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However, my office was the one place renovated enough to reflect the twenty-first century. Light green leather seats. A sleek oak desk. Crystals and plants carefully stashed in every corner of the room in a way that screamed cozy but still professional. I had the necessary achievements hung on the cream-coloured walls, and the mandatory family and friends pictures scattered over my desk strategically to look like I was established and grounded in life.
The only thing I couldn’t get rid of—as tradition called—was the old motherhouse and nuns group sketch from the late 1800s near the entrance wall. My mother and previous principals had insisted they remain intact so every time you walked into the office, you never forgot their legacy.
“I do have a life,” I said cheekily. “And this office is not my second home…It’s myfirsthome.”
Ella palmed her forehead.
“It’s okay to work a lot when you have goals you need to accomplish. So long as you stop every now and then tobreathe. Where is the Darla who enjoyed life and took everything in stride?” She enunciated the last sentence carefully, keeping her gaze glued on me. “Where the hell is she?”
I smiled wryly. “I outgrew her.”
“Wrong. You killed her for the sake of appeasing your mother’s ridiculous demands.”
I flinched, the truth spearing me like an arrow.
Ella rose and brushed the invisible lint on her blazer.
My best friend rounded the desk and drew me in for a tight hug. “Promise me that you’re going to call your doctor soon. And while you’re at it, please promise me that you’re going to stop living your life according to other people. I really want you to let loose tomorrow night and show me a glimpse of the Darla I love and grew up with.”
I hugged her back. “I promise, Ella.”
Not for her, but for me.
She was right.
I needed tolivemore.
The soft sunset glow cast warmth over Hill residence. I rarely arrived home in time to witness the golden hour, which caused the white pillars at the front to reflect almost iridescently. A picturesque depiction of serene.
Yet those who lived with Diane Hill knew that outside appearances were everything. The inside of our home was cold and engraved with the bitterness of three women who just couldn’t march to the same beat.
You would think living with three ambitious, accomplished women would be an empowering experience. Unfortunately, we found ourselves butting heads more often than not. Most of the time it was my older sister Dacia and I versus my mother, who was too damn stubborn and set in her old ways. Other times we simply agreed to disagree because we had varying views on many topics and it just wasn’t worth the discord—I thought apple pie was the greatest pie in existence, Dacia swore it was chocolate blueberry, and my mother thought anything other than a pecan was blasphemy.
But when it was good between us, a handful of times out of the year, it was harmonious,let’s rejoice over the fact that we’rea household of independent women who don’t need mento provide for uskind of atmosphere.
Such was the Hill curse. We rarely got married and if we found worthy partners, life ripped them away from us. The only thing men had been good for in our bloodline was acting as sperm donors.
I never met my father and my mother refused to speak on the topic.
As I parked my Mercedes along the circular driveway and stepped out, Alberto, our butler, waited for me at the front door, hands behind his back in a regal pose.
Alberto wasn’t really a servant. He was family and the closest thing I’d ever had to a grandfather. He was the only man strong enough to handle the headache that was us Hill women and I loved him with all my heart.
“Good evening, Berto.” I kissed his cheek and he tried to steal my briefcase. I laughed and yanked it back. “I’m not a little girl anymore. I can carry my own bag.”
“You will always be a child in my eyes.” He snatched the briefcase with his white-gloved hands and walked beside me like a soldier entering a battalion. Over the years, his gait slowed from old age, so I decelerated my strides to keep up with him.
Alberto didn’t believe in the concept of aging. He liked to believe he was forever forty instead of his actual seventy.
The grand foyer was splendid in its usual brass accents and lavish décor. Yet it was lifeless. Had always been and would always be even after Dacia and I inherited our childhood home.
“Miss Darla, your mother awaits you in her office,” Alberto, who’d been working in our family for five decades, said in his posh, British accent.
It always made me giggle as a little girl how he pronounced certain words and I used to imitate him all the time, chasing him around the house while he worked. He’d perch me on his hip and teach me many tongue-twisters while dusting the paintings, filling teapots with hot water, and fixing the beddings.
“What does she want now?”
What could the mighty Diane Hill want from me today? Pointers on where she should get Botox next? A pair of ears while she rehearsed a city hall speech? Perhaps someone to rearrange her pantsuits by shades of white, grey, and black?
