The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  Unfortunately, as I turned to walk down the porch steps, so did Georgia. “Jack and I went to the most splendid benefit last night. And then we got home, and I had a flat tire. And he was in no position to drive, so . . .”

  “We have got to get Uber here,” I said, an edge to my voice.

  She laughed delightedly and winked at me. “Oh, I hope we don’t.”

  “Ansley?” I heard Jack call from the porch as if there were any question about who I was.

  I wanted to pretend that I didn’t hear him. But I couldn’t. I was twenty feet in front of him. I turned and held up my sketchbook. “I’ll come back later,” I said, relieved to see he was at least dressed. “When you’re not so busy.”

  “Now is good,” he said. “Come on in.”

  “I can’t wait to see what you do to the place, Ansley,” Georgia called.

  Maybe it was only in my mind, but the way she said it made me feel like she wanted me to get it all spruced up so she could move right in. I would die. I would die if he were living beside me with another woman, and then my children would have yet another tragedy to deal with. A vision of them sobbing in black at my funeral crossed my mind.

  No. I couldn’t die. I didn’t have time.

  The last thing I wanted was to walk through that front door, but I had to.

  “You’re upset,” Jack said.

  How perceptive. “No,” I said. “Not upset.”

  Of course I was upset. How could I not be upset? I loved him, for heaven’s sake. He named his boat after me, and now he was having sleepovers with Realtors from Atlanta named Georgia. But I had no right to be upset. I had told him it wasn’t time for us to be together, that I had to focus on my girls. And all of that was true. When you loved someone, weren’t you supposed to want good things for them? I took a deep breath, swallowed my pride, and said, “You deserve to be happy.”

  A flicker of emotion passed across his face. Certainly not his usual amusement. Something more like defeat, but maybe I was reading too much into it. “OK,” he said.

  I handed him my sketchbook. “Please be careful with it,” I said. “You can look these over. I’ll come get it later.”

  He tossed the book onto the ratty sofa, sitting on the green carpet, in the dimly lit room. This place was awful. But it wasn’t going to be. It was going to be pure luxury. For Jack. And Georgia.

  “That’s exactly what I meant when I said to be careful.”

  Jack rolled his eyes.

  I felt like we were working up to some sort of fight, but there was nothing to fight about, nothing to fight for. We were over, and I just needed to go. “I’ll come get these in a few days,” I said.

  “Ansley, come on,” he said.

  I stopped, my hand on the doorknob, and turned.

  “I know you’re not OK,” he said. “You don’t have to pretend. I get it. We can’t be together, but that doesn’t mean you have to be OK that I’m with someone else. I would hate that, roles reversed.”

  I got that same feeling I get when I haven’t eaten in too long, and the room went wobbly. So he was with her. I knew what it looked like and I knew that, flat tire or no, if you wanted to get home, you could figure out a way to get home. But a part of me was hoping it wasn’t what it seemed. Maybe she had slept in the guest room. Maybe he didn’t have feelings for her. Maybe he didn’t find her attractive or interesting. Although, what red-blooded, straight American male wouldn’t find her attractive or interesting I wasn’t sure.

  “Biscuit,” I called. No paws thumped across the floor. “Biscuit, I’m leaving right now. Come on!”

  No paws. Really? I save the dog from a life of off-brand kibble at the shelter and this is the thanks I get? I guess I should have known she wouldn’t want to leave the house where she had spent her entire life up until a month ago.

  I opened the door. “Send her into my yard when you find her.”

  “Ansley,” he said. “Wait.”

  But I couldn’t wait. All I could think about standing there was her. That woman in this house that, truth be told, I had envisioned myself living in from the moment I saw his car pull into the driveway.

  I controlled my tears right up until the moment I walked through my front door. Mom was sitting quietly in the living room, the morning sun streaming through the windows. This was, without a doubt, the best time of day in this room.

  She didn’t say anything, just patted the spot beside her. I noticed that even her hand looked frailer. “Honey, I know this is all a lot on you.”

