Slightly South of Simple

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  Vivi walked in through the back door as Emerson jogged in through the front, sweat around her ponytail, the back of her shirt wet.

  “Are we ready?” she asked.

  I pointed to the stove. “Eggs first.”

  Emerson sat down at the island, and I pulled out a big stack of paper plates and started doling out eggs and strawberries.

  “Viv,” I said, “could you please take this to Grammy?”

  She jumped off the stool.

  “What about the papers?” Emerson asked.

  “We were just talking about that,” I said. “I don’t think there’s any way I can move on. I think we should make a clean break. It will be easier on everyone that way.”

  “You should go to therapy,” Emerson said. “Oh! Oh! You can consciously uncouple like Gwyneth.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure I’m the conscious-uncoupling type. I’m more the give-me-half-your-money-you-loser type.”

  Vivi came back in, and we buttoned it back up.

  “How come Gwammy gets to eat in the wiving woom?” Adam asked.

  “Because she has a broken ankle, my love,” Sloane said. “It’s very, very hard for her to walk into the kitchen.”

  “And she’s old,” Vivi whispered. We all smiled.

  It was a perfect morning, by all accounts. Everything seemed right, despite my bad news. Any decision at all felt like a relief. But we would say later that something was in the air. We were all on edge, for no reason we could discern.

  I chalked it up to Mr. Solomon’s death in the house right next door, to the idea and remembrance that our time here wasn’t guaranteed. But in hindsight, I know that it was something more.

  I retrieved a Dollar Tree bag from the pantry and doled out the obscene amount of bubbles and sidewalk chalk I’d picked up the day before. It would buy us at least twenty minutes.

  I laid out an extra mat for Preston, who cooed and kicked at the air. Mom would be home any minute. We thought about waiting for her, but we decided against it.

  If we had waited, we would have had a few more seconds of normal, a few more seconds of that happy, easy morning, with no makeup and plenty of free time, when life felt like those summers when we were children. The worries were few, the cares far between.

  My back was turned to the fence, and I was getting everyone stretched out before we started. Which was why I didn’t see what was behind me. But I saw Sloane’s face go white. And I saw Emerson grab her hand.

  I turned, and my first instinct was to get Adam, which I did. I scooped him up and ran into the house, putting him on the couch with Grammy. She was snoozing, and his TV channel was still on.

  When I saw those uniforms, I knew I didn’t want it to be his first memory. I didn’t want him to look back on his life and know that the very first thing he remembered was those two men telling him what I could only assume would be the worst news of his life, news that would steal his childhood and haunt him forever.

  I knew what that was like. We all did.

  And I knew this drill. I knew that one of those uniformed men was a soldier, and one was a chaplain. We had been told about this, debriefed. I knew what that meant. Or, at least, I thought I did.

  I ran back outside, into that peaceful, sunny day, where Vivi was blowing bubbles and Taylor was giggling, where Preston was lying calmly on his back, discovering his hands. Where my sister was quiet but sitting on the ground, her head in her hands, my other sister wrapped around her.

  “We have to pray for the best,” the chaplain said. “We have to know that, either way, this isn’t the end.”

  It might not have been the end of the world, but it was the end of Sloane’s world. It was the end of our family’s world. Life was too short, I remembered yet again. Life was too short not to live by your own terms, not to make up your own rules. As the sob came up in my throat so violently it nearly choked me, as I wrapped up my sister on her other side, all at once I knew exactly what to do about those papers.

  THIRTY-THREE

  tatters

  ansley

  Peachtree has a group of “funeral fairies.” When someone dies, they are the women who swoop in, hold hands, wipe noses, make casseroles, organize visitations and postfuneral food. They are the ones who slip the spouses a Valium, tip the priest to forget that old Harry was a drunk who hadn’t set foot in a church in decades, and organize a crowd for the graveside if it was someone who was less than well liked around town.

  When I saw my three girls sitting on the front lawn, those men in uniform standing in front of them, I turned for a moment to look out over the water. It was as though I was outside myself, watching what was happening. We knew that this was a possibility. When you are in a military family, you were trained to dread this day. But why Sloane? After all the nightmares, the terror, the trauma that she experienced when her father died, why would those funeral fairies have to visit her?

  We all went through it when Carter died. But Sloane’s experience had been the worst of all. So bad, in fact, that it was one of the greatest shocks of my life that she decided to date someone in the military. Knowing how scared she was and how much unknown was involved in that life, I was surprised that she would take the risk.

  But, as I well knew, we don’t get to choose whom we love.

  Caroline finally saw me, and she ran out through the gate to the sidewalk, where I was standing. I was frozen there, as if what was happening on my front lawn was a picture. I was seeing it, but none of it was happening to me. It was outside of me, like a dream I couldn’t imagine was true but I also couldn’t wake up from.

  I thought I was crying, so I was surprised at how strong my voice was when I said, “How did it happen?”

  Caroline shook her head. “He’s MIA. It might be OK. He might still be alive.”

