Then she got to fiddlin’ with her ring and you could tell that she knew that weren’t the right thing to say. But it was true. It burned me through like rubbing alcohol on an open cut, but that didn’t mean it weren’t right.
“If you’re worried about us taking care of all of them—”
I put my hand up to stop her and shook my head. You didn’t even need to know Khaki that good to get to realizin’ that she’d love the whole world if they’d let her.
“So I guess all them sticks and leaves you been drinkin’ worked after all.”
“Who woulda thought?” She smiled and dashed outta the room so fast I weren’t sure she’d ever been there. A minute later, she was pushing a huge box into the kitchen with her foot, all kinda cockeyed like. She put her hand up and said, “Now before you get all sassy and protesting, I’m not giving you these. I am investing in your business. But you had to start off on the right foot.”
“Investin’ in my business?”
“Well, yeah. If you’re gonna be canning and making jam, you gotta have jars.”
I leaned over right far and pulled out a smooth, clear jar, with a round pink, green, and black label. It said: Jodi’s Cans and Jams. It had a profile of a girl in an apron all sketched out. I guessed that were supposed to be me. I smiled and bit my fingernail. I liked the looks a’ that girl, all ponytailed and happy.
Khaki asked, like she been underwater holding her breath, “So, do you like them? Because if you don’t like them you don’t have to use them. I can just take them out back or to the church bazaar or something.”
I was getting right choked up, so I didn’t say nothing.
“I mean,” she continued, “you’ve got to put the labels on after you’ve already finished the canning, obviously. I just put this one on to show you.”
I hugged her real tight and said, “I love them so good I don’t know what to say.”
She smiled like the judge just put a tiara on her head and said, “Oh, I’m so happy.”
“How’d you get all them things done?” I asked.
She waved her hand like it weren’t nothing. But I could just hear her on the phone with some designer talking him into gettin’ all them things done overnight and putting them on some sketchy Greyhound somewhere so they’d get to Kinston right about in time for her to surprise me. I got to thinking that Buddy sure was gonna be impressed with me now with all my jars.
“So, um,” I said, real nervous like. “Is it okay . . . I mean, can I see her?”
Khaki looked at her hands, right weak like, and I got to feeling it again. She give me them jars but she wasn’t gonna let me see my baby.
“First, I need to talk to you about something that’s been weighing on me.” She sighed, and I could see the tears getting to her eyes right good. “That day that you came and asked me for money for the abortion . . .” She sighed again, real sad and low like, and she was trying to swallow them tears that were near to escaping from her eyes. “I would never in a million years have thought this was how it would have turned out. If I had known—”
I could feel that lump in my own throat, and that fear, it got to running in my veins like ice water. But it weren’t that maybe I couldn’t see you no more. It was: What if you ain’t never been born?
It was my turn to look down at my hands. “This giving Carolina up, it’s been the worst damn thing I could ever think on.” I swallowed hard and looked up. “But it ain’t nothin’ compared to imagining living without Carolina in the world. Don’t matter who’s raisin’ her.”
She hugged me real tight and whispered, “You promise?”
I nodded and bit my lip. It was all that was keeping me from crying.
“Graham,” Khaki called. “Can you bring Carolina down?”
I weren’t sure how I’d feel seeing you. And it was real sad, sure. But I felt so proud, ’cause here you were, perfect and beautiful. And I had done that. I had made you.
“Hi there, little girl,” I said, touching your soft head. “You’re so big.”
I just sat real still and watched you sleep, looking at your little face and thinking on how bad I missed you. I was so sad you weren’t mine, but I was so happy that I had done this great thing for the people that I loved. It weren’t mine, but I had made a family. And I knew I had to stay sober and start a good life for myself. ’Cause, no matter what, I’m your momma. Handing you to Graham, it was like ripping out my lungs and still trying to breathe.
It will get easier, I told myself. But even I thought maybe I was lying. It was near impossible to walk back into that kitchen. But working and being busy, that’s the only way to get to feeling better. And when Khaki come in and helped me, practicing Grandma’s favorite jam recipe with them frozen berries from last spring, I felt right grateful. We got to fillin’ that first jar, and you know what? I felt proud for the second time that day.
“Khaki, I just want to thank you so much for—”
She cut me off. “No, thank you. You have given me everything I could never have had on my own. There’s no way in the world to pay a person back for making your life complete. I am in your debt for eternity and whatever I can do to help you isn’t nearly enough.”
I wanted to say more. I wanted to thank her for helpin’ me with my cans. I wanted to thank her for being the momma that I just weren’t. I wanted to thank her for marrying Graham and turning him around like a boy on a bicycle headed the wrong way home. But she didn’t want my thanks no more than I wanted her pity. So we propped right there on the counter, side by side, staring all loving like at the second creation that we would birth and raise together.
Khaki
DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
When I’ve found the perfect piece that will absolutely make a client’s design scheme, but it has a painfully long lead time, I don’t tell them about it until close to the delivery. I figure there’s no point in them having to spend all that time feeling as anxious and excited as I do.
