“Is any of this food?” Mom asked me, nodding her head toward the bags.
I shrugged. “That really depends on your definition of food, I think.”
I gestured for the three men behind me to follow us to the car.
Mom gave me an annoyed look. “Caroline. Honestly. My house isn’t in the Serengeti.”
“Well . . .”
We all laughed. Well, all of us except the three men with the muscles schlepping all my crap. They did not laugh at all. But they smiled very big when I gave them their very large tip. So that was something.
I had to sit in the front seat this time, because our packages filled the entire trunk and backseat of the car. But I felt much more relaxed knowing that we would have a well-appointed kitchen. Not as relaxed as I would have felt if we had had a personal chef. But pretty relaxed.
Vivi put in her earbuds in the backseat.
I smiled and said, “So Mom, what’s up with the hot bod? Is there a man?”
She scowled at me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know your father was the only man for me,” she snapped, defensively enough to make me think she was lying.
Her face looked weird when she said it, and I thought I should change the subject.
“Actually,” she said, “I figured I’d better keep myself in good shape since it appears that all of my daughters still need me from time to time.”
I leaned back on the headrest, putting my hands protectively over my stomach. In the rush of the day, it was the first time I had remembered to panic. I had Vivi, and the new baby was coming in a few weeks, and my husband was gone. Gone. I was going to be all alone. I mean, as alone as you could be with your mother, your two sisters, and your two nephews.
Mom looked at me briefly. “It’s going to be OK, you know.”
I was never one for showing weakness. I never acted anything less than totally confident in my abilities and my choices. But on this point, I wavered a bit. “Do you really believe that?” I whispered.
“Sure I do. As tough as you are, you can handle anything.”
I was tough. She was right. But sometimes you don’t want to have to be tough. I got that strength from my mother. I knew that. I had given her such a hard time the year she took us away from Manhattan, and I felt guilty for that every day. I understood her better now that I was on my own. Sometimes you have to have a fresh start to even be able to get out of bed. Truth be told, selfishly, I didn’t hate that she never remarried, because she was always there for us.
“Mom,” I said, “just so you know, you don’t have to be alone forever. Emerson and Sloane and I wouldn’t care. We wouldn’t think badly of you.”
“Carter was the love of my life. It’s hard to move on.”
She had never called him Carter to me before. It was jarring, though I couldn’t quite figure out why.
Mom looked at me briefly, right before we started on the bridge that crossed over from the beach town into Peachtree. “But you should, Caroline. Going it alone is OK. It has its merits. But there’s nothing like being with a man you love who loves you back. It’s worth everything.”
I often wonder if her never dating, never finding anyone new, was less about protecting us and more about being stuck in a holding pattern. I couldn’t imagine moving on right now, but I also knew myself well enough to know that I never did well being alone. I would probably find someone new eventually. And he’ll be hotter than Edie Fitzgerald, I couldn’t help but think. I looked down at my stomach. The man could at least have had the decency to leave me after I got my figure back. No couth at all, that James.
I felt that queasy rumble in my stomach again, the uncertainty in my decision, as we drove over the Peachtree Bluff bridge. The sunlight on the water sparkled and shone like a million hand-sewn crystals on an Oscars gown. It was breathtaking. I knew I should have told James that I left Manhattan, that I took Vivi with me. But I’d be able to throw him off the scent for at least a couple of weeks. And I deserved that. Just a couple of weeks on my own, a couple of weeks that weren’t about him.
Mothers have this sixth sense about things, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when Mom asked, “So what did James say when you told him you were moving Vivi to Peachtree?” I was trying to formulate some sort of half-truth when she said, “Caroline!” in that scolding tone I hated.
I was about to respond when she pulled into the brick driveway. At first, it all looked the same. The white clapboard house, perfectly symmetrical, with the Charleston green shutters, so dark that they almost looked black. The guesthouse with the garage underneath and those beautiful wooden doors, not the standard ones with the four glass panes. The picket fence that Mom and Mr. Solomon had been fighting about for half of my life. But something felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I saw her. Emerson sauntered out of the front door of the guesthouse—over which Mom had grown a beautiful jasmine vine—like she owned the place. She waved at us, with one hand in the back pocket of her slightly baggy boyfriend jeans, which were rolled up to her calves.
I loved the girl like I had birthed her. I swear I did. But if she was trying to take that guesthouse, this meant war.
SEVEN
world war three
ansley
The Peachtree airport houses exactly three planes in its hangar. One is a Citation jet that belongs to Susan Henderson, the leading asbestos attorney in the country. One is a spiffy new Cirrus that Jerry Cross takes back and forth to his winter place in the Bahamas. The third and only one I have ever been asked to fly on is Henry Birman’s. Henry is notoriously blind as a bat, and his old rust bucket belongs in an aviation museum. But those were only two of the reasons I never took him up on his offer to sweep me over to Florida to see my mom. The third and most important reason was that I was terrified of leaving three orphans.
After the horror of 9/11, I didn’t fly without my children for years and years. Sloane was terrified to fly. Bless her heart, Sloane was terrified of everything for years after her father died. I didn’t blame her. It was a terrifying event, one that shaped most of the people alive at the time. To be that close to it, to experience it the way we all did, took the fear to the next level. But I tried to show her every day, in small ways, that we had to carry on, we had to move forward. It saved me, having to be strong for those girls. I don’t even like to think about what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had them to live for.