The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  I’ve always been very good at being numb. I’m the doer, the fixer, the one to take charge. It keeps my mind off what is actually happening so I don’t have to face the sadness.

  I had lived through tragedy, so I was in a good position to say this was not a tragedy. My mother had lived eighty-four beautiful years tomorrow, and it seemed she would die quickly after a life impeccably well done. I was proud of her for that, for the way she seized every opportunity, lived every moment to the fullest while she was here. I didn’t have to mourn the things she didn’t get to do because I knew she was leaving content. She wouldn’t have to suffer through years as an invalid or a slow, devastating decline. It was what she wanted, what we all wanted, really, but I couldn’t help but feel like a part of me was dying too.

  We talked so much during those weeks, and the girls, like they were children again, spent most of their time crowded around their grandmother, trying to get her attention.

  “You know,” she said to me that night, before she went to bed, “I think I’d like to go to Starlite Island tomorrow.”

  There were moments, many of them, when my mother was confused, and I chalked this one up to that. We were practically carrying her to the bathroom now and setting her on the couch during the day so she could be a part of the action. Her skin had become translucent and thin over her bones. Even sitting caused her pain. I wouldn’t have thought about getting her into a car, much less bouncing her around on a boat.

  Mom looked at me intently. “Ansley, I’m serious. I want to go to Starlite Island, where I have my best memories, one more time.”

  I smoothed her hair across her forehead, kissed her sunken cheek, and said, “Well then, Mother, to Starlite we shall go.”

  She smiled, her eyes closed. “I want to see your father,” she said softly. Daddy’s ashes were spread all across that beloved island of his, that place where we were raised, that raised us. But I knew she didn’t mean his ashes.

  “Did you know,” Mom said, looking up at me, “that Starlite was the first place you ever saw water?”

  I smiled, my eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t know that,” I whispered.

  She nodded. “You were only four weeks old the first time we brought you to Peachtree Bluff. It was unusual for women to travel with babies so early in that day, but your father couldn’t stand the idea that his girl hadn’t seen the ocean.” She paused and smiled, and I knew she was back in that moment. “He couldn’t wait for you to see that spot where the river meets the sea, where the world connects, where we all connect.”

  “The water binds us all,” I said, repeating something my father had said to me so many times.

  Mom nodded. “You slept the whole loud, bumpy ride to the island. But the moment we stepped out of the boat, you woke up, quiet and wide-eyed, looking around. You smiled for the very first time. And we knew then that another water lover had been born. Your father was so proud.”

  I wanted to stay longer and soak up all her stories and memories while she was still here to give them to me. Instead, I tucked Mom in gently, and as I left her room, heard her tiny, frail moan. I wished for a quick and safe passage for her, a gentle exit from this world where she was no longer comfortable. I wished she would sleep and that the pain pills would kick in tonight. I also wished I, like my mother and Sloane, believed there was some sort of beautiful next life where I would see her again. But that idea had left me long ago.

  I walked out to the front porch where Caroline, Sloane, and Emerson were all perched, a bottle of wine on the coffee table. It was quite stunning, actually, how those girls had rehabilitated my Sloane. I wasn’t sure if it was the sea, the stars, the wind, or the sisters . . . but whatever it was, she seemed to be a willing participant in her life again, and while I could see the distraction, the wondering, and the worrying written all over her face, she was a present figure in her sons’ lives again. I was grateful yet again that this had happened when we were all here, when her family could pick up the pieces.

  “Girls, Grammy wants to go to Starlite Island.”

  “Seriously?” Sloane asked.

  I nodded.

  Caroline sighed. “I’ll ask Jack if we can use his boat again.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Unless you want to ask him yourself, Mom?”

  I shot her a look, but part of me did want to ask him. One, I could see Jack. Two, I could see my favorite house. This project couldn’t have come at a better time. It was the only thing I could think of that could take my mind off my mother dying.

  Caroline stood with purpose and said, “Oh! We’ll have a party.” Then she disappeared inside the house.

  I sighed. “I guess we’re having a party.”

  It made me think about being on that boat with Jack a few months earlier, how he had said Caroline was like me. In this regard, he was right. She, like her mother, was the planner, the doer, the avoider. Sloane, on the other hand, was wiping her eyes as Emerson said, “Please don’t. Once I start crying, I’m never going to stop.”

  “OK,” Caroline said, bursting through the door not five minutes later. “Kimmy is going to cater, and Kyle is going to provide beverages.” She paused. “And muscle.”

  “Muscle?” I asked.

  “For the tables and chairs.”

  She looked at me like I was dense.

  “Car,” Sloane said. “You’re the only woman in the known world who could put together an entire party at nine o’clock at night.”

  She looked down at her phone and typed, rapid fire. “Mom, I’m going to need a bunch of those blue-and-white-striped paper straws from your store. Hippie Hal is going to set up tents with Kyle.”

  She typed some more. “Emerson,” she said, without looking up from her phone, “I’m going to need you to go over there and string the lights in the tent.”

  She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at any of us.

  “Caroline,” Sloane said. “Is this a bit over the top? She just wants a day on the beach.”

