Adam was nervously pouring everyone a glass of champagne to sip while we exchanged gifts. Ted gave Adam a beautiful cashmere cardigan from Ben Silver. “A sweater!” Adam said and held up the sweater for everyone to see. Adam’s sweaters now totaled eight.
“I helped him pick it out,” Clarabeth said.
“Oh! Well! I don’t think I own anything this nice,” Adam said. “Thank you!”
“Oh, my!” I said as I pulled off the wrapping paper to find a Vitamix from Williams Sonoma. “I’ve always wanted one of these! Thank you, Ted!”
“Well, good! I had Adam search through all your appliances and whatnot to see if you had one.”
“She has a lot of kitchen equipment,” Adam said, as though Clarabeth would be fascinated to learn that.
“Wonderful!” Clarabeth said.
Well, at least she’s polite, I thought. “I am delighted to have it! I’m so sorry I don’t have a package for you, Clarabeth, but to be honest . . .”
“Teddy didn’t tell you I was coming?” Clarabeth said, pleasantly. “Well, it’s a gift enough just to be here with you all! I didn’t want to intrude, but he insisted that I come with him. And you know, Adam, your father can be very persuasive when he wants something.”
“You don’t have to tell me that!” Adam said with a nervous laugh.
“Yep. I reckon so!” Ted said.
“Wow,” said Luke.
Ted announced that he had been keeping company with Clarabeth for quite a while. In fact, he had been living on her plantation on the Ashley River for the past five months.
Shock was all over Adam’s face. “How did I not know this, Dad? You’ve been holding out on me! All the time we spend at work together and you never told me a thing!”
Dad still came to work a few days a week for a few hours.
“Well, you know it now,” Ted said. “I think I’m gonna have seconds!”
“I’ll get it for you,” I said, already on my feet.
“Thanks,” Ted said and handed me his plate.
“This roast was absolutely delicious, Eliza!” Clarabeth said. “In fact, everything was delicious.”
“Yes. It’s wonderful, Eliza. Thank you for another fabulous meal!” Adam said, trying to recover. He raised his glass of red wine. “To Eliza!”
“To Mom!” the boys said.
“To Eliza!” the others said.
“Thank you,” I said with a slight curtsy. “Thank you!”
I put Ted’s plate before him and resumed my seat. Clarabeth, who swore she never drank any alcohol, was on her third glass of wine and had become very chatty.
“So, after Arthur died—poor Arthur was my third husband—and left me the plantation, I have to admit, things started falling apart. It’s a big old house to run and I just needed a man’s help. There was just no way around it. I mean, I can’t be climbing up ladders to fix gutters. Not at my age.”
I had a vision of Clarabeth, dressed up like Rosie the Riveter, climbing up an extension ladder wearing a tool belt and a schmatte tied around her wig.
“Not at any age,” Ted said, smiling at Clarabeth.
“Are you on the Ashley? How many acres do you have?” I asked.
“Yes. Well, in its day there were probably two thousand or more. Now there’s just around twenty-five. But that’s still a lot of grass to cut.”
“I’ll say,” Adam said. “Dad? Are you cutting grass?”
“No, I manage the guy who cuts the grass. Do we have coffee?”
“I’ll get you a cup.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh. Of course you do. Somehow, I couldn’t see you pushing a mower. So, how did you two meet?”
“Well, Clarabeth advertised in the Post and Courier for a caretaker. And you know how I like to be handy, fixing things that need fixing and whatnot.”
“What are you telling me, Dad?”
“I’m giving you my two weeks’ notice, unless you need me, of course.”
“Are you kidding?” Adam was incredulous.
“No, son. I got a better job. Do you blame me?”
Oh, my God, I thought.
chapter 7
eliza
wild dunes, 1995
It was at least a hundred degrees in the shade when we turned into the parking lot of our condo at Wild Dunes. I had Luke in my SUV riding shotgun and Max was riding with Adam. Together we formed a small convoy, the boys making faces at each other as we occasionally passed each other on the highway, glazing the passenger window with their spit. We were returning for another vacation because the boys had begged and because Adam’s father and benefactress had petitioned us with surprising fervency to join us. They wanted time with the twins. Family time. This was something new for us—to have Ted more involved with the boys and Clarabeth taking the role of an ad hoc grandmother. But the boys loved the attention and no one seemed to be the worse for it. In fact, over time we had all come to love Clarabeth. I had no objection to her affection or to the idea of them joining us at Wild Dunes, but there were unspoken boundaries that had to be honored. This new togetherness business still had the earmarks of potential trouble. And sure enough, Adam bore the brunt of a badly conceived idea.
“Or, here’s a great thought! We could rent a larger condo and all stay together!” Ted had said to him.
Poor Adam had to think fast about that because he knew I wouldn’t be receptive to company for the entire vacation—two more mouths to feed at every meal I cooked for two weeks? How could it be a vacation for me if I was entertaining, shopping, cooking, and cleaning up all the time? Never mind listening to Clarabeth the magpie natter on until we all thought we might like to jump off a bridge. Yes, Clarabeth may have been bighearted and generous to a fault, but as we got to know her we realized she could, as my father used to say, talk a dog off a meat truck.
But Ted and Clarabeth under the same roof with us for two solid weeks would have been a prescription for a familial cataclysmic disaster. Fortunately, Adam was on his toes.
He said, “You know what, Dad? Why don’t I see about the arrangements? Let’s see what’s available. But between us? Our boys like to get up with the sun and start raising hell.”
“That’s what little boys do,” his father said and had a little chuckle.
Adam went even further to ensure a separate residence for them.
“Listen, between us? We’re having a hard time getting them to flush the toilets, much less put the seats down. And if Clarabeth likes to sleep in the mornings, she’d need earplugs. For sure.”
Adam said Ted looked at him and ever so slowly a smile of understanding crept across his face. He’d had a wife. He knew the deal.
“My dad’s no dummy,” Adam said. “He said, ‘Tell you what, son. Why don’t you try to find us something near you? A one-bedroom would be fine. We can visit each other. And we’re only staying for one week.’ Thank God!”
While the limited term of their visit was a relief, Ted’s words confirmed what Adam suspected, that Ted was sharing a bed with Clarabeth. We thought, Wow.
“I told him, ‘Whatever you want to do is fine with me.’”
“This will work out just fine,” I said.