  I felt a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, knowing that this could potentially be worse for Sloane than if he were dead. The uncertainty, the fear that he was being tortured, that instead of going out with one, clean, painless shot, he was being killed slowly. It was more than I could bear. I remembered that feeling all too well.

  I hadn’t known if Carter was dead. I wanted to believe that he had been killed instantly, but what if he hadn’t? What if he was buried under the rubble, still gasping for air, still holding on to hope that someone would find him? That, for me, was the very worst part.

  I should have asked more, heard more, known more. I should have been begging for information and wanting to know every detail, but it didn’t really matter. There was nothing that any of us could do. I should have been feeling this unimaginable aching pain for Adam. But instead, as so often happens when you’re a mother, I was thinking about my child, about her hurt, about how her life had changed. Adam was in God’s hands. But Sloane was still in mine.

  Emerson helped me scoop her up off the lawn and take her upstairs. She wasn’t sobbing anymore. She was eerily quiet. I wanted to take that quiet for calm, but I knew better. I remembered that quiet. It was a panic that defied anything your body was capable of doing, any sound it was capable of making. It was an otherworldly quiet, one that I had hoped none of my daughters would ever experience.

  I tucked Sloane into bed, although I’m not sure why. She wasn’t sick. But it felt like the right thing to do. Your mother tucking you into bed is taking care of you. I sat beside Sloane and said, “Emmy, please make Sloane some tea.”

  “I don’t want tea,” she whispered. “I just want Adam.” And that was when the sobbing began again.

  I knew what I was up against now. I knew about the sleepless nights, the crying anywhere, anytime, the inability to eat or drink or even think. This was going to be a living nightmare. Again.

  Mothers are supposed to know what to do, but there’s no handbook for this. There’s no appropriate response for something this horrible. So I sat and held Sloane’s hand. I sat there until the sun set and the moon rose across the water. I sat there, looking out the window, praying for good news b
ut that even if it wasn’t good news, it would be news that arrived quickly. It was more out of habit than anything. Anyone could see that God had betrayed my family yet again. We were on our own.

  Somewhere in there, Sloane fell asleep, though she wouldn’t be asleep for long, I knew. I got up, and Emerson met me in the hall. “I’ll sleep with her tonight,” she said, “in case she wakes up and is scared.”

  I hugged her. “That would be so sweet.”

  I wasn’t sure who had taken care of Grammy, Taylor, and Adam today, but there was no doubt that Emerson and Caroline had had their hands full. I tiptoed down the stairs to check on my mother, but before I got to the hallway to her bedroom, I noticed a man sitting on the front porch.

  “Hi,” I whispered as I opened the door.

  Jack stood up to hug me, and for the first time, I broke down and started to cry.

  “How could this happen?”

  He shook his head. “It’s so awful. Can I do anything?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do. I think this is going to be months on end of my taking care of Sloane and the children.” I sighed and felt the tears in my eyes when I said, “I’m not sure this is the right time for us.”

  Jack pulled away from me, a genuinely shocked expression on his face. “What does any of this have to do with us?”

  “Jack,” I said softly, “don’t you understand? My life has to be about them right now.”

  He sat down on the porch couch and rubbed his face with his hands. “Ansley,” he said. “Don’t you know that I understand that? It’s not like I’m going to be suggesting we run off for a weekend in Paris or anything. Would I like to date? Sure. And we’ll have time for that someday. But right now, we’ll have this instead. I’m fine with this. I want this.” He paused. “I want this more than anything.”

  Tears streamed down my face again. I thought of how good he had been with Adam and Taylor, how sweet he was with my mom, how patient he had been with this circus of a life I was leading. But my throat constricted with the fear that Jack was getting too close. I thought back to Jack calling Adam and Taylor his grandchildren, which, technically, they were. And my conviction returned.

  I shook my head. “I can’t handle it right now, Jack. I just can’t.”

  “Why would you do this, Ansley? This isn’t a good reason. It isn’t an excuse. You need me now more than ever. Let me be here for you and the kids. Why are you so damn intent on pushing me away?”

  “Because I’ve done it alone for sixteen years!” I shouted. Then I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Because every time I’m with you, I remember that I cheated on my husband, that you are the father of my two eldest daughters, that my entire life is a lie!”

  He looked as though I had stabbed him in the heart. “A lie that you created, Ansley. You. Not me.” I could see that he was biting the insides of his cheeks. “They’re mine too, Ansley.” He looked around before he added, “They are my children. And my grandchildren. I want you, Ansley. More than anything. But I want them, too.”

  I shook my head almost violently. “Can’t you see, Jack? That’s what I’m afraid of. What they know and when they know it has to be on my terms. Your being here puts my entire life at risk.”

  The hurt in his face was so pronounced I had to look away. He shocked me by saying, “You’re right.”

  “What?”

  “You’re right. It does. It puts your whole life at risk.” He took my hand. “But it puts my whole life at risk, too. If I told them, if they found out and it wasn’t the right time in the right way, I’m out. It’s over. If it doesn’t go well then I never even have the chance to get to know them. No matter what, I would never ever risk that.”

  “How can I really know that?”