  She didn’t say anything more, but the unspoken truth that lingered between us was that she was glad about the decision she’d made.

  I shook my head. “It’s not. It’s fine. It’s just that Jack is right there, and now there’s this other woman. And I realize I sound like a teenager.”

  She smiled at me and patted my hand. “Darling,” she said, “we are teenagers forever when it comes to matters of the heart.”

  She shifted on the couch and stood up slowly, a pained expression on her face.

  I didn’t help, and I didn’t follow her out of the room. I was trying to give her space, allow her the independence she had asked me for.

  Jack burst through my front door, tiny Biscuit tucked under his arm. “Did it occur to you to tell me that your mother is dying? Was that something you thought I might need to know?”

  My stomach clenched, and I put my finger to my mouth. But before I could answer, my mother called, “We’re all dying, Jack. Some of us just sooner than others.”

  Mom walked back into the living room, and Jack looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have blurted that out like that.”

  Mom raised her eyebrow. “You shouldn’t have strange women spend the night, either. Look like a damned fool. It’s totally inappropriate.” Mom paused. “Your mother would want me to tell you that.”

  Then she turned so only I could see, winked at me, and headed back toward her room. I stifled my laugh.

  Jack shook his head. “Again, she seems fine to me.”

  “Jack,” I whispered. “Mom hasn’t told the girls yet.”

  He looked shocked. “Well, she’d better hurry the hell up. I just found out because two ladies I don’t even know were standing in front of your house saying what a shame it was and speculating whether the house would be for sale. The whole town is talking.”

  When was the whole town not talking?

  “But I get it now,” Jack said. “I forgive you.”

  I could feel anger rising in my chest. “Forgive me? For what?”

  He stepped closer, making my heart race in a way I wished it wouldn’t. “I forgive you for not being able to be with me the way I want to be with you. I’ve thought about it, and I understand it a little more now. You have a lot to lose.”

  “I have a lot to gain, too,” I said quietly.

  He raised his eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  I shrugged, right as Sloane walked through the doorway. I studied her face to make sure she hadn’t overheard anything about her grandmother. She definitely hadn’t.

  “Hey, Jack,” she said. She kissed Biscuit on the head, taking her from Jack. “Hey there, little Biscuit girl. Let’s go play in the backyard with the kids.”

  Biscuit started panting like she knew she was in for some fun.

  “I’d better go play with the kids too,” I said. “Doesn’t matter. You have Georgia now.”

  Jack shook his head. “I do,” he said. “But let’s not forget that I came back to Georgia for a different girl.”

  As I listened to the laughter outside the back door, I realized I’d come back to Georgia for a different girl too. Three of them, in fact.

  TWENTY-ONE

  more sisters

  sloane

  I knew from our first lunch together that I’d never met anyone like Adam and that I never would again. Even in those first few days, maybe even in those first few seconds, I knew this was a man unlike any other. He’d q
uit college to fight for his country; he always had and always would put the needs of others before his own.

  That thought woke me in the middle of the night, roused me from a deep sleep as surely as a hand shaking my shoulder. Adam had always put others before himself. What if he was putting others before himself now, too? What if he sacrificed himself for his friends? What if they were the ones who came home instead of him?

  I remember being pregnant with AJ, how I knew something would change between Adam and me, how I felt almost sad that I was no longer his only true love and sole focus. I feared he would love this baby more than he loved me and that things between us would be different.

  I know Adam loves our boys, but his love for me has never changed, never darkened, never dimmed. If anything, giving him those children made Adam love me more. I feel that. Even now.

  As the sun rose, I fell asleep thinking that, no matter how much he felt the urge to sacrifice, Adam would come home to me because I was the one he was always fighting for.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING IN the well-groomed backyard with the boys laughing with Preston, who was having some very serious tummy time, Grammy in a chair on the screened porch, Emerson and Caroline standing beside me, the night before and all those worries seemed so far away. The tears had dried for now. Adam would come home. Emerson would be OK. The sun would keep shining. All would be right with the world.

