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  Kait herself had been married twice, the first time right out of college to her children’s father. Scott Lindsay had been handsome, charming, fun loving, and young. They had a great time together, and it had taken six years and three children to figure out that they had none of the same values and very little in common, except that they both came from old, established New York families. Scott had an enormous trust fund and Kait finally realized that he had no intention of ever working and didn’t have to. He wanted to play for the rest of his life, and Kait thought everyone should work, no matter what their circumstances. Her indomitable grandmother had shown her that.

  She and Scott had parted ways right after Stephanie was born, when he announced that he wanted the spiritual experience of living with Buddhist monks in Nepal for a year, was thinking of joining an expedition to climb Everest after that, and thought that the mystical beauty of India would be a great place to bring up their kids, after his adventures. They divorced without animosity or bitterness after he’d been gone a year, and he thought it was for the best too. He stayed away for four years and was a stranger to his children by the time he got back, and then moved to the South Pacific, where he married a beautiful Tahitian woman and had three more children. He died after a brief tropical illness, twelve years after the divorce from Kait.

  She had sent the children to visit him in Tahiti, but he had very little interest in them, and they didn’t want to go back after a few times. He had simply moved on, and had been a poor choice of mate for a husband. Everything that had made him charming and seductive in college made him anything but later on, once she grew up and he didn’t. He never really had and didn’t want to. She was sad for her children when he died, more so than they were. He had spent so little time with them and showed so little interest. They had almost no connection to him. His parents had died young as well, and had no contact with the children before they did. So Kait’s children had grown up with their mother as the hub and only support system in their lives. She had shared her own values with them, and all three of them admired how hard she worked, while still being available to them at all times, even now. None of them needed her help particularly. They were well on their way on their chosen paths, but they knew she would have been there for them in a minute if they needed her. It was who she was, with her priorities clear about her children from the moment they were born.

  Kait’s second attempt at marriage had been entirely different, but no more successful than the first. She waited until she was forty to marry again. Tom had left for college by then, and both of her daughters were teenagers. She met Adrian just as she started a master’s in psychology at NYU, he was ten years older, completing his doctorate in art history, and had been the curator of a small but respected museum in Europe. Erudite, accomplished, fascinating, intelligent, he opened new worlds to her, and they traveled to many cities on museum trips: Amsterdam, Florence, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, London, Havana.

  In retrospect, she realized she had married him too quickly. She was worried about facing an empty nest in a few years, and anxious to establish a new life of her own. Adrian had endless plans he wanted to share with her, had never been married before, and had no children of his own. It seemed like a good fit, and it was exciting being with someone with such a rich cultural life and extensive knowledge. He was very reserved but kind and warm to her, until he explained to her a year after they married that his desire to marry her had been an attempt to go counter to his nature, and in spite of his good intentions, he had fallen in love with a younger man. He apologized profoundly to Kait and moved to Venice with him, where they had lived happily for the past thirteen years, and her marriage to him had obviously ended in divorce as well.

  She had been gun-shy about serious relationships ever since, and distrustful of her own judgment and the choices she’d made. Her life was happy and satisfying. She saw her children whenever possible when they had time. Her work was rewarding, and she had friends. When she turned fifty, four years earlier, she convinced herself that she didn’t need a man in her life, and hadn’t had a date since. It just seemed simpler like this. She had no regrets about what she might be missing. Adrian particularly had taken her by surprise, and nothing in his behavior toward her had suggested to her that he might be gay. She didn’t want to fall into someone’s trap again, or make a mistake. She didn’t want to be disappointed, or possibly encounter something worse. Although she was a great proponent of relationships in her column, they had begun to seem too complicated for her. She always insisted she was happy on her own, although friends like Carmen attempted to convince her to try again, and said she was too young to give up on love at fifty-four. Kait was always startled by her age. She didn’t feel it or look it, and had more energy than ever. The years had flown by. She was fascinated by new endeavors, the people she met, and her children.

