The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  Even so, it terrified me when Adam woke up in the middle of the night ranting that he had to go back there and get his men. He cried almost daily for the friend he’d lost, lamented that he was the leader, that he should have been the one that died. There were times when I noticed the dullness in his eyes, the pain behind them, the haunted look.

  It scared me, but it made me strong, too. As they had always been, Adam’s problems were my problems. We were married. After what I had been through over the past few months, I could handle being in charge now. I could take care of Adam. And, amidst the pain and suffering, there were still moments of normalcy between us, and better yet, glimpses of the great love we had always shared.

  As I served breakfast that morning, Adam already sitting at the head of the table, he scooped me into his lap and kissed me. “It’s strange,” he said, “how one minute I can feel like everything is completely meaningless, how all that matters is what’s over there, and how this life we lead is so trite and so insignificant. And then, the next moment, I see you and think everything that matters is these small things, these eggs and strawberries, the stories we read to the boys.”

  I smiled at him. I didn’t understand. I never would. But I tried and would continue to.

  It wasn’t the perfectly choreographed moment I had planned, but it somehow felt right.

  “Adam,” I said, “speaking of the meaning of life . . .” I paused, kissed him, and added, “What would you think about my going back to work, showing my art, and continuing to help Mom at the store?” He didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “I mean, I know I’m an Army wife and my role is to take care of my family—”

  Adam cut me off. He pulled me closer. “Sloane. You’re not just an Army wife. You are my wife. You are the most perfect woman in the world. Your role is what makes you happy. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  He looked at me almost sadly, as though I had underestimated him in some way. “Babe, yes. Of course. I miss your art. Nothing would make me happier than to see you go back to it.”

  “Really?” I could feel the tears in my eyes, and it wasn’t until I felt them that I realized how much this truly meant to me.

  Adam wiped my tears and laughed. “Sloane, are you serious?” He shifted. “I want you to be you. I fell in love with you and all your complexity. My favorite thing about you is how you keep surprising me.”

  As the boys ran to the table, I thought my heart would burst. “Bacon!” AJ practically sang. The boys were beside themselves to have their daddy home. I stood up just in time for Taylor and AJ to crash into Adam, and there was no other way to describe it: life was as it should be. Life was perfect.

  Well, perfect except we were still waiting for test results from Emerson’s New York doctor’s visit. We were still waiting to find out what exactly was wrong with her. The fact that Mom still didn’t know anything about her illness gnawed at me, perhaps more than it should have. But I couldn’t imagine something being wrong with one of my children and having everyone keep that from me.

  Later that morning, Mom came to get the boys for a little Gransley time, and Adam’s physical therapist arrived. I was attempting to fold laundry and trying to ignore my husband’s pained groans and muffled screams.

  Afterward, Adam lay down for a nap—he was still regaining his strength slowly, day by day. I sat down to open the mail and pay the bills, but the way the sun was glinting off the water inspired me so much that I couldn’t concentrate. I had to paint. It felt more satisfying than it had in some time. This was a piece that would make someone else happy. This was a painting I would sell.

  Two hours later, I walked back into Mom’s house, which was buzzing with activity. Mom was in the kitchen making snacks, Vivi, who was home from camp, was helping AJ with a particularly intensive car-building project, and Taylor was napping upstairs in his old room. It was a calm yet electric time.

  I hugged Caroline, who was flipping through product photos on her computer, shopping for Mom’s store. “It is beyond sweet of you to let us stay at your house. We can never repay you.”

  Caroline and I both looked at Mom. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes,” she said. “What a gift that someone would just take you in off the street.” We all laughed.

  Caroline put her arm around Mom. “I missed Mommy Dearest’s guesthouse. It’s quite fabulous. I’m happy to be living there again.” She paused and whispered, so Vivi couldn’t hear, “And you won’t believe it, but I kind of miss James.”

  Mom whispered, “So do I.”

  We all laughed.

  Jack walked through the door and kissed Mom on the cheek. We all made gagging noises, but really, it was sweet. She was so starry-eyed over him that she could hardly put one foot in front of the other.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Jack,” I said. “The painters finished, and Caroline and I volunteered to put your house back together for our darling mother.”

  “You two are peaches,” she said, grinning. “Have I told you what they are making me pay them per hour?” she asked Jack, eyebrow raised.

  “I’ll help you move the furniture,” Jack said.

  I put my hand up to stop him. I needed Caroline to myself to talk about the thing that had been gnawing at me for almost two weeks. “No, no. It’s all on sliders.” I paused and said, “Plus, that hourly rate thing.”

  As we closed the back door, Caroline said, “What’s going on?”

  I bit my lip. “I’ve been thinking about some things, and I want your opinion.”

  She nodded, and I realized she was wearing six-inch wedges. She might not have been the best choice for furniture moving. “You know the man on the beach that day? Who was fighting with Mom?” I asked.

  “You mean when we were kids?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah,” she said. “What about it?”

  “It was Jack.”

  Caroline stopped cold between the two houses. “Keep walking,” I scolded. “You’ll look suspicious.”