  Emerson walked up the steps to the porch to sit with Grammy, and I turned to Caroline and whispered, “What do you think Jack meant when he told Mom he understood how much she had to lose if they were together?”

  “What?” I could see Caroline squinting through her cat-eye sunglasses. I was in a pair of old sweatpants and a T-shirt, while she was in a beautifully pressed linen dress and wedges, her idea of casual wear.

  “I just walked in the living room, and I heard Jack tell Mom he forgave her for not wanting to be with him now. That he understood how much she had to lose.”

  Caroline shrugged. “I don’t know, Sloane. I’m not in the business of old-people relationships. I can’t even keep my own husband off reality TV.”

  She smiled, which made me happy. After Caroline, Emerson, and I had sat down and watched James with Edie Fitzgerald on Ladies Who Lunch, after the tears and seeing how my always strong, always together sister was so very broken, I truly hadn’t believed there was any chance they could get back together. But she had persevered. Her New York friends were livid. They thought she was weak. But Caroline trying to fix her marriage wasn’t weakness. It was strength, the kind of strength not many people possess. But that was Caroline.

  “Maybe he meant since it was so hard for her to lose Dad?” Caroline asked.

  “Maybe,” I said, but that didn’t make sense. Sure, it was possible for Mom to lose Jack if they were together, but he wasn’t dying. Not as far as we knew, anyway. She wasn’t in imminent danger of losing him. Any fool could see he was madly in love with her.

  Caroline pulled her glasses down her nose and peered at me over the top of them. “All I’m saying is I told you there was more to the story.”

  “Mommy, watch this!” AJ called for maybe the four hundredth time in the past ten minutes. I smiled. I was here. I was watching. I would always want to watch. I felt guilty for feeling like I wanted a break. But this was the vicious mom-guilt cycle.

  “Let me see, buddy!”

  He twirled around in the yard and then fell down, laughing. Taylor piled on top of him, trying to emulate his twirl and fall. Soon, we were all laughing. I felt that catch in my chest, that near suffocation that I shouldn’t be laughing, not when Adam’s fate was so up in the air.

  I looked back toward the screened-in porch where Emerson had Grammy crying with laughter. Emerson could tell a story like no one I’ve ever met. It made sense, really. Of all of us, she was the most Southern.

  “This may sound weird,” I said. “But sometimes it makes me sad we don’t have the same dad as Emerson.”

  Caroline cocked her head. “He loved us all the same. You know that, right?”

  I nodded. Never for one day in my entire life did I feel anything but worshipped by our father. I never had any doubt he loved Caroline and me. “It isn’t that,” I said. “I mean, I know he loved us so much. I can’t put it into words.”

  By the look on Caroline’s face, I thought maybe I’d lost her, but then she said, “Do you think it makes her sad? Like maybe you and I are more sisters?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer because I heard the screen door slam, and Mom appeared.

  She looked at Grammy, who called breezily, “Sloane, Caroline. Could you come here a minute, please?”

  I thought this was going to be our announcement to Mom that we were coming to work at the store.

  I noticed how pretty Grammy looked in her slim-legged black pants with a pale pink jacket over top. Her hair was styled, and her blush was on. She was still lovely at eighty-three. I hoped I would be like that one day. But, if I was honest, with how little time I took to fix myself up now, the chances were slim.

  Grammy was seated between Mom and Emerson on the bamboo settee. Caroline and I were each sitting in a bamboo armchair flanking it.

  Grammy took one of Mom’s hands in hers and one of Emerson’s in the other, and I felt my stomach lurch. Had she found out about Emerson?

  “My sweet girls,” she said, sighing. “I have some news, and it isn’t good.” She paused, composing herself. “I found out a few months ago that I have cancer, which, at my age, isn’t all that uncommon, of course.”

  I heard myself gasp.

  “Grammy, no!” Caroline said.

