“Look,” he said to Mom. “My babies are ruined!” He pointed his cane at the tomatoes.
“You think you have problems? Now I have a full view of your disastrously unkempt yard.”
I looked over. The yard wasn’t going to be in Southern Living or anything, but it wasn’t horrible looking. They were both being pretty unreasonable, if you asked me.
“I want it back up,” Mr. Solomon said.
“Are you serious?” Mom asked. “All these years of fighting and hating me over this fence, and you want it back up?”
He sniffed. “I rather like the fence. It’s good for growing tomatoes. And I don’t like seeing into your yard.”
“The feeling is mutual.” Mom looked at Mr. Solomon intently. “So if I put the fence back up, you won’t terrorize me anymore? You won’t say it’s four inches on your property or threaten to watch me with security cameras or any of that?”
Mr. Solomon put his hand out for Mom to shake. “I’m too old to fight anymore. I’d rather be friends.”
I’ve never seen my mother so astonished. And honestly, I mean, I had thought this would help, but I had no idea how much. I knew I was good, but I had no idea I was this good.
As Mom shook Mr. Solomon’s hand, her phone rang. She put her finger up and walked across the yard to talk.
“Mr. Solomon,” I said, “do you promise you’re invested in this truce?”
He nodded. “I promise. I like getting your mother’s goat. But I think I’d rather drink coffee with her on the porch sometimes than have to take an extra blood-pressure pill every time we’re in the yard together.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “I know she feels exactly the same way.”
Mom returned, her face white.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, and I could see that there were tears in her eyes. “They’ve taken away your grandmother’s driver’s license.” She paused, looking totally defeated. “I’m going to bring her here until we can figure out our next steps.”
“Oh, Mom,” I said, looking back at the main house. “Seriously? We’re like Full House on steroids over here.”
“I know,” she said. “But what else are we going to do? John certainly isn’t going to take care of her.” She rolled her eyes. “Scott can’t. I’m not going to just dump her in some home.”
Uncle Scott had spent his life traveling the world. He’d never married or had kids, because nothing had ever been tempting enough to slow him down. He was a travel writer, and his life depended on his ability to jump on a plane to Ibiza one day and a boat to Virgin Gorda the next. It was a cool life, but even as a kid, I had known it wasn’t something I would ever have been able to do.
I didn’t know John well enough to comment, sadly.
Mr. Solomon didn’t say anything. He turned to walk back inside his house. But later that night, when I opened the back door, there was a small vase with four blue hydrangeas in it. It was a beautiful peace offering, and you couldn’t help but notice how my mom smiled when I handed her the flowers.
Even I couldn’t believe how easy it had been, after seven years of feuding, to mend fences. All it had taken, in fact, was tearing one down.
TWENTY-FIVE
the most natural thing
ansley
I am the official town decorator. I know. I’m a big deal. Whenever the library needs new carpet or the museum’s reading room needs to be updated, I am the person they call. It was my first paying gig when we moved back to Peachtree. I donate a ton of my time, too, because in the laundry list of positions I fill, this is one of my favorites. It appeared that I would be adding another role to that laundry list: caretaker. It isn’t somewhere a mind ever wants to go. But I guess that at fifty-eight, with an eighty-three-year-old mother, I knew this was coming. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but I had to have known that my mother wasn’t going to be able to live on her own forever.
I think that’s what hit me the hardest, realizing that her needing me, depending on anyone, was the beginning of the end. There was no question that my brother Scott got his independence from my mother. She was still living alone, cooking alone, driving alone. She still did her own grocery shopping and went to Zumba and walked her dog. Scott had taken the dog, much to my disappointment. But when I told Caroline that my mom was coming to stay, she had printed an article for me about a new study on how, while it was previously thought that dogs and humans couldn’t pass viruses and bacteria back and forth, they were now realizing that this wasn’t true—and dogs carry hundreds of viruses not usually found in humans.
I tacked one on the fridge, over hers, that said that children who grow up with dogs or cats have stronger immune systems—because they are exposed to hundreds of viruses not normally found in humans.
But honestly, despite how much I wanted a dog running around the house again, between the three daughters and the four grandchildren and now the mother, I had enough to take care of. So I let Caroline think she had won that one.
When I walked into the living room that morning, everything was quiet. Sloane was on the floor with Adam, sorting plastic animals by color.
“Wow!” I said. “Adam, you are so smart!”
He grinned up at me, plunking a green dinosaur beside the other green dinosaurs with enthusiasm.
“So you still think you’re going to do this homeschooling thing all the way through?”
Sloane nodded. “Absolutely. Then if Adam is transferred or deployed for a long time, I’m flexible. The kids won’t have to switch around to a bunch of different schools.”
Emerson walked down the stairs, eyes blurry, hair in a messy bun on top of her head.
Now that my mother was coming, Emerson had to move upstairs with the rest of us to make room.
I patted the couch beside me, and she snuggled up under my arm, head resting on my shoulder. She had always been my most affectionate child.
“That’s so good, Adam,” she said.
She smelled of perfume and alcohol.
“Aunt Emmy!” he shouted. “Watch this!”
She looked like she was resisting the urge to cover her ears. “How can Adam bear to miss this?” she asked. “How do you do it, Sloane? You are Superwoman.”
Sloane smiled. “This is what I chose, so I accept it. Plain and simple.” She shook her head. “But his twenty years are up in four more, and I sure do hope he chooses civilian life. This military stuff is a hard business.”
“Do you think he will?” I asked.
Sloane laughed. “Realistically? Not a chance. He loves it. It’s his passion.”
Caroline came in about that time. Except that Caroline doesn’t really come in. She makes an entrance; she arrives. She was all dolled up, her hair fixed, her makeup done. It was shocking to see her in wedges and a dress after a few weeks of lounging around.
“You look fantastic, sweets,” I said. “Where are you going?”
She looked at me like I was dense. “To pick up Grammy, obviously.”