Lies and Other Acts of Love

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  “Calm down, love. Your mother is a perfectly happy, grown woman, content in the knowledge that two parents love her unconditionally. And there is no reason for her to ever have to question that.”

  She shook her head. “I thought you were better. I have always had you up on such a pedestal, that you were there for D-daddy no matter what, that you had the kind of love story that would go down in the history books. I had you pictured as this steel magnolia who stood by his side faithfully no matter what. But you were no better than anyone else, after all.”

  Before the lying and deceitful part, I would say she hit the nail right on the head about what kind of wife I’d been. And then she shocked me again, spinning around toward the door and saying, “You’re no better than Ben.”

  And, with that puzzling and horrifying sentence, my girl was gone.

  Annabelle

  Feet over Head

  Lovey always says that North Carolina is the best state because its inhabitants really live by its motto: “To be, rather than to seem.” Back in the car, my hands frozen on the steering wheel, I could see that motto, protected by one of those binder sheets and snapped in between its three rings, gracing the pages of my fourth-grade North Carolina project. That was going to be my motto too. I wasn’t going to sit in the front row at church holding the hand of a man who was thinking of someone else. I wasn’t going to brush the hair and tie the shoes of the children of a man who was with someone else when I was away. I put my hand over my stomach protectively and felt my heart sink. But, then again, I had this baby now, this little person to think about and worry about. This precious angel that deserved to have a mother and a father, no matter the cost to me. And, whoever this baby’s father, I was going to be its mother.

  I don’t know why I had chosen that day to confront Lovey. Maybe it was that it had been a few weeks since her hip break, and I thought she was stronger. Maybe it was that I couldn’t stand to bottle up all these secrets for one more second. One was going to come pouring out, and, for now, that seemed like the safer one to let loose.

  And now I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go to my childhood home; I hadn’t even told my mom I was coming to Raleigh, lest I cause suspicion. And now, knowing what I knew, what Lovey had admitted, I certainly couldn’t go back to Ben. I abhorred the thought of being like the woman I had always loved so much, of living the rest of my life in a lie, acting like my marriage was one thing when it was really something else. No matter what I chose, my entire life was going to be a lie anyway. And, quite frankly, hiding the real father of your child was a substantially larger deception than having an affair.

  I realized in the midst of my inner monologue that I was driving in the direction of Holden’s house. And who cared, really? My entire life was a sham, and I deserved better. And then I had a troubling thought: She never actually admitted it.

  But Lovey had said she would never be sorry for anything that led to the creation of her daughter and granddaughter. And there really was no other explanation.

  I could feel the tears coming down my cheeks again as I pulled into Holden’s driveway. I hadn’t even turned the engine off before he was out the door, chewing the sandwich that he, completely predictably, had come home for lunch to eat. Already a multimillionaire in his late twenties, but God forbid he spend eight bucks on lunch.

  He swallowed and hugged me. “What’s the matter with my girl?” He peered over my shoulder into the backseat. “I’m less excited because I don’t see any possessions back there to indicate that you’re moving in here with me.” Then he asked again, “What’s with the tears?”

  I knew I would never tell him about Lovey and D-daddy and Mom. It was too big a secret to ever share, knowledge that needed to be held under lock and key with twenty-four-hour security. I knew how distraught I was that D-daddy wasn’t really my grandfather, so I couldn’t begin to think how Mom would feel to know that she wasn’t truly his daughter. I could picture her entire childhood a thin stream of water from a green garden hose, evaporating as quickly as it hit the pavement on a sweltering August day.

  So I said, instead, “I’ve decided to finally tell Ben I’m leaving him.”

  His face lit up. “And . . .”

  I leaned my head on his chest again. His safe, familiar, boring, uncomplicated, chest. I could hear myself saying to Lovey less than two years earlier, He’s my Ernest Wake.

  But he wasn’t my Ernest Wake. He smelled great and dressed well and, though not gorgeous like Ben, was perfectly genetically suitable for producing another generation without the worry of getting teased at school. I had no doubt that he would weather what was going to be a pretty terrible storm with me, and that he would raise Ben’s child like his own and give it every opportunity and every bit of love that he could.

  And, in a different way from how I had loved Ben, I did love him. It was a familiar kind of love, not the kind that makes your heart race but the kind that makes you feel safe under the covers when you’re saying your prayers at night. The kind that, when he calls on the phone and says, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I have to work late,” you don’t drive to his office and spy through the window to make sure he’s telling the truth. Because honesty is as important to him as never wearing seersucker after Labor Day.

  “And, if you’ll still have me, I’d like to give it another go.”

  He hollered, “Woo-hoo!” throwing the crust of his sandwich into the yard, picking me up and spinning me around in the concrete and brick driveway.

  He leaned forward to kiss me, but I put my hand up. “I’m not going to be that girl,” I said. “I may be leaving him, but I don’t want to be a cheater too.”

  “Whenever you’re ready, Annabelle, I’ll be here waiting with your favorite flowers all around the house and a chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot—or two.” He winked at me. Then he paused. “Wait. I guess that won’t really work. Maybe sparkling cider?”

