“Can you part with my house?”
I shook my head. “Oh, no. Never. I decorated that house for us. That’s our house.”
He nodded. “Great. Then we’ll keep them both. Got it.”
I smiled. “What would you think about my letting Sloane and Adam live in my house? They can’t stay at Caroline and James’s forever.”
Jack nodded slowly. “That’s a great idea. But I think you should let them pay you rent. Adam won’t like it if you don’t, and the store is doing really well. We’re finally in the black.”
Jack leaned over and picked up a half-rotten crab apple from the ground. Then, running away from me, he called, “Hey, AJ. Catch!”
I walked to Kimmy, where she was fussing over a patch of kale. Greens grew well in our soil. It was one of the few things she didn’t grow hydroponically.
“You should keep bringing the boys out here,” Kimmy said. “I let them plant some seeds today, and I want to let them watch them grow.” She paused. “It’s the best way I know of to teach kids about God.”
I was shocked, and I was sure my face didn’t disguise that well. I couldn’t imagine that Kimmy, who barely smiled and grew weed in her spare time, was religious.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s not what I expected from you.”
“Ansley,” she said, flashing me a rare smile, “you can’t do what I do day after day—watch beautiful things come from the earth—and not believe in God. It’s impossible. You know?”
I nodded, though I didn’t know. Well, I mean, I had known before, at one time or another. I could remember those days in the church pew, feeling like God’s favor must be on me. Three little heads adorned with bows. One handsome husband. We hadn’t gotten to that place in the conventional way, but we had gotten there. And then that life imploded. Or maybe it exploded, in grand fashion. I had spent years thinking that maybe I had gotten what I deserved, that maybe this was God’s way of punishing me for what I had done.
But maybe it wasn’t a punishment, not really. Maybe it was just life, one of those classic cases where bad things happen. Maybe, I had to consider, watching Jack chase after our grandsons, listening to Taylor’s happy squeals as Jack threw him over his shoulder, I had focused so much on the bad that I had forgotten to see all the good.
Carter had died tragically, yes. But I had found love again. Adam was MIA, but he had come home. James had cheated on Caroline, but I’d dare to say they were perhaps getting along better than ever.
So maybe the good was the thing to look for; maybe I didn’t have to spend so much energy focusing on the bad. Because maybe it was like my mom always said, that it was all being woven together in the perfect way.
Two days later, standing in a delivery room for the birth of my fifth grandchild, I couldn’t help but believe that was true. I had never seen my daughter happier. I had never seen Kyle happier. And I was pretty sure I had never been happier, either. As Kyle handed my new perfect granddaughter to me, I gasped. Her full lips, her brow line, the shape of her eyes—she looked like her grandfather. She looked like Carter.
I was trying to keep it together, but then Emerson said, “Mom, we’re going to name her Carter Ansley.”
With that, I could feel the tears streaming down my face. Because although Carter was gone and would never know his grandchildren, this little girl—this perfect angel—was his legacy. She was one-fourth of him, and he would live on in her forever.
“Oh, honey,” I said. “That is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.”
As Jack walked into the room, he smiled but didn’t say a word. “This is Carter,” I whispered as I handed her to him.
He looked down at her and whispered, “Hi, Carter,” as Kyle walked over and put his arm around me and kissed my cheek.
“She’s more than I deserve,” Kyle said.
“Carter?” I asked.
“I meant Emerson, but yes, of course, Carter, too.” He paused. “I know you hate surprises, but you have to admit that this was a damn good one.”
I had to admit that it was.
Jack looked up at me and smiled. “Now I see what all the fuss is about. Do they all smell this good?”
I laughed as Sloane and Caroline walked through the door along with AJ, Taylor, Vivi, and Preston to introduce them to their new cousin. I thought I might burst with pride. Here they were. All of them. My family. The only person missing was my first husband, the one who would have loved this moment perhaps more than anyone else. But I had to think that maybe he was here, too, that maybe he was even the one who’d sent baby Carter to us in the first place. I knew already that her birth would help to heal us all.
