The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  Jack put his hand to his heart. “I’m the black one? Is that symbolism?”

  “Sort of.” I grinned.

  “Am I darkness or something?”

  “Of course not, Jack!” I smiled sneakily. “You’re the groom.”

  Everyone laughed as Jack said, “From your mouth to God’s ears.”

  “I didn’t even realize it until I was finished,” I said. That was what I loved most about painting. The surprises. The way a piece could take over if you let it lead you.

  Three hours later, I emerged from the marble mosaic-tiled shower, my hair wrapped in a towel, my body swathed in one of Caroline’s plush robes, and smelling of her expensive rose cream.

  When I walked out of the bathroom and into Caroline’s living room, I saw Emerson and Mom crying, and Jack was as white as a ghost. I sensed this was about Adam, but if the military knew something, if they had found him—or realized they weren’t going to find him—they would have contacted me first.

  My stomach rolled as I sat down on the couch between Emerson and Mom. A YouTube video was playing on Caroline’s huge TV over the fireplace. Well, actually, James’s huge TV. Caroline hated TVs over the fireplace. I was suddenly freezing.

  “What?” I asked. “Please tell me.”

  But, in a way, I knew already.

  Though I tried not to watch often, I’d seen the footage of the soldiers in Iraq, their helmets, their rucksacks, their tanks. I’d heard the ear-splitting gunfire, the missile launches, the yelling, the radio static, the repeating of coordinates over and over again. I’d seen them behind concrete walls, behind little more than sandbags, among the desolate remains of fallen cities. I’d seen armed men fight armed men.

  I’d never seen anything like this. But I knew what it was. The grainy, tan picture shot from above. I could make out the tops of the men’s heads, the long shadows, and the slow-motion running. The white numbers and letters in the four corners of the screen. This was persistent surveillance footage from a Predator drone. At first, I felt heartened. Maybe this was rescue footage. But even through the grainy picture and the faraway view, I could see these men had no helmets or weapons, and a few of them appeared to be shirtless. It was impossible to get a clear view of them, and the silence was deafening. There was no commentary, no voice-over, just nightmarish quiet. The only clue we had, the only tip, was a simple title below the video frame, “Escaped American POWs.”

  Common sense told me Adam and his unit were the only soldiers missing. This had to be them. If it was current footage, and if he was still alive, one of these running men was my husband.

  “How did you find this?” I managed to eke out. “What is this?”

  “Kyle called me,” Emerson whispered. “He follows a YouTube channel that posts footage filmed by American soldiers. But the commenters seem to think this footage was leaked.”

  “So did this just happen?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Are we sure it’s even real?”

  “I’m sorry, Sloane,” Em said. “We just don’t know.”

  I could barely make it out on the camera, but there was a man running, then a man on the ground, still. Even through the faraway picture, I could tell from the way he fell that he had been gunned down. This wasn’t a trip or a fall. It was a death. Then the playback ended as abruptly and terrifyingly as it had begun.

  “Play it again,” I said. “And pause on the fallen man.”

  “Sloane,” Emerson said gently.

  “PLAY. IT. AGAIN.”

  Mom was sobbing horrible, agonized sobs, and Jack said, “Sloane, I’m going to call the post. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  My entire body was covered in chill bumps. My mouth was dry, my insides cold. Was that Adam? Were there more dead men? And if it wasn’t Adam it was surely one of our friends. Wasn’t it?

  My first instinct was to call Major Austin. But I couldn’t. If what happened after that man fell was what I could only assume had happened, I didn’t want to know the truth. It was as if someone had reached inside me and pulled my heart out of my chest as I screamed, “No! No, no, no!”

  I wasn’t crying. I was too numb and terrified for that—the exact same way I had felt that day after Major Austin and the chaplain had come to tell me Adam was MIA. That quiet that defied explanation, the intensity of a pain that can’t even be expressed.