  And I knew he would. I was positive that he would have the florist deliver fresh vases of hydrangeas, peonies and white roses every single day until I arrived on his doorstep.

  “I’ll figure out where we’re going to live so you don’t have that on your plate on top of everything else. Colorado?”

  I scrunched my nose. “Isn’t it kind of cold in Colorado?”

  “I just thought because you loved to ski so much.” He shrugged. “Well, whatever. I’ll find the perfect place and get back to you. And I’ll start interviewing nannies.”

  “Nannies?”

  He looked at me like I was dense. “Yeah. For the baby. So we can travel and stuff?”

  I shook my head, realizing that, in the fog and distraction of what I was going to say to Ben, I had momentarily forgotten about the baby.

  “Do you need new clothes? Let’s get you a new diamond—something bigger and better than my grandmother’s.”

  I put my hands on his shoulders, smiling at his excitement, surprised that I couldn’t see how much he loved me before when it was obviously there the entire time. “Holden, relax. It’s just me. I don’t need a thing.”

  I knew I should have added, Except for you. But, as hard as I tried, the words were stuck like a hamster in a tube too small. I tried to back them up, move them forward, topple them feet over head. But they wouldn’t budge. And so I said, “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “I’ll keep you posted too. I’ll find the perfect place.”

  I felt those anxious tears rising in my throat. I wanted to thank him. But, suddenly, the idea of moving, of uprooting my life, of getting a divorce, of having a baby born in the midst of that, of trying to make a new life with a man that was comfortable, sure, but wasn’t necessarily the love of my life, was too overwhelming to face. So I just nodded.

  And with that, I got back in the car and sped out of the driveway. I examined the house as I passed by, the white, two-story brick with the pretty flower border along
the cobblestone path and the three-car garage. The oak trees in the front yard were stately and beautiful. It was a perfect specimen of an old Raleigh home, of the kind of place where you couldn’t wait to see a pink or blue bow as you pulled up the driveway. There was a huge backyard with the perfect corner for a swing set, a shed for toys galore and a bright, sunny spot for growing vegetables. The master bathroom was huge with two sinks and a separate tub, and the kitchen was out of a chef’s imagination. It was everything I could ever want, everything that I knew Holden would find for us wherever we made a life together. And yet, I couldn’t really see myself in any of it.

  But I’ve done the heart-racing thing, I reminded myself. And it hadn’t worked. So safe and secure would be just fine. It wasn’t about me anymore. I had a baby to think of now.

  I looked down at my phone and noticed that I had three missed calls from Rob.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath, frantically dialing. I had been so convinced that I had to get to Raleigh right that moment before I lost my nerve to tell Lovey what I had found out, that I had forgotten to call Rob and tell him I wouldn’t be in until the afternoon.

  “Please don’t fire me,” I said, as he answered.

  He laughed. “I’m just glad you’re all right. What on earth is going on?”

  I looked at the phone and said, “I don’t feel like I can tell you over the phone with the NSA and God knows who else listening in. I’ll fill you in when I get there this afternoon.”

  I said it like it was nothing, not even realizing that I felt totally safe trusting Rob with all of those deep, dark secrets that I thought were better hidden away. I merged onto the highway and said, “I’ll be there right at two.”

  It occurred to me, as I set the cruise control, that, while marrying Holden and having security for my baby seemed like the best option, of everything in Salisbury, I knew I’d miss my job the most.

  Lovey

  Gypsies

  August 1951

  My momma always told me that you should never stop holding hands, that just holding hands could keep a couple connected through the hard times. And Dan had never held my hand that tight before. He knew how nervous I was about seeing his parents again.

  And the expansive front porch of their massive waterfront home in New Bern’s picturesque downtown didn’t help my nerves. I was a simple farm girl raised on fried chicken and vegetables I picked myself. It also didn’t help that the light drizzle falling on the sidewalk had made my flowers wilt and my hair grow. And suddenly the polka-dot dress that I had been wearing the night Dan and I reunited in New York felt all wrong. I ran my free hand over my hair, trying to salvage what I could of my style.

  “Don’t worry. They’re going to love you,” Dan whispered as he turned the doorknob and crossed the threshold.

  You couldn’t help but look up in the grand foyer, flanked by the living room on the right and the dining room on the left. The chandeliers in all three rooms were like something from a movie set. Crystal fixtures so huge that it made you wonder how many men it took to hang them. I didn’t have long to stare, though, before Dan’s mother was practically running into the entrance hall, throwing her arms around her son’s neck, breaking his grip with mine. She was much taller than I had remembered, much taller than I was, which made her even more intimidating.

  And her joy for her son, when directed my way, turned into an icy handshake and, “Well, hello there. I guess you married my Dan.”

  As though I had hog-tied him and dragged him down to the courthouse, him fighting tooth and nail to break away from all five feet of me.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Father White called as he entered the back door, his voice dripping with that Southern, aristocratic accent that Dan also possessed to a lesser extent. He hugged me warmly and said, “Well, my dear, didn’t you grow up nicely? How are your folks?”

  Relief flooded over me like warm bathwater. At least someone in this family would act civilly toward me. I nodded and said, “Very well indeed. Thank you for asking.”