My relationships with my girls still weren’t perfect after the tumult of the year we had been through together. But they were almost back to normal. No, not just normal. Better than before, stronger than before. And I understood now that the things I thought would break me didn’t break me at all. In fact, they made me who I am.
As Jack handed baby Carter back to Emerson, he took my hand and squeezed it. And I realized that despite what I had believed, sometimes life gives you a second chance. It might take sixteen years, but it does. And when it does, don’t do what I did. Don’t drag your feet; don’t give it the opportunity to slip away. Grab it. And then hold on for dear life.
FORTY-TWO
emerson: hope
Sloane, Caroline, and I stepped out of the limo onto the LA street, leaving a crew of rowdy men and even rowdier children inside. It was something to see the kids in our family like that, all lined up in car seats, with the exception of Vivi, who was sitting, arms crossed, beside James, sulking because she didn’t get to walk the red carpet with us. James was trying to make her smile any way he knew how—namely, by bribing her with a new necklace—but he was learning that jewelry didn’t work as well on her as it did on her mother.
Caroline was still living in the New York apartment she’d rented down the block from James to take some time for herself, time that we all agreed she really needed and deserved. But she loved her family, and she realized she wanted to fight for them more than she wanted to make everyone else’s opinions go away. And we were all at a place where we knew that—no matter what she ultimately decided about James—Caroline, Vivi, and Preston were going to be OK.
What was most amazing about those babies in those car seats was that one of them was mine, that she, with my bright blue eyes and Kyle’s Maybelline-long eyelashes, had been mine for almost three entire months. We hadn’t found out what we were having, and for months Kyle had predicted, “It’s a girl, and I hope she’s exactly like her mommy.”
So far, he was right. I could already tell that she was going to be as strong-willed as they come.
I posed for the cameras as I stepped out, smiling at each photographer who yelled, “Emerson, over here!”
I took my sisters’ hands, one on each side. They were beautiful, both of them, and I wondered if those children sleeping in the back would turn out to be little versions of the three of us. They wouldn’t be siblings, of course. But they would have a bond, one of shared summers, of sleepovers and sneaking out and long months by the shore. They would have what we had—only, I hoped and prayed, with less adversity than we had faced.
I squeezed their hands and then turned to pull my mom out of the limo. She had complained that her dress was too fitted, but she looked as beautiful as I’d ever seen her, right up there with her second wedding day.
Part of me wanted Kyle on my arm that night, wanted him there to see me if I actually, like everyone was predicting, won the Emmy for my role in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It made me think of that first night with him at Limelight, all those years ago, when I had known that my life was about to change. Kyle had been a part of it then, and he was a part of it now.
But this seemed more fitting in a lot of ways. These women were the reason I was who I was, the reason I did the things I did. And Kyle, God bless him, understood that better than anyone.
�
��So, Emerson,” one reporter said as he stuck a microphone in my face, “are the rumors true? Are you marrying the owner of the Peachtree Perk empire?”
It made me smile. It made my heart race. It made me think that despite my ambivalence about marriage, maybe I could actually take that plunge with Kyle, that I could commit to forever because he was the forever I wanted. I had, after all, suggested he put a Peachtree Perk right inside Sloane Emerson LA, which was opening next month. If that wasn’t commitment, what was? I got butterflies just thinking of it. It was what Kyle had always done for me, combined my past and my present in that seamless, perfect way.
Caroline raised her eyebrow like that was news to her and held up my left hand. “No ring, no wedding,” she said.
We lined up against the black-and-gold Emmy backdrop on the red carpet to have our photo taken, and I took my sisters’ hands again. My stomach flipped. I knew that whether I won the Emmy or not, I was already on the path where I ultimately saw myself going. It might not be the move that would change my career forever, but it was the right direction, no doubt.
What I had learned this year was that work wasn’t everything—that who I was to the outside world didn’t really mean that much. It was the other stuff that counted: the way Kyle had held a washcloth to my forehead so gently when our little girl was born, the way I knew he would always hold my heart just the same way. The way my family rallied around one another no matter what, dropped anything and everything to be together when it mattered. The way my mom marrying Jack had, against all odds, ended up repairing a fracture in my family that had been there for so long I couldn’t even see it.
