“So, Jack’s boat?” I asked what I hoped was casually.
“Yes,” she said. “You know. Fifty-eight Huckins, fully restored thanks to you.”
“How did you swing that?”
She shrugged. “I simply explained I had my captain’s license and needed to save my sister.” She paused. “It was actually way easier than I thought.”
Probably because he didn’t want to tell his daughter no. Carter had been terrible at that too. I felt that stabbing pain around my heart. It’s not a new revelation, necessarily, but it seems that whenever there is one loss, the others are felt more poignantly. Watching what Sloane was going through, seeing how she was suffering, brought back the memories of losing Carter so fiercely that, at times, it was hard to breathe.
“Was he surprised you had your captain’s license?” I asked.
Caroline hadn’t gotten her driver’s license until right before her son Preston, who was now three months old, was born. She insisted that no one needed a driver’s license in New York City. But in Peachtree Bluff, her sisters had finally refused to drive her, so she had no choice.
“I don’t think he believed me. But I said, ‘Jack, you and I both know that driving a yacht is so much more civilized than driving a car.’ ” She smiled.
I shook my head. “Caroline, for goodness’ sake. Only you would ask a man to borrow his pride and joy.”
“His pride and joy named after my mother.” She winked at me.
Then it hit me. “If you’re taking the boat, where’s Jack going to stay?”
Her look revealed nothing, but I felt it. She knew something she wasn’t telling me. “Mother, I have absolutely no idea. I’m not Jack’s travel agent.”
“Gransley!” I heard from down the hall. Caroline’s dark-haired little clone came in, breathless and red-faced.
“What, darling?”
Vivi was wearing her tennis skirt and tank top. For a moment, I panicked. I had dropped her off at the courts. Had I forgotten to pick her up? But then I remembered James had. It’s amazing how it all comes back to you, the minutiae of raising children, of coordinating their schedules, of remembering who needs to be where when. “I saw a moving truck pull in next door! Who do you think our new neighbor is? Do you think they have kids?”
Caroline turned too quickly and walked into her room. Despite the positive advances, it was still only her room. James’s room was in the house on the corner.
“Caroline!” I called after her. “What are you not telling me?”
“Nothing, Mom. I just need to finish packing.”
I walked outside, deciding it was no use hounding her. I went upstairs in the main house and turned into my room. I swiped some blush on my cheeks, reapplied my lipstick, and ran a brush through my short, chestnut hair, realizing I needed to get my roots touched up soon. I was fortunate not to be completely gray, even at fifty-eight, but I still had a few intruders to keep at bay. I hoped I had many more years before I had to start fully coloring my hair. I couldn’t fathom what it would be like to look in the mirror and see a blonde. Maybe I’ll look like Emerson. I laughed out loud. With her dewy skin and legs up to her neck? Nope. She was the daughter who had finally looked like me, but never again would I look like Emerson.
I turned around in the mirror a couple of times, examining my white shirtdress and belt around my waist. No visible stains despite making homemade Play-Doh with AJ and Taylor that morning. Not too wrinkled. I smoothed my hands down my front, turned, and screamed.
Caroline was standing in the doorway, watching me with an amused smirk. “You have a date or something?”
I scowled at her, inadvertently remembering how Jack was gone and how I’d been the one to let him walk away. I’d been avoiding the dock like the plague, just in case he was still in Peachtree, afraid of running into him like we were teenagers again after a stupid fight. But we weren’t teenagers. And this fight wasn’t stupid.
“No,” I said. “You know I’ve been wanting to decorate the house next door forever. I’m going to run over and introduce myself.”
I was so grateful I had picked up a loaf of banana bread at the farmers’ market. I had planned on bribing Sloane to eat with it, but I’d take it to the new neighbor, schmooze a bit. Sloane wasn’t that thin . . . Yes, she was. I was an awful mother.
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Tactful, Mom. Don’t even let them get the first piece of furniture off the truck before you assault them with your portfolio and baked goods.”
Had I said that out loud?
“I’m not even going to mention it,” I lied. I might casually slip in what I did for a living and the vision I had for the house. But that was a far cry from pulling out my portfolio. Although, if I happened to leave a copy of my latest spread in Coastal Living . . . No, no. Rein it in, Ansley.
“You know, Mom,” Caroline said. “I think you should wait a few minutes. I need to run to the store to pick up our last few provisions.”
I shrugged. “So? James has Preston, and Sloane has the boys on the beach. Vivi is certainly fine if I go next door.”
“But you could wait a few more—”
I stepped out the door and turned, my look stopping her mid-sentence.
“What have you done?” I hissed.
She gave me her most innocent look, the one that was so innocent it wasn’t innocent at all. She put her hand over her heart and said sweetly, “Mom, I haven’t done a single thing.”
I felt eyes on me, and I knew, even before I turned, exactly whose they were. What I didn’t know is what those eyes living right next door meant.