I’d like to say that’s why I didn’t tell my parents I was pregnant with Alex until two weeks before he arrived. Instead, I didn’t tell them because I was terrified of what Mother would say. Even though I had been married, I knew she would feel all the same that my having a baby on my own was totally unacceptable. In those days, I had dreamed about how it might be to come home and tell your parents you were pregnant to the sound of schoolgirl squeals and wedding-day tears.
When Graham and I got married, I knew that when I got pregnant again, since they were so over-the-moon for Alex, Mother and Daddy would be beyond thrilled that we were adding to our little family. What I hadn’t counted on for even a second was that, when I went to tell them the news, I would just have adopted a baby. By any standards, even mine, that was high school cheerleader overzealous.
That’s why, when Graham whispered to me in bed one night, “Honey, I hate to ask, but are you at all nervous about what the doctor said, you know, about how you might not be able to carry a baby?” I didn’t give it a second thought. Anything this nuts had to have been prearranged in heaven.
I knew how hectic this was going to be, but, instead of having to hear from Mother how ridiculous I was, I did the obvious thing. While I was snuggling you in bed, trying to slip my earrings on without waking you from your nap, I looked up at Graham, who was tying his tie for dinner, and said, “Sweetheart, I’m so glad you are volunteering to tell everyone we are pregnant tonight.”
He stood stiller than a hunter behind his prey, his hand frozen on that slipknot. “Oh, hell no,” he said. “We’re not pregnant. You’re pregnant. I’m not telling them.”
I opened my mouth, trying to convey my annoyance without waking you up. “Excuse me, I believe you might have contributed half this DNA. I will not, under any circumstances, be responsible for telling them about this child alone too.”
He smirked. “I guess I should just be glad you told me a
bout this one.”
That was a bit of a joke between us, as your daddy had found out I was pregnant with Alex by showing up in New York to a burgeoning pregnant belly.
“Fine,” I whispered. “Then we’ll shoot for it.”
As your daddy said, “Rock, paper, scissors,” I knew I was going for paper. As predictably as a summer rain shower, he went with rock, and I had won.
“Damn it!”
I smiled victoriously.
Graham crawled into bed beside me, stroked your soft, plump cheek with his finger, and kissed me. He put his hand on my belly and said, “So, should I tell them all how this one was conceived too?”
I smirked. “You don’t know know that’s when this one was conceived.”
He nuzzled my neck. “Oh, I know.”
When Graham texted me that night to tell me he had to go help his mom clean some stuff out of the house, I didn’t think much about it. Alex had insisted on spending the night with Mother and Daddy because Daddy was going to let him stay up late so he could show him all the constellations with his new telescope. So I took my time cooking dinner, sipping my wine slowly, you sound asleep upstairs. I was just getting ready to light candles on the table when I heard a honk that sounded familiar yet lost somewhere in the recesses of my memory.
I walked outside and started laughing. Graham’s daddy had had a whole fleet of Carolina Blue Ford trucks, those big old diesel ones that would last darn near forever. I thought they had sold them all when Graham got the new ones. I glanced at your sleeping figure on my iPhone monitor, still holding that lighter.
Graham hung his head out the window and said, “Hey there, pretty girl. You need a lift?”
I ran my hand down the side of that old truck, the paint peeling in patches. “So is this the junk you were helping your momma clear out?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Baby, this beauty ain’t junk.”
I laughed and pointed at the bed. “Is this the truck?”
“Oh yeah,” he said suggestively.
“How do you know? I mean, they had like ten of these things.”
He turned the truck off, that loud churning and clanging finally dying down. It made me realize how still and silent and clear it was. It was a crisp night, one of those evenings when you knew that any time, the leaves would finish falling, the frost would remember to come, and winter would set in just as quickly as fall had arrived before it. Graham hopped down, still in his work Levi’s and boots, and took my hand. He opened that rusting tailgate with a squeak and held my hand as I climbed in the back. I raised my eyebrows at the stacks of blankets in the back. “What?” he said innocently. “I told you I was helping Momma clear some stuff out.”
We both lay down, our heads on those old stable blankets, and he said, “See, look.” He took my finger and traced over the letters FM+GJ.
“It really is the same truck,” I whispered.
Lying there, the breeze blowing, I could almost be back in that night, all those years ago. This same truck, this same field, this same man. We had strayed far away from that perfect moment in young, first love. But, somehow, some way, we found ourselves right back here, in this same place, in this same love where we had been almost half our lifetimes ago.
I turned over on my side, my face inches from Graham’s, and said, “I always knew it would end up like this. From that very first night in the back of this truck I knew it was always going to be me and you.”
He put his hand to my face and kissed me, unbuttoning the top button on my shirt.
“Graham,” I scolded. “Carolina is in there asleep.”
“You have the monitor, don’t you?”
I nodded, already knowing that there was nothing in this world, still, all these years later, that I could do to resist him. “You know,” I whispered, kissing him again. “The way I remember this, it was a little more romantic. Candles flickering and roses and all that.”