  Then he kissed his wife and said, “Sorry, darling. I had a few sick I needed to visit before I came home for supper.”

  She replied haughtily, “I know duty calls, but, for heaven’s sake, the meal is going to be a mess if we don’t sit down.”

  Jane tapped a buzzer with her foot, and two uniformed maids swept through with an array of food so beautiful that I thought I might could eat it, sick as I felt.

  “Well, yes,” she said. “We would have liked to invite your parents to dinner to get to know them. We don’t want them to think we’re ill-mannered. But when you run off and get married like some sort of gypsies, it’s rather hard to follow society protocol.”

  “Oh, well. They remember you fondly and certainly don’t think you’re ill-mannered, Mrs. White.”

  She looked me up and down like something the cat dragged in and said, as though I had grown up in a tent in the woods, “I should suppose not.”

  “Mother,” Dan said. “We will have a lifetime to celebrate together.”

  “Would have been nice to dance at my own son’s wedding is all . . . ,” she said under her breath.

  Father White leaned back from the table and lit his pipe, its sweet smoke filling the air and overpowering the smell of the roast on the table. “Now, darling, just you calm down. You’ve got two more chances with two more sons.”

  I smiled politely and said, “This roast is just delicious. I can’t thank you enough for having me.”

  Jane looked up from her plate dully and said, “Well, you’re my daughter-in-law.”

  The subtext that hung in the air was, I didn’t have any choice but to invite you.

  With that she set her napkin on the table, scooted out her chair and said, “Dan, I could use your help with something in the kitchen.”

  The nausea was rapidly returning. I expected there to be a few bumps in the road when Dan and I ran off and got married. That was reasonable. But I hadn’t expected such coldness from my new mother-in-law. I took a sip of my tea, swallowing hard, trying to keep the tears lodged in my throat from coming down my face.

  Father White got up and took Dan’s seat beside me at the table. With his pipe still in the corner of his mouth he said, “Now don’t you mind Jane. She can be a bit of a bitch.”

  I could feel my eyes widening. I’d heard my fair share of cuss words—you had to when you were best friends with Katie Jo—but I couldn’t imagine one coming out of the mouth of this handsome, dignified man who was a preacher, no less. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  He put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed, taking a puff of the pipe that smelled so good I wished Dan would start smoking one too. Then he whispered, “You know, darling, sometimes the shoe just fits.”

  From that moment on, he was sealed in my heart as one of my all-time favorite men. Good, kind, true, witty, handsome and well-to-do, Dan’s father was the pinnacle of men to me from that lunch forward. As soon as I found out I was pregnant with Sally, I hoped against hope that she and any other daughter I ever had could find a man just like that.

  Annabelle

  Absolutely Everything

  There are going to be ups and downs in every life. And, if you can hunker down and hold tight through the challenges, Lovey says another victory will be right around the corner. It was a bit of consolation during that terrible time, but, looking back now, I don’t know how I possibly could have lived like I did for so long, pretending that everything was normal and okay, when, in fact, I was an absolute wreck. Every time I looked at Ben’s lips I could imagine them on Laura Anne’s body. Every time I heard him breathe I imagined his breath in her ear, his whispers for her like they had been for me such a short time ago.

  I had avoided him at every turn since that day I saw him with Laura Anne, pretending that the door I had slammed to my affection, leaving him out in the cold, was over
the stress of Lovey’s injury and my new hours at the job that, in reality, felt like my only saving grace.

  In such a short time, my singular obsession had snapped like a taut rubber band from the family I would make with Ben to how to get out of this thing most gracefully and transition into the next step, missing as few beats as possible.

  I didn’t know how I could live my life knowing that I had never told Ben he had a child. The part of me that still loved him, that still wished we could have that fairy-tale life together, knew that he had a right to know, that he would be a wonderful father and that he should get to make a mark on this life that he created. But the other part of me thought that Holden was right: No baby deserves to be unstable and shuffled around, feel torn between his parents. Just like with clothes off the rack, which, in all likelihood, I would never wear again once I was with Holden, sometimes, none of the options available seem to fit quite right.

  I had shown up at work right at two, as promised that day I left Raleigh and Lovey. Rob had sent me home immediately, and I was so grateful. Exhausted from the two-hour drive and the confrontation with Lovey, the pounding in my head from the things I had said to her, the words that I wished I could take back, I left the church and went to the pool house to take a bath, the cool cloth on my head feeling clearing and calming in direct contrast to the steaming tub of water. I wondered if I should even be taking a bath. When I had called the doctor, the nurse had said, “Congratulations! But it’s so early now. We’ll see you in five weeks to check how everything is coming along.” Five weeks. It was coming up. Soon this would all be real. I couldn’t avoid it anymore.

  The nurse had said, “In the meantime, no alcohol, no sushi, no fancy cheeses. Just swing by here to pick up your prenatal kit and vitamins.” She hadn’t said anything about taking a bath.

  So I lay there, completely still. And I just thought—or plotted, more like it. Somewhere between a cartographer and a big-screen villain, I plotted my next course, worked through what I would say and what I would do.