  My sisters were trying to hug me, but I was so far beyond comfort. Jack took my hand, his phone up to his ear. “Is it true, Jack? Tell me it can’t be true.”

  I can’t explain why it was Jack I turned to. Maybe it was because he was a man or because he always seemed to take charge. Maybe, I had to admit, it was because he was the closest thing to a father I had left.

  He put his finger up, and I could hear him saying, “Then you’ve seen it too. Yes. Is there any information about the soldiers?”

  He walked out into the hall, and the tears finally came.

  I picked up my phone and typed to Maryanne, “Have you heard anything?”

  She responded immediately, “No. Why?”

  If she didn’t know yet, there was no point in worrying her. Oh, God. What if that man was Tom? What if it was Adam? Could any of them possibly have survived? I couldn’t breathe. Even still, I managed to type back, “No reason. Just wondering.”

  I leaned over and put my head between my legs. Mom rubbed my back. “Sloane, it’s going to be OK,” Caroline said. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  But it wasn’t going to be OK. It could never be OK. Earlier that night, I had felt like I could do it alone, like I could make this work. But now, when I finally feared that the worst had happened and my nightmares had come true, I felt more hopeless, lost, and terrified than I ever had before. And I couldn’t begin to imagine how I might face this world without the man who had changed mine completely.

  * * *

  IT TOOK MONTHS FOR Adam to forgive me after I told him I didn’t want kids. But we had worked through what still remains the biggest test of our marriage. It hadn’t been easy, and there had been so many times I thought it might go another way. But, in the end, Adam decided he loved me more than he loved his future, unborn children. He had committed his life to me—and that meant he owed it to me to try to work it out, no matter how badly I had screwed up.

  When I look back on it now, I can see that the issue wasn’t ever that I didn’t want to have children. It was just that after what I had endured, I had so many layers of fear and terror to pull back and so many years of trauma to work through. Marrying Adam and realizing it hadn’t been scary, but, instead, had been wholly wonderful, was a huge part of my healing process.

  But the pivotal moment of change didn’t have anything to do with Adam. Emerson, Caroline, James, Vivi, Adam, and I were in Peachtree visiting Mom. We set aside a full week every summer to be together, and although we certainly saw each other plenty throughout the rest of the year, I always looked forward to it.

  Only, this year, I knew things were going to be different. I had received a phone call from James earlier in the week, which was kind of odd. I was scared something was wrong, so I ran out of the gift shop where I was working, saying, “I’m so sorry. I have to take this.”

  “Sloane,” he had said, his Northern accent a bit of a shock after being surrounded by so many Southern voices. “I think I may need your help.”

  His accent saying that was really a shock. “Are you guys OK? Is Caroline OK?”

  “Not really,” he said, and I felt my stomach clench.

  “Sloane, she is obsessed with having another baby. It’s all she can think about, and I’m really worried about her.”

  I knew Caroline was getting ready to try in vitro again, and I knew she was consumed by this quest. But I reasoned that anybody would be.

  Two days later, I saw for myself exactly what James had been worried about. Caroline had talked about nothing but babies and pregnancy since we arrived.

  Ironically, Caroline was the one who had al
ways been best at talking sense into people. It wasn’t my forte, but I was going to try. I waited until the two of us were alone in the kitchen.

  “I’m going to have some of my fertility tea,” she said, getting up from the island and walking to the stove. Then she turned back to me. “Hey,” she said, “do you want some?”

  I smiled. She was sneaky.

  “You know I don’t want children,” I said.

  She shook her head. “No, Sloane. It’s not that you don’t want children. You’re scared to have children.”

  “And?”

  “And there’s a huge difference.”

  She filled up the teapot and turned on the burner. She leaned against the counter and said, “I’m scared too. I’m terrified. I’m terrified every day that Vivi is in the world that something horrible might happen to her.”

  “So why do you want to do it again?” I asked.