Their love made me want to be the best of the best in everything I did. But nothing had ever meant more to me than being in a place where I knew that I was whole either way.
I couldn’t change the past, couldn’t predict the future, couldn’t know where I would end up. But for now, as my sisters and my mom stood beside me, I had something I hadn’t had in a while: hope. And sometimes that’s all a girl can really ask for. For today, that was good enough for me.
I reached into my bag then and handed Caroline and Sloane the surprise I had brought with me all the way from Peachtree Bluff: our staurolite. I had heard the story so many times it was almost as if I remembered it, despite the fact that I was two years old when Caroline had found it. Grandpop had told Caroline that these stones were rare and precious, that she had been chosen by the fairies to find them. These stones would keep us safe. As I clasped my fist around my piece, I could almost hear Grandpop telling us the most important thing that any girl could hear: we could grow up to be anything we wanted. And we had.
But Grandpop had been wrong, too, because it hadn’t taken growing up to become what we wanted to be. Tonight, despite the evening gowns and the Emmy backdrop, we were what we had always been, what we would forever be, until our ashes, too, were spread among the sea oats and the wind and the gentle waves lapping the shore on the island that had raised us. Forever and always, the women flanking me and I would be those little girls building castles on the southern side of paradise. We would always be the Starlite sisters.
As we walked away, a reporter shouted to me, “New baby, hot mogul boyfriend, blossoming career . . . Emerson, you have it all!”
When I was younger, I thought having it all meant an Oscar, an eight-figure yearly salary, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I didn’t have all that. But I had Carter. And Kyle. And Mom, Caroline, and Sloane.
We walked inside the theater, and Caroline grabbed four glasses of champagne and handed one to each of us.
Mom raised her glass and said, “To my girls, my Starlite sisters. May you have it all.”
I smiled at each of them as we clinked glasses. And I knew, deep in my heart, that we already did.
acknowledgments
* * *
In 2017, Peachtree Bluff, Georgia, and its indomitable Murphy women were born, with Slightly South of Simple. This was my first series, and I was terrified at how it would be received, but you, my wonderful readers, were there, encouraging me every step of the way. I wrote Peachtree Bluff for you, and nothing has ever meant more to me than your kind comments, emails, notes, and reviews, that you have attended signings and followed me on Instagram and signed up for my newsletter . . . Basically, I have the best readers in the world, and I hope you know how much you mean to me!
My editor, Lauren McKenna, is the one who took this leap of faith with me, who told me it was time to write a series and that, yes, I could. Lauren, you, as usual, were right. Thank you for being such a huge part of this story—and maybe most of all for spending a whole week with me in the real Peachtree.
My team at Gallery Books is beyond incredible, and I wouldn’t get to do what I do without each of you! Thanks especially to Jen Bergstrom for all your encouragement, Michelle Podberezniak for your tireless efforts to spread the word about my work, and Maggie Loughran for handling a million details with grace. I appreciate you so much.
Kathie Bennett, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my stories with readers all over the country. There is no one else like you, and I am so grateful not only for your expertise but also for your friendship.
Thank you to Elisabeth Weed and The Book Group for your big, beautiful vision for my career and for all you have already done to implement it.
Tamara Welch, your expertise means everything to me, and I am so grateful for everything you do every day. You amaze me!
Absolutely no one has supported my career more than my husband, Will, despite the fact that my long tours and weekends spent writing probably affected him most of all. Thank you for being my biggest fan and for answering my incessant boating and fishing questions that I had to ask to make this series work. And thank you to my son, Will, for being all-around awesome, my very best buddy—and for occasionally listening to a chapter or two as a bedtime story.
Thanks, as always, to my amazing parents, Beth and Paul Woodson, who have always gotten behind every dream I’ve ever had, even the crazy ones (like this!). Thank you for all your love, enthusiasm, and everything you do behind the scenes.