  “You know I’m not one to take things lying down, but when they found it, it was already in my liver, lungs, and brain.”

  I looked at Emerson, my mouth hanging open, and could feel my tears, ones that matched those streaming down Emerson’s face. Caroline’s hands were over her mouth, and her eyes were wet as well.

  My heart felt like it was breaking in two as it hit me: Grammy was dying. My rock, the woman whom we had loved and adored and looked up to for forever, wasn’t going to be here anymore.

  Who would I call when I couldn’t remember if the fork went on top of the napkin or beside the napkin? Who would I call when I wasn’t sure whether to wear black tie or cocktail to a noon wedding?

  My boys wouldn’t remember my grandmother. That made me cry even harder.

  “I have taken some lovely medications to help slow the growth a bit, darlings, but as you probably know, at this stage, there isn’t much to do.” She paused. “Well, there isn’t much to do but live.”

  She was so composed, so stoic in contrast to the rest of us, who were hysterical sobbing messes.

  “You girls are the joy of my life. I’m ready to go, but oh how I hate the thought of not being with y’all.” She cleared her throat. “But you can’t imagine how much I miss your grandfather, how I long to be with him again.” She looked at Mom. “Well, maybe you can.”

  “Grammy,” Caroline said, walking to her, kneeling down in front of her, and taking her hand. “Isn’t there anything you can do to fight this?” Her voice broke as she said, “We need more time, Grammy. We have to have more time.”

  I loved Grammy. We were close, but she and Caroline were attached at the hip. They were practically best friends. This would hit Caroline the hardest.

  It didn’t surprise me that Grammy’s eyes finally flooded with tears when she looked down at Caroline.

  Grammy smiled sadly at her, stroking her hair. “You know, sweetheart, I’m sure they could try to do surgery, rip me from stem to stern. But at my age, it would probably kill me. And, even if they tried, it wouldn’t help.” She swallowed, strong again. “It’s my time, girls. This life is not perfect by any stretch. It’s hard, and some days it feels long. But as long as you are surrounded by people you love, you have absolutely everything you need.” She cleared her throat and patted Emerson and Mom on the legs. “OK. That’
s that. Let’s get back to savoring every last inch of this life we have.”

  We all got up and hugged Grammy, the voices of our little boys floating around us. There was so much sadness on this porch, yet so much happiness only a few feet away in the backyard. How could that be?

  “Let’s go out to lunch,” Mom said. “Grammy’s choice.”

  “I think that sounds lovely,” Grammy said. “I’d like to take my girls out.”

  She didn’t say it, but we all heard the while I still can anyway. I was going to savor every last second with my grandmother. I was going to take every opportunity to show this family I had how much they meant to me.

  Thinking about what Caroline said earlier, I linked my arm through Emerson’s. “I love you, little sister,” I said.

  “I love you too, big sister,” she said, smiling and touching her forehead to mine.

  “Um, excuse me,” Caroline said. “Does either of you love me?”

  I scrunched my nose. “Well . . .”

  We all laughed the relieved laugh that comes in the midst of so much pain, of too much sorrow. “OK,” Caroline said. “Fine. Love me, don’t love me. We all know I’m the glue that holds this group together.” She paused. “Both of you look absolutely atrocious, and I will not be seen at lunch with you until you do something to yourselves.”

  “Glue?” Emerson asked. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”

  We all laughed again. Dutifully, like the little sisters we were, Emerson and I went upstairs to change—and I changed the boys as a bonus, too. It occurred to me that, no, we would never have the same father, but, as long as Caroline was on this earth, Emerson and I would always have the same boss.

  TWENTY-TWO

  gifts

  ansley

  I don’t know what it was about saying it aloud, but telling us she had cancer had released something in my mother—and released something in her disease. In no time, she had gone from the sassy lady chatting with me over tea and sandwiches to a ninety-pound, gray waif. She was so weak and tired. It was time. Hospice was coming in a couple of days to get her out of pain. I couldn’t stand it. None of the medications seemed to help.