  She leaned over the island toward me. “Because, Sloane, one moment of your child being on earth is worth millions of years of worry. There’s no way to explain how magical it is to bring another life into the world, how soul-satisfying it is to be someone’s mother.”

  If I was honest, I had started wondering lately if I could do it, if I could put aside my fear and trust enough to give my husband the thing he wanted most in the world, the thing that loomed between us every time we made love.

  “It’s scary as hell,” Caroline said. “In fact, I’d venture to say it’s the scariest thing you’ll ever do.” As the kettle began to sing, Caroline added, “But I swear to you, Sloane, once you have a child, you’ll feel like your life before was black and white. And now everything is in color.”

  I realized that night I hadn’t done a thing to convince my sister to give up her fertility project. In fact, quite the opposite. She had convinced me to take up a fertility project of my own. I woke Adam up. He smiled at me sleepily. “What’s shaking, sugar?”

  I had had my IUD removed years before, and I was holding my birth control pills in my hand. Adam closed one eye and looked at me. “What are you doing with that?”

  “I’m throwing it away.”

  “Is it bad or something?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s not bad,” I said. “It’s just that I think we should have a baby.”

  Adam shot up in bed and looked around. “Is this real? Am I dreaming?”

  I kissed him softly and laughed. “You’re not dreaming. I’ve been thinking about it for a few months now. I don’t think I was ready before.”

  He nodded and pulled me to him. “You are going to be the best mother in the world. And I promise you I will do everything I can to ease your fear.”

  “You already have,” I said.

  And I knew, as he pulled me on top of him, that it was true. It might have been Caroline who pushed me over the edge. But it was Adam, with his patience, love, and care every single day, who had made me trust again. And nothing in this world, nothing in my entire life, made me happier than to repay him for that gift.

  THIRTY-SIX

  our truth

  ansley

  It seemed fitting that Carter would find out the truth about Caroline and Sloane’s father in Peachtree Bluff, on that boardwalk where we shared our first kiss, against the backdrop of a pink-and-blue, cotton-candy sky. I never really expected, in my heart of hearts, that I could go a lifetime without Carter finding out who Caroline and Sloane’s biological father was. But I assumed, eventually, he would insist I tell him.

  It never occurred to me that we would pass Jack on the dock in Peachtree Bluff, that he would be completely shocked by my Emerson-pregnant belly, and that, in that look he gave me, in the simplicity and nothingness of that moment, the secret we had kept for years and years would be revealed.

  When Carter ran away from me that afternoon, I didn’t run after him. I knew better. Instead, I took the time to truly thank the man who had given me my family. Things were different between Jack and me that day. The heat between us had cooled some, as it tends to when separated by time and distance and a good dose of grown-up rationality. But I still felt nervous standing beside him, my face flushed and my heart beating a little too fast.

  It was only as I walked away from Jack, as I felt that familiar piercing pain around my heart, that it occurred to me how long I had had that feeling. Part of me wanted to go back to him, but I had finally gotten to a place where I knew I had done the right thing. I had finally begun to feel like my life was playing out as it should. Sure, I would be happy for that moment with Jack, but that moment would only lead to months of heartache.

  There was no question I had done the right thing. No question, that is, until I got back to the house two hours later.

  When I found Carter, he was pacing the length of our bedroom. “Glad you two had time for a quick tryst for old times’ sake,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “Carter, come on. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  If I had thought I was nervous with Jack on the dock, it was nothing compared to now. It wasn’t that I thought Carter would leave me, but it was one of the first times in our relationship that I was truly at a loss for what to do. I didn’t know how to make him feel better or how to make this right. The indignant part of me wanted to yell, “You did this! It was your idea! You created this situation to begin with.” It made me realize I still carried anger at him for placing this huge burden onto me.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, placing my hands protectively over Emerson in my belly. Carter took a deep breath and said, “I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. Jack? Really, Ansley? The guy was Jack?”