  “So are you coming out to get drunk with us?” Carmen asked her from the doorway, looking exasperated. “You make the rest of us look bad, working all the time. It’s Christmas, Kait!” Kait glanced at her watch, she still had to get the tree, but she had half an hour to spare, to hang out with her colleagues and share a drink.

  She followed Carmen to the area where the eggnog and rum punch were set up, and took a sip of the eggnog, which was surprisingly strong. Whoever had mixed it had a heavy hand. Carmen was drinking her second one by the time Kait slipped away, went back to her office, looked around, and picked up a thick file off her desk, filled with letters she was planning to answer for the column and a draft of an article she had agreed to write for The New York Times about whether discrimination against women still existed in the workplace, or was simply a myth and a relic of the past. It wasn’t, in her opinion, it was just subtler than it used to be, and it depended on what field. She was looking forward to finishing it. She slipped the file into a tote bag Stephanie had given her with the Google logo on it, quietly made her way past the revelers with a wave at Carmen, and got into the elevator. Her Christmas vacation had begun, and now she had to get busy decorating her apartment for her kids, who would be there in two days.

  She was planning to cook the turkey herself on Christmas Eve, as she always did, and would have all their favorite treats on hand. She had ordered a Yule log at the bakery, and had already bought Christmas pudding from a British grocery store she liked. She had Bombay Sapphire gin for Tom, some excellent wine for all of them, vegetarian dishes planned for Stephanie, and the right kiddie treats and breakfast cereal in pastel colors for her granddaughters. And she still had to wrap all their gifts. It was going to be a busy two days until they arrived. Thinking about it, she smiled as she got into a cab for the ride uptown to the Christmas tree lot near her apartment. It was beginning to feel like Christmas, and even more so as it started to snow.

  * * *

  —

  Kait found a handsome tree that looked about the right height for her ceilings, and they promised to deliver it later that night when the lot closed. She had the stand she needed, and the decorations and lights. The snow was sticking to her red hair and lashes as she picked the tree out and then walked the four blocks to her apartment. People looked festive and happy with Christmas Eve only two days away. She had also picked out a wreath for the door, and some branches she could use to decorate the fireplace mantel in the living room. After she took off her coat, she started to unpack the boxes of decorations she had used for years and her children still loved. Some of them, from their childhood, were a little tired and battered, but those were their favorites, and if she failed to put them on the tree, they noticed and complained. The souvenirs from their early years were important to them. It had been a time filled with love and warmth.

  She lived in the same apartment she’d had when they were growing up. It was a generous size for New York, and been perfect for them when she bought it twenty years before. There were two decent-sized bedrooms, one of which was hers, a living room and dining room, a bi
g country-style kitchen where everyone congregated, and, since it was an old building, three maids’ rooms behind it, which had been her children’s bedrooms when they were young, and were big enough for them as kids. The second bedroom next to hers she used as a guest room now when needed, and an office for herself. It had been the children’s playroom when they were growing up. She was planning to turn over her bedroom to Tom and his wife while they were there for their brief visit. Stephanie would have the guest room/office. Tom’s two little girls would have one of the former maids’ rooms their father and aunts had grown up in, and Kait was going to sleep in Candace’s childhood room, since she wouldn’t be home. She hadn’t moved to a smaller apartment because she loved having enough space for her children and her granddaughters to visit. They hadn’t all come home at the same time in several years, but they might again one day. And after twenty years, she loved the apartment, and it was home. A housecleaner came to tidy it twice a week, and the rest of the time, she fended for herself and cooked her own meals, or picked something up on the way home.