  I opened the back door and Caroline said, “How do you know that?”

  I shrugged. “I have such a clear memory of it. When Mom and Jack were on the plane, the light hit his hair a certain way. Then it dawned on me it was him.”

  Caroline nodded. I was shocked that she didn’t argue with me, but she probably knew I wouldn’t bring this up unless I was sure. “OK. So what does that mean? What would Mom and Jack possibly have been fighting about on a beach when we were little girls?” She gasped. “You don’t think they were having an affair or something, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mom would never do something like that.”

  Caroline scrunched up her face. “Yeah. She’s pretty vanilla. So what, then?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” I said. “So, a few weeks ago, I was in the store, and I said something about getting my artistic talent from my father and Jack said, ‘No. You definitely got that from your mother.’ ”

  Caroline opened Jack’s refrigerator, removing a Smart- Water and handing me one too. “So what? He was complimenting Mom.”

  “We just eat out of Jack’s fridge now too?” I asked.

  “Why not?” Caroline said. “At the rate things are moving between them, I think it’s safe to say he’s our almost-daddy.” Then she dropped her water on the floor, her hand frozen in midair. “You think Jack said that because he’s our sperm donor and he knows he doesn’t have any artistic talent?”

  She leaned over and picked up the bottle, not even the slightest bend in her knees. I was so envious. I could barely touch my shins.

  “I mean, it’s kind of a stretch.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just wondering.”

  “And she didn’t want to date him.” Caroline nodded her head furiously. Then she swallowed and said, “And you overheard her telling him she had so much to lose if they were together?”

  “We are a lot to lose,” I said. My head was sp
inning now. I felt totally sure Caroline was going to talk me out of this and tell me I was insane. Then I could put this out of my mind as a series of odd coincidences. But now that Caroline thought what I thought . . . My mind was racing. What did this mean?

  “Do you honestly think he’s our father?”

  She walked into the living room, where all the furniture was covered with sheets and pushed to the center of the room. “Let’s get this moved.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. Then I added, “How would we feel about it?”

  “I feel kind of weird,” Caroline said. “Although strangely better than if my father was a random test tube, which is how I’ve always imagined it. How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’re just trying to come to terms with Mom dating again, a new man being in her life, so we’re projecting all these feelings onto him?”

  I nodded, gesturing to a large secretary that had to be moved, thankful it was on sliders. Caroline obviously didn’t know that because as I started sliding, she started lifting. Three drawers rushed out of their slots and crashed onto the floor, their contents dispersing wildly throughout the room. “Nice,” I said. “One priceless antique, totally ruined.”

  Caroline pulled the sheet off and said, “This thing made it over on a ship from England like two hundred years ago. Surely it can take a little bump.”

  I knelt down to pick up the drawers and stopped cold. Heat rose through my body. Caroline wasn’t moving either. She was flipping through a stack of pictures in her hand.

  But when she looked up at me and what I had in my hands, she gasped.

  She handed me the pictures, and I handed her the bag. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I wasn’t sure why. The pictures were of us. Caroline and me and then Caroline, Emerson, and me. Each had the date on the back in Mom’s handwriting.

  “They could be Christmas card pictures?” I said hesitantly, knowing they weren’t Christmas card pictures. “Maybe he’s really organized about them?”

  She opened the pink bag that had our monograms on it and handed me a fairy stone. I looked up at my sister and I thought of Grandpop and his words of encouragement to us that day. “I guess he needed them more than we did,” I whispered.

  The door slammed shut, and Caroline and I got the photos and stones put away just as Jack appeared in the doorway. As if he were reading our energy, Jack seemed flustered. “Everything OK?” he asked.

  I looked at Caroline, and she looked at me, but neither of us said a word. I could feel the heat in my face and my racing heart. Could Jack be our father? I couldn’t ask. The look on Caroline’s face told me she couldn’t either.

  I looked at her again, helplessly, urging her without words to take control like she always did. I could sense Jack was about to say something when I heard, from the backyard, “Sloane! Caroline! Come quick!”

  I wasn’t sure I could make my feet move, but when Caroline grabbed my hand, I did.

  “Do you think?” I asked her when we were back outside in the yard.

  She shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. Let’s not read too much into this, OK?”

  All these years I had wondered who my biological father was, but now that the truth was potentially right in front of me, I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

  As we reached the front porch, I looked out over the sparkling water, the sun setting hot and vibrant, warming our little patch of earth.

  Emerson looked as if she were about to burst wide open as she called, “Mom! Hurry up! Get out here.”

  I looked at Caroline again, and I wondered if we had done the wrong thing in walking away, if we should have stayed and learned the truth.

  But maybe it didn’t matter. What would it change, really?

  I wondered again if we should have asked Jack about our suspicions. I felt in my heart that he wouldn’t lie to us. I felt in my heart that we were connected more deeply than our brief encounters would allow. And I had to admit that connection, that voice in my head that recognized that I relied on and trusted Jack far more than was reasonable, was something I had been ignoring for a long time.

  Caroline squeezed my hand, and I wondered if she felt that with Jack too. I squeezed back, but I didn’t say a thing.