NINE
all in
sloane
Three weeks isn’t a long time to know someone. But that’s how long I had known Adam when he returned to post, two nights before he would leave on his next deployment. After that moment in the post office, it was like my entire life, and certainly our entire love, was on fast forward. I had Christmas Eve dinner with his family. He spent Christmas Day with mine. We spent every waking moment of my break from UGA together at my apartment, which was completely devoid of roommates, who had gone home.
This kind of behavior was completely out of character for me. But there was something about Adam and the way he looked at me that very first day. Even though I was in my crummy exam clothes, he made me feel like I was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. No boy I had ever been with had made me feel that way or could have tempered the sting of growing up in the shadows of two extraordinary sisters. Caroline was pretty and smart and so confident and self-assured that the world seemed to revolve around her, and Emerson, let’s face it, was essentially a gift from God, so unusually beautiful and talented. I always felt lost somewhere in the middle.
I should have been grateful, I suppose. I was smart enough, pretty enough, a good artist. I had good friends, and my parents did all they could to make sure I felt special and unique, like I was just as important as Caroline and Emerson. But, come on. How could I ever be? And now, here, with Adam, I was.
Maybe that’s why, very, very unlike me, I said “I love you” first. It was the night before Christmas. We were at his parents’ house, sitting by the crackling, real wood fireplace in the basement of their house on Lake Hartwell, outside Athens. It had a rustic, cabin-like feel to it. It was the kind of place where you just had to drink hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.
His parents were incredible. They were funny and warm and welcoming, and I felt so at home in his world, as though I had been there forever. In stark contrast to my mother, who would have risked life and limb to make sure we didn’t share a bedroom, they hadn’t even considered that we wouldn’t. I felt weird about it, especially since it portrayed the notion that we were having a type of relationship that we weren’t, a type I had never had with anyone, in fact.
That night, after the Christmas presents and carol singing, Adam and I were all alone in the basement by the fire. We had talked so much that I felt like I knew him better than I’d
ever known anyone. But there was still one thing I needed to know. Looking up into his soulful hazel eyes, I said, “Adam, what made you decide to enlist? I mean, how could you just leave school and everything behind?”
He was leaning against the couch, his legs out in a V that I fit into perfectly. I leaned up against him, my back against his chest. His strong arms were wrapped around me and for the first time since 9/11, for the first time since my father was taken from me, I felt safe.
He kissed my ear and said, “You know, Sloane, I watched those planes crash into the towers, and it made me sad. But it also made me furious. All I could think about was the people in those towers, my people. They left for work that morning expecting to come home that night, kiss their husbands and wives, and tuck their children into bed. Even the survivors’ lives had changed forever.” He paused, and I let his words sink in because he was right. I was one of the survivors. And every minute of my life since that second tower fell had been just a little bit worse.
He pulled me closer to him, and I could tell he was thinking. So I looked up at him again. “What?”
He smiled at me. “I want to say something, but I’m afraid it will scare you away.”
“There is nothing,” I said, “that could possibly scare me away at this point, Adam. I’m pretty much all in.”
He nodded, and I knew he felt the same. “I’ve spent some time wondering why I felt so compelled to right this wrong. I mean, I didn’t have a loved one in the tower. I had no real stake in any of it.” He paused for a moment, his fingers trailing lazily up my arm. “And this is the crazy part. When I saw you in that post office, when we had lunch that day, when I knew your dad had been killed, it was like all the pieces of my life finally fit together, all the things that didn’t make sense suddenly did. I think, even though I didn’t know you yet, Sloane, I had been fighting for you all that time, like my heart knew that one day I would meet you and I had to be able to tell you I hadn’t watched this atrocity happen to you without trying to fix it.”
By this point I had scooted away from Adam. I was sitting on my knees looking at him, rapt with attention. My heart was beating wildly, the butterflies in my stomach having baby butterflies. When I didn’t say anything he said, “I’m sorry. I knew it was too much. I wish I hadn’t said anything.”
But I shook my head and moved closer to him until our faces were only inches apart. “Adam,” I said.
“Sloane,” he replied.
“I love you.”
He smiled and pulled me to him, kissing me. “I love you too,” he whispered. “I know it seems crazy, but I absolutely do with everything I am.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him again. I began unbuttoning his shirt, pausing to pull my own over my head. My rational mind would have reasoned that his parents were right upstairs, but I was way past being rational.
“Sloane,” he whispered. “Are you sure about this?”
He knew I was a virgin, knew I had never had feelings like this for anyone.
“I have never been so sure of anything in my entire life.”
I knew I had only known Adam for two weeks and I might never see him again, but I didn’t care. If he left and, God forbid, something happened to him, I would always regret that I hadn’t shared this moment in time with him and him alone.
His poor mother probably didn’t have this in mind when she picked that soft sheepskin rug for in front of the fireplace. In that moment, our worlds collided, and I knew he was it for me. I was made to be with Adam.
The night before he left, through our tears and heartache, he got down on one knee in UGA’s Founders Memorial Garden and said, “Sloane Murphy, you are the love of my life. Will you marry me?”
It was a proposal exactly like Adam. Simple and direct, but passionate. And I knew I was the luckiest girl in the entire world when I said, “Yes.”
He slid a gorgeous ring on my finger. “My grandmother’s,” he said.