I am eternally grateful to the bloggers, reporters, reviewers, and book angels in my life. Andrea Katz, thanks for your amazing advice and endless support. Susan Roberts, Michele Collard, Karen Means, Jenny Belk, Donna Cimorelli, Gina Heron, and Rose Goforth, thank you so much for always going above and beyond for me, not only online but also by going out of your way to make it to events. I love seeing your smiling faces! Kristy Barrett, you are a true gem, and I am so grateful you are in my life! Linda Zagon, Nicole McManus, Leigh Davis, Susan Schleicher, Stephanie Gray, Megan Wessell, Monica Ramirez, Kristin Thorvaldsen, Bethany Clark, Heather Finley, Marlene Engel, Jessica Porter, Erin Bass, Kinah Lindsay, Beth Ann Chiles, Amy Sullivan, Mary Ann Miller, Jennifer O’Regan, Jessica Padula, Judith Collins, Kate Tilton, Kristin Jones, Jennifer Vida, Margie Durham, Annie Mendez, and Stephanie Burns, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to review my books and share them with your readers since the very beginning.
I absolutely would not be here without my amazing design blogger friends I have met through my blog, Design Chic, who have opened their homes, their shops, and their corners of the internet to my books and me. I am so grateful to each and every one of you. There are too many to name, but a special heaping helping of love to: Kathie Perdue from Good Life of Design, Tina Yaraghi from The Enchanted Home, Patty Day from Patty’s Epiphanies, Katie Clooney from Preppy Empty Nester, Danielle Driscoll from Finding Silver Pennies, Debra Phillips from Scentimental Gardens, Patricia van Essche from PVE Designs, Marty Oravetz from A Stroll Thru Life, Shelley Molineux from Calypso in the Country, Cindy Hattersley from Cindy Hattersley Design, Cynthia James Matrullo and Carolyn James McDonough from The Buzz, Carrie Waller from Dream Green DIY, Kim Montero from Exquisitely Unremarkable, Lidy Baars from French Garden House, Lissy Parker from Lissy Parker, Cindy Barganier from Cindy Barganier Interiors, Elizabeth Moles from
Pinecones and Acorns, Nancy Powell from Powell Brower Home, Kelly Bernier from Kelly Bernier Designs, Teresa Hatfield from Splendid Sass, Karolyn Stephenson from Town and Country Home, Luciane from Home Bunch, Vel Baricuatro-Criste from Life and Home at 2102, René Zieg from Cottage and Vine, Grace Atwood of The Stripe, Sandy Grodsky from You May Be Wandering, artist Jeanne McKay Hartmann, and Paloma Contreras from La Dolce Vita.
To everyone who has hosted events, invited me to his or her book club, in person or via Skype, shared my books with friends, asked a local bookstore to stock them, or sold them in a store, I am eternally grateful to you. I get to do what I do because of you. There aren’t enough thank-yous. A special thanks to Marshall Watson, Michelle Black White, Leslie Sinclair, Cindy Burnett, and Patricia Suggs and everyone at Beaufort Historical Association for putting together such amazing events for The Southern Side of Paradise tour.
I want to thank all the amazing independent bookstores who open up their homes away from home to me and hand sell my books, especially my beloved SIBA stores and the ultimate champion for indie bookstores and authors everywhere, Wanda Jewell.
Thank you again to you, my incredible reader. I hope you love taking this last trip to Peachtree Bluff as much as I enjoyed writing it.
More from this Series
Slightly South of Simple
Book 1
The Secret to Southern…
Book 2
about the author
* * *
JAY ACKERMAN
KRISTY WOODSON HARVEY is the author of Slightly South of Simple, The Secret to Southern Charm, Dear Carolina, and Lies and Other Acts of Love, and the founder of Design Chic, a popular interior design blog. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and websites, including Southern Living, Traditional Home, Parade, USA Today, and Domino. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and son. Visit Kristy at kristywoodsonharvey.com or on Instagram @kristywharvey.
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