All my love,
Adam
THE DAY I MET Adam was the best day of my life. I know you’re supposed to say that about your children’s births. Or maybe your wedding day. But, without that first day, the first time I laid eyes on him, I wouldn’t have had any of that.
After my dad died, I decided, firmly, that I would never love anyone that much again, because when you love that much, there is so very much to lose. I wouldn’t, couldn’t do it again.
I dated, of course. I had boyfriends, but I always kept them at arm’s length, cracked the door enough to interest them but never opened it all the way.
Adam says, for him, it was love at first sight. For me, it was just another day standing in line at the post office. It seems fitting, actually, that we would meet at the post office. I had no idea then that letters would become one of the most critical parts of our love story.
It was December 17, a freezing cold afternoon in Athens, and my last exam was the next day. I couldn’t wait to get home to Peachtree Bluff, back to my mom and my sisters. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend, partly because it was never going to go anywhere anyway and partly because I couldn’t think of a good Christmas gift for him. That was, at the time, my opinion about true and everlasting love.
The post office that day reminded me of a subway stop—minus the public urination and homeless people. It was crowded and loud. Some people were cheerful and joyous; some were crabby and ill. Many were talking on their cell phones; most were coughing. Everyone believed his or her package—and its destination—was most important.
I had noticed the man standing in front of me with a passing interest. I assumed he was in the military based on his haircut, but his jeans and button-down with rolled-up sleeves didn’t give anything away. He seemed well bred and supremely confident.
Adam turned to me and smiled, and my heart did this thing. This scary thing. This thing I hated. It raced, and my stomach flip-flopped. I could feel my cheeks tinting the slightest bit red—probably not full-on maroon like my poor mother’s would have been, but a little red. It made me want to run.
“Anything liquid, fragile, or perishable?” he asked.
I laughed in spite of myself. He had the cutest dimples, and I’d never understood what a “chiseled jawline” was until that moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was the best thing I could come up with. It was really lame.”
I laughed again. “It’s better than what I was thinking.”
He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Mailing yourself home for Christmas?”
He grimaced. “That really is bad.” We both laughed.
I peered around him toward the front of the line. “We don’t seem to be moving, do we?”
He shook his head. The lady at the counter must have had thirty packages. But, whereas a few minutes ago I was annoyed, now I was sort of excited. The longer she fretted over priority versus regular, the longer I got to stare at that face.
“I tell you what,” he said. “I’m not in the business of doing this, but I have a good buddy who works for the postal service. What if I take you to lunch, and I’ll get him to mail our packages?”
Our. It was our first our. My internal warning bells dinged. This was a total stranger. Whom I met in line at the post office. He could be a serial killer, a rapist, a litterer. I had a vision of myself locked in a trunk, trying to kick out the taillight like I saw on Oprah. But he had such an honest face. And such beautiful hazel eyes. And I could picture my lips on his lips more than I could picture myself being stuffed into his trunk.
“This is an extremely important and very special pair of bedroom shoes for my grandmother,” I said. “But if you’re sure you’re up to the task . . .”
My new friend put his hand on my back and led me out the door, which, of course, he held open. “I’m Adam,” he said.
“Sloane.”
Over lunch I learned that, as I had suspected, Adam was in the Army. “I’m spending Christmas with my family before I head back to Iraq in a couple weeks,” he had said.
I was confused and a little scared by how much I hated the idea of his being overseas. I needed to walk away from this one. Not only did I feel dangerously aware of the potential for love here, but I also knew if I did develop feelings for him, I would have to spend the rest of my life worried. That was the opposite of what I was going for. I didn’t want to spend months at a time alone. I didn’t want to worry. I didn’t want to feel. I was about to tell Adam I needed to go, that I had an exam.
But then I pictured him in his Army uniform, the brass buttons over his taut chest. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I couldn’t help but wonder, as we all sat down to dinner at the outdoor teak dining table that night, if Emerson wasn’t making a little history of her own, bringing Mark to dinner with our entire family—minus Adam.
I had put on a maxi dress that was way too big now, and Caroline had fixed my hair so it wasn’t stringy or in my face. I had never been big on makeup, but I had to admit that the little bit of highlighter and blush Emerson had swiped on my cheeks had made a huge difference. “When you look better, you feel better,” she had said. I didn’t agree with that, but I didn’t protest, partly because it was easier not to and partly because I didn’t want her to be embarrassed of her big sister at her first family dinner with Mark.
He was so cute and clean cut, very fraternity boy in his neat khaki shorts and oxford with the sleeves rolled up. He looked a little nervous but also pleased as punch to be with Emerson. I had helped Mom set the table with rattan place mats, her Juliska Petit Singe—the boys loved the little monkeys it was named for—and wineglasses. I couldn’t find the joy in it, but there was something soothing about the monotony of putting out all those gold forks and knives and spoons, of placing a wineglass at every seat. Mom had made arrangements of fresh hydrangeas from the yard and placed them down the table in vases of varying height. It was simple and beautiful.