I smiled. “So, your parents?”
“My parents couldn’t love you more,” he said. “They said they knew from the moment they met you, just like I did, that we were perfect for each other.”
Six months later, my sisters, on the other hand, still thought I was crazy. And my mom was a wreck. They didn’t think we had known each other long enough to get married, didn’t think we understood what we were getting into. What they didn’t understand is that when you’re getting to know someone normally, there are so many distractions. You go to movies, parties, cookouts, baseball games. You share the inane details of your days at work, binge-watch trashy reality TV shows. But is any of that connection? Does it help you know what’s inside the other person’s heart? Not if you ask me. At least, that’s what I told my mother nine weeks before Adam came home, and, contrary to what my family believed would happen, our wedding was still on.
Every day for eight months, I had written my future husband a letter and received one in return. I had spent eight months asking those important questions, sharing things about myself that I had never shared with anyone, and sending them off to the US Postal Service’s care, hoping my words and, much more importantly, my love would reach him.
So, while my family begged me to change my mind and pleaded with me not to be so hasty, I believed with all my heart that I knew this man better than anyone. I knew his soul, the recesses of his mind.
I knew he wanted a small wedding, just like I did. Nothing like Caroline’s five-star Manhattan blowout, paid for by James, despite our mother’s protests that his picking up the tab was tacky. So we booked the church, picked out a dress, put deposits down on a band and a caterer, and ordered tents for the front yard. All the while, my mom put on a happy face. But when it came time to order the invitations, the veneer cracked. That’s when I realized that her happiness for me and her proclamation that nothing would make her happier than having Adam for a son-in-law was a farce.
“Sloane, honey,” she had said hesitantly, “you don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to go through with it.”
I was shocked and so hurt. “Mom, why would I not go through with it? He’s the love of my life. I’ve never been surer of anything.”
She had crossed her arms and leaned on the counter, looking around as if one of my sisters might jump out from the cabinets and save her. “But you don’t know him, Sloane. You knew him for three weeks. I know the whole soldier-off-at-war thing is romantic, and I can see how you could get swept up in a proposal, but let’s take a step back.”
Caroline had called me later that afternoon. “No one’s saying you shouldn’t get married,” she said. “Just let him come home. Date for a few months. Make sure he’s who you think he is.”
It ruffled me that my family would even say such things to me. But it didn’t change my mind. It didn’t change the fact that I knew Adam was the one for me. I knew what a commitment I was making.
The way I felt the day he came home that first time was a feeling unlike any other. Relief washed over me with a vengeance. I felt whole again, complete.
I must have stood in his arms in the airport for an hour, relishing the way he felt, the way he smelled. I knew I would never let him go again.
When I stood at the altar in the St. James’s chapel and pledged to love him forever, I knew I would. Maybe I hadn’t yet considered what that would look like. Maybe I didn’t truly understand what that would come to mean. But I would love him anyway. And it would be OK. I had pledged to be with that man for better or for worse.
And this? This was worse. This was worst—well, almost worst, which felt close enough. But despite how it had turned out, I knew one thing without a doubt: even knowing what I knew now, I would do it all again. Adam was a soldier, but, in a way, so was I. And I, like him, like his best men, would be loyal until the very end.
TEN
georgia
ansley
After the years Mr. Solomon and I spent feuding over the fence that separated our yards, I swore that
if I ever had a new neighbor, I would do whatever it took to make sure we were friendly. We wouldn’t have to have cocktails on the porch together; I just didn’t want any tension.
I wished more than anything when I saw Jack walking out the front door of the house, then grabbing a box out of the moving truck, that he hadn’t seen me. But he had. And I couldn’t hide or pretend I didn’t know he was there.
Even before I crossed the short distance between my yard and the one next door, I felt the chill. Jack had always had this air about him, a manner that made him seem perpetually amused and never surprised. It was like he always knew what was coming next, even when it was unfathomably shocking to the rest of us. But now, he barely ventured a smile.
It was as though Mr. Solomon had never left. History was repeating itself. I wondered, briefly, if things weren’t what they seemed. But, while people say things are never as they seem, I would beg to differ. In my fifty-eight years, I’ve found that things are almost always as they seem.
It seemed like Jack was moving in beside me. My heart raced and my stomach sank all at once. I had no idea how to feel because I had broken up with him—if that’s even what you call it when you’re a grown-up. But it had felt more like taking something I had always carried inside of me—something that defined me, that was the very essence of me, that I would be irreparably different without—and removing it from my life. That’s what I had done to Jack. I had removed him.
Although, not all that well, I decided, as I smiled shyly.
I had known Jack for forty-three years, and I knew his smile. I saw it when I closed my eyes. Even during all those years we were apart, the thought of it and the warmth of it carried me through many a cold night. So I knew what he shot my way wasn’t a Jack smile. At least, it wasn’t a Jack-and-Ansley smile. It might have been a smile he gave to someone else, someone he didn’t love or feel unbreakably connected to. Did that mean he didn’t feel those things toward me anymore?
The Secret to Southern Charm Page 6