  With the salary she made from Woman’s Life, and money her grandmother had left her, Kait could have afforded a slightly more luxurious life, but chose not to. She didn’t want more than she had, and had never been inclined to show off. Her grandmother had taught her the value of money, what it could do, how ephemeral it could be, and the importance of hard work. Constance Whittier had been a remarkable woman who had taught Kait everything she knew about life, ideals she still lived by and in turn had demonstrated to her children, although Constance had been less successful with her own children, or maybe just not as lucky. She had saved the family from disaster more than eighty years before, and had been a legend in her time, and set an example for them all of resourcefulness, sheer grit, business acumen, and courage. She had been Kait’s only role model growing up.

  From an illustrious aristocratic family herself, Constance watched her own family and the Whittiers lose their entire fortunes at the same time in the Crash of ’29. She’d been young, married, and had four young children at the time, including a new baby, Kait’s father, Honor. They had lived in a golden world of enormous houses, vast estates, unlimited wealth, beautiful gowns, spectacular jewels, and armies of help, all of which vanished and turned to ashes in the crash, which destroyed so many lives.

  Unable to face what would come next, Constance’s husband committed suicide, as their entire world was liquidated, and she was left alone with four young children and no money. She sold what she could, they had lost the rest, and she moved with her children to a tenement apartment on the Lower East Side and tried to get work to feed them. No one in her family or immediate circle had ever worked, they had inherited their fortunes. She had no skills other than being a charming hostess, a beautiful young woman, a good mother, and a devoted wife. She thought of taking in sewing, but had no skill for it. So instead she did the only thing she could think of and knew how to do. She made cookies, which she loved doing for her own children.

  They’d had a fleet of cooks and servants to conjure up whatever delicacies they wished, but Constance had always enjoyed making cookies for her children, when the cook would let her into the kitchen. Her parents’ cook had taught her to make cookies as a child, and it served her well. She began making them in the one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side. And taking the children with her, she brought her cookies to food stores and restaurants in plain boxes, where she wrote on them “Mrs. Whittier’s Cookies for Kids,” and sold them to whoever would buy them. She got an instant positive reaction, not just from children, but adults, and grocery stores and restaurants began to place orders with her. She could barely keep up production for the orders, and what she earned helped to sustain her and the children in their new life, where survival and making enough money to support her children were constant concerns. She added cakes then, and began researching recipes she remembered from Austria, Germany, and France, and the orders kept growing. She saved her money and within a year was able to rent a small bakery in the neighborhood, and continued to fill the ever-increasing orders.

  Her cakes were extraordinary, her cookies said to be the best. Other restaurants farther uptown heard of her, and added their orders to her first customers’, and she was soon supplying some of the best restaurants in New York with her baked goods, and had to hire women to help her. Ten years later, she had the most successful commercial baking business in New York, which all began in her tiny kitchen, in desperation, to support her children. Her business increased in the war years, when women joined the workforce and had no time to bake at home. Constance had a factory by then, and in 1950, twenty years after she began, she sold the business to General Foods for a fortune that subsequently helped support three generations of her family and was still doing so. The trust she had established had provided a nest egg for each of them that allowed them to pursue an education, buy a home, or start a business venture. She had set an example to them all, born of necessity and her own resourcefulness and refusal to be beaten.

  Constance’s sons had proven to be a disappointment to her, only too happy to ride the coattails of their mother’s fortuitous success and be idle themselves. She admitted later that she had spoiled them, and one of them had been unlucky. Her oldest son had had a passion for fast cars and faster women, and died in a car accident before he married or had children. Kait’s father, Honor, had been lazy and self-indulgent, drank and gambled, and married a beautiful young woman who ran off with another man when her daughter Kait was a year old. Kait’s mother disappeared somewhere in Europe and was never heard from again. Honor died a year later, somewhat mysteriously in a brothel while traveling in Asia, when Kait was two and left with nannies in New York. Her grandmother had taken her in and raised her, and they adored each other.