  “You can’t. You just have to trust me. I would think that now, forty-three years in, you’d be able to do that.” He looked down and licked his lips. “I couldn’t stand it,” he said. “After I knew that Caroline was born, I couldn’t stand it, knowing that out there somewhere, I had a child. And that the woman I loved and this child of mine were with this other man.”

  I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, but by this point, I wasn’t sure what they were for. This was an awful story, sure. But it paled in comparison with what my daughter was going through right upstairs. “I’m sorry,” was all I could squeak out. It was woefully inadequate but yet, at the same time, all I could truly offer him.

  He crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch cushions, pushing his hair back with both hands in a way that, to anyone else, might have seemed like nothing but to me seemed like utter agony. “I came to New York,” he said.

  My heart was beating in time to his words, a metronome keeping rhythm to a song I wished I didn’t have to hear. Simply knowing where this story could go, what a nightmarish disaster could have transpired, put the fear of God in me for what could happen in the future. And I understood what he was saying about it being a risk for him, too. But it wasn’t the same thing. Not even close.

  “I don’t know what I thought I was going to do. Talk to you, work things out in private, lay eyes on Caroline.” He looked so pitiful that I could feel my heart breaking for maybe the hundredth time that day. “I was going to come to your apartment, assuming that Carter would be at work. But while I was thinking about what I would say to you, I took a walk through Central Park. It was cold that day, and I remember stuffing my hands into my pockets, blowing out my breath, wondering if you were really happy, allowing myself to envision the possibility that maybe you would choose me, that you would take me over him.”

  “Jack, I—”

  He cut me off, but I could barely hear him, my heart was banging so loudly in my ears, the tears choking me.

  “As luck, or what I believed at the moment to be fate, would have it, I saw you. In this city of millions of people, I saw you and Caroline and Carter. You were pushing the stroller, and he was holding her, and you were all laughing. He had his arm around you, and you looked like a postcard or a movie or something. It was all so perfect. And I knew you were happy. I knew you had what you wanted. And so I walked away, not for the first time and certainly not for the last. But once Carter died, and certainly by now, I can’t see why you keep pushing me away. So I have to assume that you don’t love me. Plain and simple.”

  I could tell that in the midst of this monologue, Jack’s sadness had switched to something more akin to rage. So I softened my tone and said, “Can’t you understand—”

  But he cut me off again. “What I understand,” he said, “is that I’ve been waiting for you for a lifetime, Ansley. I’ve been there for you at every turn. I have pined and prayed and hoped.” He was so worked up he had to catch his breath. “I only assumed that our being thrown back together like this was the sign I had wished for. I want to be here for you, but you won’t let me. You’re always going to see me in the same way.”

  I could feel tears in my eyes. But really, this was so far from the most important thing going on in my life. My daughter was in tatters. That was all that truly mattered.

  But it didn’t keep it from feeling like I was in tatters, too, when he said, “I’m done, Ansley. I’m gone. I won’t be here waiting anymore. I have nothing more to give you. You have taken it all.”

  He stood up to walk away, and everything in me wanted to follow him, call him back, something.

  I understood how horrible this moment with Jack was; it registered with me that my life had just crumbled around me again. But when your children are in pain, that’s all you can think about. And the difference between Jack and me was that this was a sensation he’d never know. And I realized that it might be too steep a barrier to cross.

  * * *

  SAVING SEA TURTLES MIGHT be all the rage in coastal towns now, but in Peachtree Bluff, we’ve been doing that for well more than a century. My grandmother still had dusty photos of men and women, dressed in full wool outfits that looked anything but beachlike, buil
ding barriers around turtle nests as early as 1905. The Turtle Brigade, as they called themselves, would walk right over the bridge to where the landscape changed from sound to beach and go to work.

  Back then, I didn’t realize the value of what they were doing or the sanctity of these little lives. I used to wonder if all of that was necessary. Did the sea turtles need barriers around their nests? Was this something that we should even be doing? Or were the turtles perfectly capable of taking care of themselves?

  I remember asking my brother why people were interrupting the circle of life, why they were changing biology. He explained to me how people help the turtles. And then Scott said, “But Ansley, you’ll learn that humans don’t think they are a part of biology. They think they are above it.”

  I never forgot that night, sitting beside him on the beach, watching the Turtle Brigade go to work. I never forgot what he said. And I realized when Caroline was born that I thought I was above biology.

  The day Caroline was born, everything changed. Everything always changes, of course, when a new life comes into the world. But for me, it was more than that. Because I knew the moment I held her in my arms that it wasn’t only my life that was changing. It was my marriage, too.

  We never talked about it. That was the deal. But I could see the way Carter studied her, the way he examined her features, looking for something, anything, that would prove that maybe it had been a miracle, maybe Caroline was his after all. Those first few months, when she had those big blue eyes, people would say, “She looks exactly like her daddy.”

  And she did look like her daddy. Her real daddy. She looked exactly like Jack. It was somewhat eerie, actually, how little she resembled me, how little it mattered that I had made the egg, that I had been the one who had done the work of growing her for nine months and would continue to put every ounce of who I was and what I had into raising her, long after she was the age where she actually needed to be raised.