  And I realized when it comes to matters of the heart, when it comes to love, no matter what form that takes, sometimes there really are no words. Sometimes, the right answer, the only answer—the truth—is something you have to feel.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  the beauty of the silence

  ansley

  For one of the first times in months, I was blessedly, silently all alone. Emerson had gone out with Mark, Caroline and Sloane were next door moving Jack’s furniture, and he had gone over to see if he could help. I sat down in one of the Louis ghost chairs around the antique wood dining room table in front of the “orchard,” as we had affectionately nicknamed the spot where all our Macs generally ended up every day.

  I sat down to check my email, and Biscuit jumped in my lap. “Hi there, little girl,” I said, scratching behind her ears. “I think we made it. I think we’re all going to be OK.”

  I’m not sure if dogs can smile, but I’m pretty sure she did.

  I clicked on my in-box, absentmindedly deleting emails from Moda Operandi, Vogue.com, Jetsetter. How did I get signed up for all these email lists? I paused my cursor over one labeled “test results.” I almost deleted it, assuming it was spam. But I clicked instead.

  Dear Emerson:

  I have received your test results, and I’d like to set up a phone call to discuss. If you would prefer, I can see you in the office, but I believe you were flying back to Georgia when I saw you last. Please call the office to schedule.

  My best,

  Dr. Douglas Thomas

  Park Avenue Hematology & Oncology

  I WAS PARALYZED BY panic. This was not, in fact, my MacBook Pro. It was Emerson’s. And something was seriously wrong with my child. Oncology? Dear Lord, did she have cancer?

  I was about to begin a full spiral when I realized I could just ask her, which was what I was about to do when I heard Emerson calling Sloane and Caroline. And then I heard her calling me. I stormed outside, about to give her a piece of my mind, but when I opened the door, Biscuit under my arm, I sensed this wasn’t the right moment. Emerson was standing to the right of the doorway, Mark’s arm around her. They were both grinning like they used to when they found out they were getting a hurricane day off from school. Caroline and Sloane were across from me, close enough to the steps that I wanted to pull them back so they didn’t fall. Emerson squealed, “We’re engaged!” holding her hand out to me, before I could launch into my interrogation.

  My eyes widened. I knew she liked Mark, but engaged? Now I had an entirely new set of questions. I grabbed her hand, and said, “Oh my gosh, Emerson.”

  Caroline was jumping up and down, hugging Mark, and Sloane was smiling at me, her face mirroring the shock I felt. But, I reasoned, Mark and Emerson had known each other their entire lives. If they wanted to marry each other, then nothing could thrill me more. A tingle of glee that maybe Emerson would move to Peachtree Bluff with Mark started in the tips of my toes.

  Jack walked out his front door, and I smiled, realizing that I might get to have this moment with him. I smiled because I could finally admit I might like to have this moment with him.

  There were so many questions, but I couldn’t ask them. I gazed at Emerson’s jubilant face; she didn’t look sick. She couldn’t be sick. There had to be a simple explanation for her doctor visit. I had struggled with low iron in my twenties. It was probably nothing more than that.

  I looked out at Starlite Island, as if I could will my late parents to help me and give us all a moment of calm.

  As the water rushed by, making its way to another part of the world, I suddenly realized what a tiny part I was in the grand scheme of a greater whole. And I had a thought that soothed me: we are all destined to be forgotten. Maybe not the one percent of the
one percent who do something earth-shaking like discovering electricity or becoming queen. But the rest of us will be gone and, by the time our children are gone and most certainly our grandchildren, no one will remember we even existed.

  I looked over at Starlite Island again, and I didn’t feel that pang in my gut, that devastation around my heart, with the remembrance that my parents were gone. Instead, I looked across into the dusky night, where the moon was beginning to rise on my favorite fragment of the world. And, despite the turmoil swirling in my mind, I felt at peace.

  The girls, who were chattering and squealing, ran inside as Jack walked out the front door and, wordlessly, squeezed my shoulders. He pulled me closer to him, protectively. I was grateful for a man who understood my quiet, who knew when all I needed was his presence beside me.

  As I watched the wild horses graze, I realized maybe it didn’t matter that we were all destined to be forgotten. Maybe all that mattered was what we did while we were here, how well we lived, how much we loved, how hard we tried with all our might to care for the ones around us. I turned to kiss Jack. Instead of living for tomorrow and worrying what the future would hold, I had to live for today.

  I would never discover the telephone, create a masterpiece that would change the world, or write a piece of legislation that would be remembered for years to come. But I would love my family and fight for them until the day I died. I may not be put in some hall of great women, but that was my purpose in life. And tonight, with the man I had loved for a lifetime beside me and the breeze in my favorite place in the world rustling in the trees, that was good enough for me.

  As he held me close, my heart beating in time to his, I knew that whenever we decided to tell the girls Jack was their father, they might not understand. It would probably take time for them to adjust to this new reality. I wasn’t even sure what I would say. But sometimes the words don’t matter, I realized as I stood with Jack, as he stood with me, saying nothing but telling me everything I would ever need to know.