  Constance’s older daughter had been a talented writer, and had written successfully under the pen name of Nadine Norris. She died in her late twenties of a brain tumor, childless and unmarried. And Constance’s younger daughter had married a Scotsman, lived a quiet life in Glasgow, and had nice children who had been kind to her until her death at eighty. Those children were Kait’s cousins, whom she liked but rarely saw. Constance’s pride and joy had been Kait, and they shared wonderful adventures living together as Kait grew up. Kait was thirty when her grandmother died at ninety-four, after a remarkable life.

  Constance Whittier had lived a wonderful life to a great age with all her faculties intact and a sharp mind. She had never looked back with bitterness or regret over what had been lost, nor resented what she’d had to do to save her children. Constance had treated every day like an opportunity, a challenge, and a gift, and it had helped Kait to do the same in hard times, or when faced with disappointments. Her grandmother had been the bravest woman she’d ever known. She had been fun and exciting to be with when Kait was a child, and even into her nineties. She had stayed occupied until the end, traveling, visiting people, keeping abreast of new developments in the economy, fascinated by business and learning new things. She had learned to speak fluent French in her eighties, and then took Italian classes, and spoke it well.

  Kait’s children still remembered their great-grandmother, although the memories were dim now, since they had been young when she died. She’d had dinner with Kait on her last night, and they had laughed and had a lively conversation afterward. Kait still missed her, and smiled whenever she thought of her. The years they had shared had been the greatest gift in her life, other than her children.

  As she set the Christmas decorations carefully on the kitchen table, she saw a few from her own childhood, and she remembered hanging them on the tree with her grandmother when she lived with her. They brought back a flood of memories, and even though the ornaments were faded now, Kait knew the memories never would. Her grandmother would live on forever in the love and joy they had shared, which had been the foundation of the life she lived. Constance Whittier had been an inspiration
to all who knew her. And the cakes and cookies she had baked out of necessity to save her children became household words. The cookies were simply called 4 Kids, and the fancy cakes and baked goods were Mrs. Whittier’s Cakes and had fed them all. General Foods had wisely preserved the original names of the products, which were still popular, and big sellers for them. Constance Whittier had become a legend, an independent, resourceful woman ahead of her time, and Kait still followed her example every day.

  Chapter 2

  Knowing that her children would be home for only a short time, Kait wanted everything to be perfect. The tree, the house, the decorations, the meals. She wanted them to leave two days later on a cloud of benevolence and good feelings toward each other. Tom was sometimes dismissive of his younger sister and teased her. She lived on another planet in a world defined by computers, and Tom thought her boyfriend was weird. He was a nice guy, but hard to talk to, and was interested only in computers. He and Stephanie were among the bright lights of Google, and were classic geeks. And Stephanie had often commented privately to her mother that it was strange to think that her brother’s father-in-law had made billions selling fries and burgers, and chicken wings with barbecue sauce and secret spices they wouldn’t reveal. But Hank, Maribeth’s father, was a brilliant businessman and had been wonderful to Tom, giving him every opportunity to share in his success and make a fortune of his own. Hank Starr was a generous man, and Kait was grateful for the chance he had given Tom. And Maribeth was a smart woman and a good wife.

  Stephanie was successful in her own pursuits, and had found the perfect mate for her. Kait couldn’t ask for more. Only Candace still worried her, with the dangerous locations she went to, to make her documentaries for the BBC. Her siblings thought she was crazy to do it, and couldn’t understand what drove her. Kait had deeper insight into her middle child. Faced with her brother’s huge financial success as the crown prince in his father-in-law’s realm, and her younger sister’s brilliant mind, Candace had chosen a path that made her a star in her own right, and garnered the attention and respect of the world. Her deep concern for the plight of women had inspired Candace to become their voice and champion, and she brought attention to them with her documentary specials, no matter what it took for her to do it. It made what Kait did seem very tame, answering letters from distressed women around the country, and advising them on how to solve their ordinary daily problems and strive for a better life. She gave them hope and courage, if nothing else, and the feeling that someone cared about them. It was not a negligible accomplishment, and accounted for the success of her column for two decades.