. “Mother had always been quite clear about his talent, or rather, his lack of it. But I’d always thought her judgment was clouded by her general loathing of him.”

Carson appeared slightly mollified. “Well, she wasn’t alone in her opinion of his talent,” Carson said. “He could’ve wallpapered a room with his rejections.”

“What about screenplays?” Harper asked persistently. “Isn’t that why he went to California?”

“Oh, God,” Carson moaned, shaking her head in her palm. Then, peering up at Harper, she said, “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Dora spoke up. “Apparently, neither do I. I’d always assumed that Daddy made his living writing screenplays.”

Carson dropped her hand and turned her head to stare at Mamaw with accusation.

“They don’t know?” Carson asked her.

Mamaw lifted her chin. “It was no one’s business but his own.”

“So the great myth of Parker Muir the artist, the author, the entrepreneur, the beloved son of the great Muir clan, is alive and well,” Carson said with sarcasm. “Good job, Mamaw.”

Dora clasped her hands together on the table. “I think it is our business, Mamaw. We’re not children any longer. He is our father, no matter how absent he was, and apparently he made a huge dent in the family fortune. You just told us you’re selling Sea Breeze because of his debts. That affects each of us. After all, we’re your heirs. After, of course, our mothers.”

Mamaw drew up in her seat. “Your mothers?” she said, her tone rising with her distaste. “My daughters-in-law are nothing more than a disappointment. My son may have had three wives, but it takes two to tango.”

Carson abruptly rose to her feet and reached for the bottle of champagne. She filled her glass, then went around to refill those of her sisters.

Mamaw regretted her comment and gazed at the centerpiece. The roses appeared otherworldly against the flickering candles. Her thoughts drifted back to other dinner parties, years earlier, when Parker was young and filled with promise. He filled out his dinner jacket seamlessly, and with his sharp wit, his elegant manner, his dashing good looks—he was dazzling. She wished his daughters could have known him then.