  I sighed. “So would it be better if it were our yard man, Carter? Maybe the plumber? Maybe one of my friends’ husbands? If it were someone you saw every week, would that make you feel better?” I crossed my arms, resting them on my barely protruding belly. “This was going to be terrible no matter what, Carter. Any way we did this, it was going to be awful. So, I’m sorry, but I thought Jack was the best choice. I trust him. He doesn’t want kids. It made sense.”

  “You trust him?” Carter practically spat, still pacing.

  I felt anger well in me. “So what did you think, Carter? What was your best-case scenario here? How was this ever going to be anything but awful?”

  What he said next knocked the wind out of me. It is a moment I will never forget, one of those moments where a new truth washed over me so completely it was as if I’d been immersed in water. But, instead of feeling cleansed, I felt tainted and dirty. Carter stopped pacing, looked directly at me, and said, “I never thought you would do it.”

  I sat there for a long moment, my mouth hanging open in shock. “You were adamant that we wouldn’t adopt. You didn’t want me to do IUI again. What choice did you leave me?”

  He shrugged. “I figured we wouldn’t have kids.” He sighed. “I knew you weren’t with Jack because he didn’t want kids, so I knew I couldn’t say I didn’t want them. I figured you would realize there were no good options, and we would go along just the two of us, no harm, no foul.” It was like being punched in the gut. He started pacing again. “I swear, Ansley, for a long time, I actually thought Caroline might really be mine. I honestly did. Because I couldn’t imagine you would have had it in you to get pregnant by anyone else.” He laughed incredulously then.

  I felt sick. It was one of those moments, one that I think most people have at least once during the course of a long marriage, where I realized I didn’t know this man at all. Or maybe it was myself I didn’t know. Because beneath my anger and shock at what he was saying was the question of what my motivation had been. I had ascribed the blame for this situation to Carter for all these years, and now I had to wonder if maybe all that blame should really be put on me. I was the one who went to Jack. I was the one who fell back in love with him. I was the one who risked my marriage for children. It was the first time I wondered if Carter and I could possibly make it through this. After all we had done to hurt each other, did we even
stand a chance?

  I put my head in my hands, trying to come to grips with what Carter had just said to me. Then I looked up. “So why did you ask me to do it again? A second time?”

  He shrugged. “At that point I figured Caroline needed a sibling. We’d made it through once. We’d make it through again.”

  “And now?” I asked, my throat thick with tears.

  That was when I finally felt him soften. He sat down beside me. “And now we have another baby, one who is finally ours. I hate that Caroline and Sloane aren’t mine, Ansley. I really do. But I don’t love them any less because of it.”

  “So it’s just me you love less,” I said, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  He didn’t answer, which was not exactly the response I was looking for. Seeing the pained expression on his face broke something inside me. I knelt down in front of him and took his face in my hands. “I want you to hear me when I say this, Carter. You are the one. You have always been the one. Our lives may not have unraveled as perfectly as we had imagined, but I have never, not for one day, lost sight of the fact that you are the man I was meant to be with. There is no one—and I do mean no one—I would rather share this life with. You are my home, Carter. I never want to live without you.”

  He took my hands and said, “Get up off the floor, Ansley. You’re too beautiful for the floor.” When he held me to him, I knew it was going to be OK.

  I was still hugging him, resting my head on his shoulder, when Carter sighed and said, “Do you love him?” I could tell by the way he asked it, so quickly and breathily, that he was terrified to learn the answer.

  I could have said, “A part of me will always love Jack. He gave us our girls.” The truth was that I had loved him all day, every day for most of my life, and I knew that would never end, no matter how much I wished it would. But, despite that fact, I loved Carter more. I loved my family more. I didn’t like lying to Carter. I never had. In some ways, I felt relieved that I didn’t have this huge secret weighing on me anymore. But I knew better than to push it. So I said, looking out over my husband’s shoulder, “Of course not, Carter. I only love you.”