  Caroline glared at Sloane. “Her last day on the beach, Sloane. Her last one. Ever. It’s going to be the best damn beach day in history. Understand? Plus, it’s her birthday.”

  Sloane put her hands up in defense. Then we were all quiet. Caroline’s chin quivered. Caroline never cries, so, of course, that set us all off.

  “How long do you think she has, realistically?” she asked.

  I shrugged and pulled her close to me. “You know, honey, I’d say maybe a couple weeks. Tops.”

  Emerson sobbed.

  She and Sloane wrapped their arms around each other. Watching Mom die was going to be terrible, but in so many ways, it would be better than watching her endure treatments we all knew, at this stage, would probably have very little effect.

  Jack appeared at the gate and walked through the white picket fence. As he approached, I saw he was carrying two bottles of wine. He set them on the glass coffee table, which, I noticed, really needed to be wiped down.

  I stood to greet him, and he wrapped me in a hug. Usually, hugs made me cry harder when I was upset, but this one soothed me. There was something in Jack’s nature, his steady, easy way and the strength that exuded from him, that made me feel better. Everything inside of me was screaming that I needed him, that he was what was missing in my life. But it wasn’t time. Not yet.

  He followed me inside and smiled sadly. “I remember this part,” he said.

  I nodded, swallowing my tears. It made me sad that I hadn’t been there for Jack the way he was for me now. Sometimes I worried the draw I felt toward him was nothing more than a glorified memory. But it was times like these when I realized what I was drawn to wasn’t the kid I had fallen in love with all those summers ago. It was the man he was now.

  “How do you get through it?” I asked. “I want to be strong for her, Jack, but it’s tearing me apart to watch her die.”

  “I don’t think this is much consolation,” he said, “but this just has to happen. It’s the natural order of thi
ngs. Whether it’s today or six months from now or ten years from now, this is pain you have to feel. It will hurt like hell. But then it gets a little better. And a little better. And, one day, you wake up and you smile and you think of them fondly without feeling the need to sob about it.”

  I nodded. “I should be better at this. I did it with my father. I should know how to handle it.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “But it’s your mom,” he said. “And once she’s gone, you’re parentless.”

  The tears really came now, because Jack had vocalized what I had been feeling all this time but couldn’t quite reconcile. I was going to be an orphan. A fifty-eight-year-old orphan. But an orphan all the same.

  He hugged me to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If I could take this pain away from you I absolutely would.”

  What kind of woman wouldn’t want to be with a man like that? But I couldn’t lie to my daughters. I just couldn’t.

  Jack and I walked back out the front door. “Mom!” I exclaimed. My tiny mother was curled up on the couch between Caroline and Sloane, a pale pink pashmina wrapped around her long-sleeved nightgown, a pair of fuzzy slippers Caroline had gotten her on her feet.

  “I couldn’t bear to miss the action, darling,” she said.

  I smiled at her. “You never could, Mom.” I was bolstered by the fact that she felt like being awake and out here with us.

  “Oh my God!” Caroline exclaimed. “I need to go get Vivi from camp. She needs to be here for this.”

  Mom shook her head and said, “Absolutely not. That sweet girl is not coming home from one of the best parts of her life to watch me shrivel up.”

  “But Grammy—” Caroline started to protest.

  “No,” Grammy interrupted. “Life is for the living, darling. Don’t you ever forget it.”

  I cleared my throat, trying to swallow my tears and turned to see Hippie Hal walking through the gate, Kimmy on his heels. I laughed. “It’s almost ten o’clock at night, you crazies.”

  “We come bearing gifts,” Hal said.

  I pointed to Jack’s wine. “I guess everyone thought we needed gifts tonight.”

  “Oh, we can do better than wine,” Kimmy said, winking at me.

  I raised my eyebrows. Hal reached into his backpack and pulled out a Tupperware container, and I was no longer confused.

  Emerson burst out laughing, and Caroline said, “Those better be gluten free.”

  “Obviously,” Kimmy said. “I would never leave you out.”

  “No,” I said, trying to put on my most serious face. “Absolutely not. There are children in this house, and there will be no drugs here.”

  “They’re not for you, Ansley,” Hal said. “They’re for Grammy.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Grammy,” Hal said, “we brought you nature’s very best pain reliever.”

  “Oh, hogwash,” she said, wrapping her pashmina tighter around her shoulders. “If oxycodone isn’t killing the pain, I doubt some herb is going to.”

  “It’s pot, Grammy,” Kimmy said, pulling the chairs from the dining table on the other side of the porch across from the couch and sitting down in one.

  Mom cackled, deepening the expression lines in her face that had become more pronounced as she lost weight. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Count me out,” Sloane said. “What if we have to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night?”

  “James fell asleep on the couch,” Caroline said. “He can be our emergency driver.”

  I could see the smile playing on Sloane’s lips. I started to protest, but they weren’t children anymore. They could decide whether they wanted pot brownies.

  We all took our seats in a circle around the side of the porch. I looked out over the low tide, taking in the sliver of crescent moon perched in the sky. Hal passed the brownies around and when they got to me, I kept passing them.

  “Mom, come on,” Caroline said. “It’s just a little brownie. Loosen up.”

