Page 37 of The Summer Club

Andi shook her head. “I don’t know that it was spiteful. I think she’s getting old, and she’s probably thinking more about her estate. Her legacy.”

“And pushing us out of it?”

Andi looked at Hugh sympathetically. “Who knows if we were ever really in it.”

“Older people do some crazy things as they age,” Martin interjected. “Tish has always been extravagant. Maybe she’s afraid of losing it.”

Hugh scoffed. “Her marbles or her money?” He turned to Andi. “She always treated us differently. Always. Remember?”

Andi thought back. Tish had seemed to favor Sydney, for sure. But she’d assumed it was because she was the baby of the family. “Maybe a bit. But we didn’t see her that much. She never really let any of us get close to her.”

“A bit?” Hugh said. “She was so obvious about it. Mom used to get visibly upset.” It was true. Andi recalled her mother biting her lip or cutting visits short. The strained look on her face when it came time for presents to be given out.

“Syd, do you remember any of that?” Hugh asked.

Sydney had been listening quietly and Andi wondered how it made her feel. “Not really. I thought she was different than other grandmas, compared to my friends. She didn’t visit much. Wasn’t exactly the hugging kind. But I thought she was generous when she was around.”

Hugh kicked at the sand with his toe. “To you, maybe.” He looked at Andi. “Remember the split checks? Every Christmas and birthday!”

Andi cringed. She’d forgotten all about that. “Now I do.”

“What’re you talking about?” Sydney asked.

“Nothing,” Hugh quipped. “Just the pattern of imbalance.”

It was clear Sydney didn’t get it, but Andi empathized. How could she? “When we were little, Tish used to send us checks instead of presents.”

“Oh, yeah! All I wanted was a doll. Mom would take the checks to the bank and straight into the college fund they’d go.” She rolled over onto her side. “Who gives a little kid a check?”

Hugh shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that.”

“What, then?”

“It had more to do with the amounts.”

Sydney frowned.

“You were little,” Andi explained. She looked to Hugh, remembering.

Each year Tish sent the family a card and inside would be two checks. One check made to Hugh and Andi. And one to Sydney. “They were fifty-dollar checks.”

Hugh raised an eyebrow. “You do remember. Only it wasn’t really fifty dollars, was it?”

Sydney was looking between them. “How much was it?”

Hugh inhaled, his eyes still fixed on Andi. “You got fifty dollars. Andi and I got fifty to split.”

“Seriously? As in, you ended up with just twenty-five each?”

Hugh nodded gravely. “And then your checks got bigger as we all got older. But ours didn’t really.”

Andi could tell from the look on Sydney’s face that this was all news to her. News that made her feel awful. “Syd, this is on Tish. Not you.”

“I know, but…”

“And then there was the year of the car,” Hugh reminded them.

“She didn’t exactly get me a car.”