“Yeah.” He winked at me. “But now you’re kind of a sure thing.” He took that lighter from my hand and sparked it, both of us doubling over in laughter. Graham kissed me again and said, “That night, I didn’t think I could ever love you more. It’s amazing how much that love has grown, how much better it keeps getting. You are still all I want forever.”
Roses and candles are great when you’re a kid, when those Hallmark holidays mean something and you need a way to prove to your girlfriends how romantic your boyfriend is. But when you grow up, when those first fine lines start appearing around your eyes and that perfectly toned, flat stomach isn’t quite as pristine after childbirth, knowing that you’re the only person in the world a man wants for the rest of his life is the absolute best gift he can give you.
We lay in the back of that truck for hours that night, talking about how we met, how we got back together. We laughed about that night that Graham shocked the life out of me carrying me over the threshold of this very house, saying he built it for me even though I was living in New York and married to someone else.
I knew then that it didn’t matter what happened. If we had more children, if we lost all our money, if we traded this life in for something new. We had each other to hold on to. We had this great love that he had never given up on and that I never would again. Candles burn and flowers dry. But that love we had, it would last forever.
You were starting to shift a little bit lying beside me in bed that night before dinner, waking up slowly, like you always did. And your daddy said, “I have had so many perfect memories with you. But that is definitely one for the record books.”
We didn’t discuss further what words he would say or how he would choose to tell our family about its newest member, but I assumed that he would pull them each aside separately to tell them quietly about the good news. Then there would be at least a few minutes for things to sink in before they came running to me for a lecture.
That night, my heart would intermittently race like the second hand on a watch whose battery is dying as I remembered that we were going to tell his mom and my parents. We all bowed our heads and held hands around the dinner table, Alex singing in his booster and you sitting quietly in a bouncy seat by me. Graham said, “Mr. Mason, I’ll say grace.”
I smiled up at him lovingly and thought how handsome my husband was and how lucky we were to have found each other again after so many years apart. I was grateful for how strong and generous he was to take the heat off me and tell our families our news.
“Dear Lord,” he started, “we want to thank You for bringing our families together safely tonight to enjoy this food that You have given us. Please bless this food and the hands that prepared it and help Khaki and me to be the best parents possible to this new little baby . . .”
At that point, I was sure he was talking about you, so I was still smiling away, strolling casually down the street totally unaware that I was about to be the victim of a drive-by shooting.
Graham continued, “This new little baby that You have blessed Khaki and me with. Please keep her healthy and strong over the next months as she carries this child—”
That was as far as he got because I kicked him under the table so hard that he yelled, “Ouch,” his mom gasped, Daddy laughed, and Mother said, “Have you completely lost your minds? I mean, do you really not understand how babies are made, Frances Mason, because I swear that talk we had all those years ago must not have taken.”
Daddy was damn near tickled, laughing so hard he had to wipe his nose with his handkerchief when Pauline said, “No wonder you been gaining weight.”
Graham’s mom said, softly and sweetly, in direct contrast to Mother, “Darlings, do you know how this is going to be? It’s going to be like having twins. How lovely.”
“No,” Mother said, pointing her finger at you. “Not lovely. It’s going to be worse than that because it’s going to be just as much work, but without the benefits of shared hom
ework or the same stage of development. You’re going to be up all night with one and chasing the other around all day trying to keep her fingers out of electric sockets.” She paused and shook her head. “No, no, no,” she said, standing up to emphasize her point. “I forbid you to do this.”
That got Daddy going all over again because, I mean, really, how are you going to forbid someone to have a baby?
“Oh, Miz Mason,” Pauline said. “Baby girl will get some good help, and everything’s gonna be all right.”
I put my hand up to stop Pauline. “No, Pauline, I think Mother’s right. Actually, what I think I’m going to do when I go into labor is tell the baby to stop trying to come out until she’s ready for it.” I shot Mother a look. “Does that sound like a good idea?”
“Khaki,” Graham said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t get all worked up; it’s bad for the baby.”
I glared at him. “Seriously? This is how you decide to tell them?”
“I can help you,” Graham’s mom said. I loved her, but her “helping” was coming over and telling me all the things I was doing wrong. It was about as helpful as when Alex “helped” me clean the kitchen by pulling everything out of the cabinets.
Then Mother smiled serenely, and I knew something evil was getting ready to come out of her mouth. “I know,” she said, “you can give Carolina back to Jodi.”
“Oh, Miz Mason,” Pauline said, shaking her head.
I had had enough, so I stood up quietly, threw my napkin onto my plate, and walked out to the front porch. I rocked for a while, examining the patch of tobacco in front of the house, wondering if you or Alex or this new baby would ever do anything so awful that I would make you crop it as punishment. I remembered Daddy telling Mother, “You can’t make them crop tobacco. That’s a man’s job. They’re just little girls.”
I could almost hear her replying, huffily, “If they insist on using language like men, they can crop tobacco like men.”
I am convinced that there is nothing harder in life. Maybe giving birth, but it’s a close call.
Dear Carolina Page 15