  I shook my head. “What if it makes me paranoid or something?” I gasped. “What if it’s laced with something horrible and we all die?”

  Kimmy’s turn to gasp. “Ansley Murphy, I am offended. I tended this beautiful bud every day of its life, and if you can’t respect its perfection, then you don’t deserve any.”

  Hal and Kyle burst out laughing. “Simmer down, Kim,” Kyle said.

  Jack squeezed my arm. “If you’re ever going to do it, now’s the time. You know where it came from, so you know it’s the best of the best.”

  “Thank you,” Kimmy said, grinning at Jack. “Finally. Someone who understands me.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Emerson said. “Come on. Do something fun for once in your life.”

  “Shock us, Mom,” Sloane said.

  I couldn’t help but share a quick glance with Jack. No doubt about it, I could shock those girls if I wanted to.

  “I am not eating pot brownies,” I said. “Not happening.”

  “Oh, Ansley, just have a bite,” Mom said, chewing heartily, holding her huge pot brownie daintily in her manicured fingers.

  I sighed and reached out my hand to Jack. The crowd cheered.

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Simmer down, all of you.” Then, under my breath, I added, “Peer pressure is not just for kids.”

  I ate mine very, very slowly, as I had rarely done any drugs, and even those were in the late ’70s.

  After about twenty minutes, I saw my mother’s face relax. Really relax. She seemed more comfortable than she had in weeks. I leaned over toward Hal. “Keep the brownies coming,” I said.

  “Oh, Ans, Kimmy and I have a whole kitchen full of amazing things for Grammy to try. We’re going to be ready when marijuana is legalized in Georgia.”

  Jack burst out laughing, and then we all did, of course. If anyone had ever told me this would be happening, I wouldn’t have believed it. But, sometimes, when all seems lost, the last thing you would have imagined starts to seem normal, natural even. I wished I could freeze this moment, all our happy faces, all the people I loved most in the world sitting around my front porch, the flags blowing in the breeze, the lights from the sailboat masts in the harbor reflecting off the water.

  “Grammy,” Caroline said, “we’re going to have the best party ever on the beach tomorrow. I mean, I can’t even tell you.”

  “Oh, darling,” she said, “you can give me one of these brownies and tell me I’m at the beach and save yourself the trouble.”

  That set us all off again. I felt calm and peaceful and happy. All the hard angles of life were gone and we were floating along on its soft, fluffy curves. There had been so much pain the last couple of months. So much uncertainty. So many tears shed, sleepless nights, new worry lines. I hoped beyond hope that when I looked back, I would forget all that. This was the night I wanted to remember.

  TWENTY-THREE

  love connections

  sloane

  June 27, 2010

  Dear Sloane,

  I never understood why, but I never felt at home in college. I was searching for a purpose, a passion, something that lit me up inside. I know it sounds crazy, but the day I signed those papers to join the Army, I felt whole. I felt complete. I knew I would never be fulfilled unless I was fighting for something bigger than me. It’s only now that I consider what this job really means in terms of what it is I’m giving up. Because being away from you feels like a punishment. Even still, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. Just like I know when I come home, in your arms is where I’m supposed to be. Meeting you, Sloane, loving you, has given me another purpose. And where, at one time, I lived for my country, now, my beautiful bride-to-be, I live for you.

  All my love,

  Adam

  MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED for military spouses. It’s a fair concession. We have to spend years of our lives worrying about our partners—for the good of our country. We should get this in ret
urn.

  I hated smoking of any sort. But eating brownies was fab-u- lous.

  I peeked into the boys’ room. They were both still out cold. I don’t know what I did to deserve a twenty-one-month-old who slept until nine in the morning. Maybe it was restitution for the fact that AJ was such a terrible sleeper as a baby. I took a moment to gaze at them, the best parts of Adam and me. Clutching their stuffed animals, they looked like little angels. I prayed quickly that I wouldn’t have to break their hearts and blow up their world.

  I hadn’t gotten that with my father. It seemed like a fair request.

  The smell of pancakes wafted up from the kitchen, lazily and unhurried, like the morning itself. There is nothing in the world—and I do mean nothing—like having your mom make you pancakes. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to feed yourself or how you’re going to handle the million requests of, “Mommy, I’m hungry,” when your little ones wake up. It’s all taken care of. Our mom had always just known what we needed, understood what to do.

  I wanted to be that effortless. But that nagging feeling that I needed something more had never really gone away. What did that do to the vision I’d had of myself as the ever-present, constantly available mom?

  I walked down the hall and slid into bed beside Emerson. She was sleeping so peacefully, her blond hair draped across her beautiful face. She would be horrified when she woke up and realized she wasn’t on her back. She was convinced sleeping on her face would cause wrinkles. As the big sister, I had always felt the need to protect. Only, this sickness wasn’t something I could fix.

  I couldn’t even make her go back to the doctor. She kept putting it off and rescheduling. She was afraid to learn the truth. So was I. But there comes a point when even bad news is better than no news at all. She would get there soon. Or maybe she would get tired of Caroline and me harassing her mercilessly about it. Either way.