Trent chuckles. “Now you sound like my grandfather. If he’d had his way, we would’ve put him in a jon boat and let him drift off down the Edisto River.”
“That seems perfectly lovely. Would you be so kind as to arrange the boat? And then I’ll find my way home to Augusta and float away down the Savannah.” She closes her eyes, smiling a bit. Within moments, her breaths lengthen, and her eyelids flutter in their pleated frames. The smile remains. I wonder if she is once again that little girl drifting on the muddy waters of the Mississippi aboard the shantyboat her father built.
I try to imagine having a history like hers, having lived two lives, having been, effectively, two different people. I can’t. I’ve never known anything but the stalwart stronghold of the Stafford name and a family who supported me, nurtured me, loved me. What was May’s life really like with her adoptive parents? I realize now, she never really told that part of the story. She only said that, after a heartbreaking stay in the children’s home, she and her sister had been given to a family.
Why did she stop the story there? Was the rest too private?
Even though she’s answered the question I came here to ask, and she’s requested that we not pry any further, I can’t help wanting to know more.
Trent seems to be feeling the same way. Of course he would. His family history is tied to May’s.
We hover on either side of the bed a few minutes, both of us watching her, lost in our own thoughts. Finally, we take our photographs and reluctantly withdraw from the room. Neither of us speaks until we’re out of earshot.
“I never knew any of that about my grandfather,” he says.
“It must be hard, finding out.”
Trent’s brows fold together. “It’s strange to think that Granddad came through that kind of thing growing up. It makes me admire him all the more—what he did with his life, what kind of person he was. But it also makes me mad. I can’t help wondering what his life would’ve been like if he hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time, if his parents hadn’t been poor, if someone had stopped the Tennessee Children’s Home Society before they ever got to him. If he’d grown up with the family he was born into, would he have been the same person? Did he love the river because he came from it or because the father who raised him fished on the weekends? May said he met some of his biological relatives. How did he feel about that? Why didn’t he ever introduce us to any of them? There are so many questions I’d like to ask him now.”
We wander to a stop just outside the front door, both of us reluctant to part ways and move toward our own cars. Our reason for being together has been swept away by May’s story. This should be goodbye, but I feel as if ties now exist and they’re not meant to be severed. “Do you think you’ll try to find any of them—your grandfather’s family?”
Tucking his hands in his jean pockets, he shrugs, looking down at the sidewalk. “It’s so far back, I can’t see the point. They’d be distant relatives of ours by now. Maybe that’s why my grandfather never bothered. I might do some more research, though. I’d like to know details…for Jonah and my nieces and nephews, if nothing else. Maybe they’ll ask someday. I don’t want any more secrets.”
The conversation wanes. Trent lightly runs his tongue along his lip, as if he wants to say something but can’t quite decide whether he should.
When we start up again, we tumble over each other.
“Thank you—”
“Avery, I know we—”
For some reason, we both find it funny. Laughter diffuses the tension a little.
“Ladies first.” He gestures my way, as if he’s ushering the words I’m about to say. I really don’t have the right ones. After what we’ve journeyed through these past few days, it seems almost inconceivable that this is the end. We’re bonded, or at least it feels that way.
Maybe I’m being silly. “I was just going to say thank you for all of this. For not sending me away empty-handed. I know that breaking the promise to your grandfather was hard. I don’t…” Our gazes meet. The rest of the sentence vanishes. My cheeks blaze. I’m once again aware of an unexpected chemistry between us. I thought it was the pull of the mystery, but now the mystery has been solved and the tickle of fascination is still there.
A random thought comes, completely unbidden, entirely unwanted: Maybe I’m making a mistake…with Elliot. And then I realize it’s not as random as it seems. I’ve only been sidestepping the question until now. Are Elliot and I in love, or are we just…in our thirties and feeling like it’s time? Do we have a deep, long-standing friendship, or do we have passion? Even though we’ve been telling ourselves we won’t be ramrodded by our families, have we allowed it to happen anyway? A bit of Leslie’s savvy political coaching comes back to me. Suddenly, it seems like evidence. If we do need to raise your public profile, Avery, a well-timed wedding announcement could fill the bill. Aside from that, it’s not advantageous for a pretty young thing to be single in Washington, no matter how well she minds her body language in social situations. The wolves need to know there’s officially no availability there.
I try to shake off the thought, but it’s like a sandbur in a horse’s forelock. Strands are twisted all around it. I can’t imagine changing course now. Everyone, everyone is expecting an announcement soon. The fallout would be…unthinkable. Honeybee and Bitsy would be heartbroken. Socially and politically, I’d look like a flake, a person who can’t make up her mind, who doesn’t know her own heart.
Am I?
“Avery?” Trent’s eyes narrow, and his head cocks to one side. He’s wondering what I’m thinking.
I can’t possibly tell him. “Your turn.” I don’t trust myself to say anything more, considering the wild track my mind has taken.
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“Not fair. What were you about to say, really?”
He surrenders without too much of a fight. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot that first day. Usually I wouldn’t talk to a customer that way.”
“Well, I wasn’t really a customer, so you’re excused.” He was actually pretty decent about it all, considering how pushy I was. In the end, I’m a Stafford through and through. I tend to assume that I’ll get what I want.
Which, I realize with a shiver, makes me eerily like the adoptive parents who inadvertently funded Georgia Tann’s business. No doubt some were well-meaning people and some of the children really did need homes, but others, especially those who knew that exorbitant fees were being forked over for made-to-order sons and daughters, must have had some idea of what was happening. They just assumed that money, power, and social position gave them the right.
Guilt stains this realization of mine. I think of all the privileges I’ve been given, including a Senate seat practically prepackaged for me.
Do I have a right to any of this, just because of the family I come from?
Trent’s hands tuck awkwardly back into his pockets. He glances at his car, then turns my way again. “Don’t be a stranger. Look me up next time you’re on Edisto.”
The idea strikes me like the sound of the bugle going off at the beginning of a cross-country hunt, when the horse’s muscles tense and I know that if I just loosen the reins, all that potential energy will be unleashed in one direction. “I’d really love to know what else you discover about your grandfather’s family…if you find anything, I mean. No pressure, though. I don’t want to be nosy.”
“Why stop now?”
I cough, pretending to be offended, but we both know it’s the truth. “It’s the lawyer in me. Sorry.”
“You must be a good lawyer.”
“I try to be.” I swell with the sense of pride that comes from having someone else affirm an accomplishment I care about. One I worked for myself. “I like to see things set right.”
“It shows.”
A car pulls up into a nearby parking space. The intrusion reminds both of us that we can’t stand here forever.