Kyle and Kimmy had prepared a summer feast. Tomato sandwiches, string beans and boiled potatoes, corn on the cob, strawberries with fresh whipped cream, blackberries, squash and onions, field peas. It was a simple, healthy Southern spread. Grammy leaned over to me and said, “This reminds me of the dinners I used to make when you girls were little.” I wanted to smile at her. I swear I did. But I just couldn’t.
“Those were the best summers, weren’t they?” How I longed to go back in time to one of those carefree, sandy days before life had gotten hard, before love had begun to hurt.
As we passed the dishes around, family style, Caroline said, “This time next week, you’ll be doing this at Seafarer, Viv.”
“Yay!” Vivi exclaimed.
All of us had attended Camp Seafarer in North Carolina. We learned to sail and run powerboats, became expert swimmers, sang silly songs, played tennis, practiced archery . . . The list goes on. We had all loved camp, but Caroline particularly adored it, which was kind of funny since rustic cabins and no air-conditioning didn’t exactly fit Caroline’s overall vibe. But it wasn’t the accommodations she loved. It was the water. She was one of the best boaters to ever come out of Seafarer, earning all her ranks and winning the Captain’s award. She even did a semester at sea during college and got her captain’s license. That was Caroline. When she loved something, she went all out.
“You’re going to have the best time,” Emerson said. “We loved camp so much.”
Part of me couldn’t imagine this Park Avenue girl in the crowded dining hall. But if she had even an ounce of her mother’s love of the water, Vivi would be OK.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Emerson whispering something to a laughing Mark as Caroline said, “Girls, I had the best, best idea.”
I felt nervous butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Whenever Caroline had the best, best idea for “the girls,” it somehow included me and it somehow put me way out of my comfort zone.
“No,” I said.
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Everyone at the table laughed.
“Good girl, Sloane,” James said. “When this one has an idea, it’s best to just get out of the way.” He kissed Caroline’s bare shoulder.
“Ha. Ha,” she said. “No, my great idea is that Emerson, Sloane, and I take Vivi to camp.”
That didn’t sound so bad. I could probably handle that.
“By boat,” she added.
Ah, there it was. “No way, Caroline,” I said. “I can’t leave the boys for that long.”
She and Emerson shared a glance, and I knew it meant, You didn’t so much as look at them for over a month. Why so concerned now?
They weren’t wrong.
“It’s only three days there and three days back,” Mom said.
I scowled at her, and she looked back down at her plate. “Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to help.”
“That would be marvelous,” Grammy said. “We used to take you girls by boat sometimes.”
“Oh, I remember,” I said. I mostly remembered being seasick while Caroline handled the mast and the jib like she had been born on a boat. It was just one more tiny way that Caroline was better than I was, as if being smarter and more beautiful and more popular wasn’t enough.
“I’ll be here with Preston,” James said, “and I’m happy to help Ansley with AJ and Taylor.”
“That’s so sweet, James,” Mom said. “And Linda begged me to let her have them, so I told her I’d bring them to Athens for the last few days of the trip.”
I looked around the table, realizing I had been ambushed. “Wait,” I said. “Wait just a minute. You all plotted against me, planned how I will leave my children and possibly miss an update about my husband? That’s really nice.” I paused. “And it’s really not happening.”
I looked at Caroline’s face, and I could tell it was happening.
“We’re not going to Cuba, Sloane,” Caroline said. “For heaven’s sake. We’ll be completely reachable at all times.”
I could feel my mind resigning itself to this plan, forgetting I was an adult, slipping back into the old pattern of Caroline being the big sister, me being the little sister, and my role in life doing what she said.
“We’re going to have a really good time,” Emerson said. She was sitting across from me, holding Mark’s hand, yet, somehow, it felt as though her voice was coming from another life, a time when Adam was here and I was happy. A time when my children laughed and I laughed with them. A time when I could remember who I was.
“Mommy,” AJ said excitedly. “I love tomatoes!”
I ran my hand through his hair.
“See?” Kyle asked. “I told you you would.”
“That’s how you learn,” I said. “When you try new things, you discover all sorts of things you love.”
“Exactly,” Caroline said. “Which is why this trip is going to be so much fun!”
From down the table, Vivi said, “Please, Aunt Sloane. Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
I looked at her. She was so adorable. And she wrote that beautiful essay. “Fine,” I said. “I won’t like it, but I’ll go.”
“Wait,” Mom said. “What boat are you taking?”
“Well, Jack’s, of course,” Caroline said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that we would be taking the boat Mom’s old boyfriend named after her.
Poor Mom. She could never hide her feelings. She turned redder than the fresh tomatoes. I shot her a very satisfied look. She thought she was tricking me, but Caroline was tricking her, too. I wondered if James was ever scared of her, especially now that he had crossed her. She was just a little smarter than absolutely everyone, so even when you thought you had her figured out, she could still ambush you.
“Oh, I . . .” Mom stammered and trailed off. “I didn’t know Jack was even in Peachtree Bluff.”
Caroline looked at her like she was dense. “Of course he’s in Peachtree. Where else would he go?”
I was about to chime in when I heard, “Happy birthday to you,” trailing from the kitchen. It made me think of all of those birthday parties I had been watching on the home movies, all those happy times when Adam was here and life was good. But I had to push the thought out of my mind. I was lost without him, but if I kept dwelling on him every single second I was going to destroy everything we had spent years building.
So I joined in. “Happy birthday, dear Ha-al, happy birthday to you.”
Hal smiled and blew out the candles as we all looked on. His beard almost got into the cake but missed it by a centimeter. “Thank you all so much,” he said. And then, much to my surprise, he got choked up. Caroline put her hand on his arm. “Hal? What’s the matter?”
He wiped his eyes and said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that no one has remembered or celebrated my birthday in more than twenty years.”
I looked across the table at Mom, whose eyes were now filling with tears too. She put her arm around Hal and hugged him.
I wondered how that was possible, how this wonderful man could have gone more than twenty years with no one celebrating his birthday.
I looked around the table at my two boys beside me, Grammy on my other side, Mom across from me, Emerson, Mark, James, Caroline, Vivi, even Hippie Hal, Kimmy, and Kyle. I had all these people who loved me, all these people who supported me no matter what, all these people who would remember my birthday. I took them for granted sometimes and just assumed everyone had what I did. But it was at times like these that I remembered how rare it was to have a family like mine, to have love like this.
I knew Adam would come back to me. I knew he would. But having these people surrounding me, bolstering my spirits, not letting me disappear into myself again while I waited, was an absolute blessing in the meantime.
EIGHT
civilized
ansley
Our Peachtree Bluff neighbors had brought sixty-two casseroles since we got the news that Sloane’s husband Adam was MIA. That meant it had been sixty-two casseroles since I had told Jack it wasn’t the right time for us, that, with all I had on my plate, I couldn’t commit to a relationship too. As I stared at all those uneaten casseroles in my deep freeze in the garage, I could poignantly feel every second that had passed since my first love, the one I had met in this very town, told me that he had waited long enough for me, that he had put his life on hold for thirty years and that was more than generous.
And now, he was gone. Well, gone from my life, anyway. The fact that Caroline, Sloane, Emerson, and Vivi were getting ready to embark on their drop-Vivi-off-at-camp-and-rehabilitate- Sloane mission on Jack’s boat meant that he wasn’t gone from Peachtree Bluff. I had to admit that soothed me. The thought that he was still here but not in my life did not soothe me.
On the bright side, my mother’s episodes of confusion, though more frequent, tended to last a shorter time. We were hoping we could attribute her mental inconsistencies to her pain medication usage after the car wreck and broken ankle that had brought her here to me.
On the other bright side, it seemed like, despite my incredible skepticism, Caroline and James were getting along splendidly and Emerson was well on her way to being totally in love with Mark. Two out of three happy daughters wasn’t bad.
“Caroline!” I called, walking up the stairs into the guesthouse.
“In the kitchen, Mom,” she called back.
I loved this guesthouse. I had made it a sanctuary from the real world. Before all the girls had come home, I would come out here for a couple of days and feel like I was on a mini-vacation. It was less formal than the main house. Both floors had wall-to-wall seagrass carpet, marble mosaic tile in the bathrooms, and pale sky-blue walls.
As I walked into the kitchen/great room area I admired the beaded chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling. I loved the exposed beams in here, the casual, rustic air they lent.
“Do you need help packing, sweetie?” I asked.
It was a thinly veiled offer. The truth was, since our dinner a
few days earlier, all I had been able to think about was Jack and that he had stayed away from me for six weeks—which probably meant he could do it forever. It was not my favorite thought.
Jack. I hadn’t imagined he would let me go like this. After all these years, all these secrets, all the life we nearly shared, I thought he would understand. So I was caught in a tangled web between sorrow and anger and acceptance. Some moments I could convince myself that his giving me two of my three daughters, keeping my secret for all those years, and never forcing his way into our lives was enough. Then, in the next moment, I would think he was being selfish and insensitive in not being more compassionate or understanding about my predicament with Sloane.
“We’re all ready to go tomorrow,” Caroline said. She was spraying the kitchen counter. She looked around to make sure no one was in earshot and then whispered, “I’m so nervous about Vivi being gone for an entire month.”
I nodded. I remembered the feeling. “I know, sweetheart, but she’s going to have the best time. She will learn so much and make friends she will have forever.”
She shrugged. “I know. It’s just the selfish part of me that wants her here.”
“It might be good. You and James could use this time to yourselves.” I paused. “Well, I mean, yourselves and Preston.”
She laughed. “I know what you mean. Who would have thought a baby would be easier to manage than an eleven-year-old?”
Her face fell slightly.
“You OK?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “I’m all over the place. I’m happy and then I’m sad and then I’m mad. It’s a never-ending rotation.”
“It probably will be for a while.” I took the bottle from her and continued spraying while she fluffed the pillows on the couch.
The Secret to Southern Charm Page 5
