Slightly South of Simple Read online

  In the midst of our salads, I saw Emerson watching someone. I turned to see a man walking down the street. I realized it was Mark, whom Emerson had started dating her sophomore year of high school, and I had wished she hadn’t, simply because you know that something that starts when you’re fifteen probably isn’t going to last. I had adored him. Mark’s great-grandparents had partnered with my grandparents many times in the shipping industry. They had been dear friends. Mark was still in the family business, which, to me, said a lot about him and how much he valued tradition. Plus, he was sweet to her and nice and would make good-looking grandchildren. As he made his way to the front gate, Mark seemed taller than I remembered, but then again, it was possible he had grown in the last ten years. He had a head of sandy-blond hair and blue eyes, not clear like Emerson’s but dark navy blue. He was wearing freshly ironed khaki shorts with a Vineyard Vines shirt tucked in and a UGA belt. He was very Southern, not like those men Emerson was always taking up with in LA, with their skinny blue jeans that looked like they belonged on a teenage girl. Mark was darling. But I had a feeling that if he was barking up this tree, he might get his little heart hurt.

  Sloane raised her eyebrows at Emerson, who wiped her mouth, stood up, and said, “Come in, come in,” motioning toward the still-closed gate. She stood on her toes to give Mark what could only be described as a rather awkward hug. “How are you?” she asked.

  “Sorry to interrupt dinner,” he said.

  “Oh, not at all,” I said. I pointed toward Jack. “Jack, Mark. Mark, Jack.”

  Jack stood to shake Mark’s hand.

  No one said anything for maybe two seconds, but it felt painfully long. “Mark, please come join us,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “Oh, that’s OK,” he said.

  “No, really,” Emerson added. “I was going to take the kids for ice cream after dinner. Come with me. We can catch up.”

  He grinned, finally relaxing. “That sounds great.”

  “Sounds great to me, too!” Vivi chimed in.

  I couldn’t read Emerson, couldn’t tell if she was happy to see Mark or just being polite.

  After a few more minutes of eating, Emerson and Mark headed down the street with Vivi and Adam for dessert, since the cake was extra tipsy, while Sloane put Taylor to bed. I frantically dialed Caroline again. And texted her. Twice.

  Jack walked into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “Why would you be like this?” he asked. His hurt expression really did make me feel bad. “The girls acted like you’d be happy I was here.”

  “Jack,” I said, “you know why I would be like this.”

  He shook his head. “Ansley, it was fine. Nothing is going to happen. It’s all fine.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Carter’s gone, Ansley. Carter’s gone, the girls are grown. We haven’t seen each other in decades. It’s all fine.”

  I bit my lip, wanting to believe him, wanting to be able to erase my uneasy feelings as easily as he could. Jack took my hand. “I know. I know that this may never happen. But Ansley, knowing something shouldn’t happen is different from knowing it can’t. And neither of those things is going to keep me from wanting to be with you.”

  I smiled sadly, knowing that was true. “I know, Jack. But it doesn’t leave us in a different place.”

  He nodded and glanced down, looking so sad for a moment that I almost wrapped him up and kissed him hard right then and there.

  “Ansley, I have let you be for years and years. I’ve respected you, respected your wishes, played the role that you wanted me to play. But everything is different now. I can’t see any logical reason that we have to be apart. I stayed away from you for so many years. Now I’m just done.”

  I knew what he meant. I knew the feeling. Because I couldn’t count the number of times I had wanted to go to him over the past fifteen years, the number of times I had pictured what it would be like if I showed up on his doorstep, if he pulled me to him, kissed me like no time had passed at all. In my heart of hearts, it was what I wanted. In my head, it was all more complicated than that.

  I didn’t know how to answer. So I said, “Caroline.”

  “Want me to help you look for her?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. I suppressed this incredible urge to be close to a man, to be held by him, to be safe in his arms. Not just any man. The man. Jack. If Carter wasn’t ever going to come back, I only wanted Jack.

  My phone rang, and a bolt of fear jolted through me. I held up the phone. “James.”

  “Don’t panic,” James said when I answered.

  Nothing good ever starts with the words “Don’t panic.”

  “What’s happening?”

  He sighed. “Caroline is in labor.”

  “Oh, my gosh, but she isn’t due for . . .” I did the math in my head. “Nineteen days.”

  “Yeah,” James said. “I know. She isn’t happy.” He paused. “She’s very unhappy that I’m here. She’s very unhappy that Hummus isn’t here. But on the bright side, she’s not freaking out about the hospital germs.” He paused. “Obviously, I’ve already sterilized every surface and put new sheets on her bed. But that’s pretty benign, considering.”

  “Does she want us?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She wants you all.”

  “Even Emmy?”

  “Even Emmy.”

  My phone beeped, and I looked down at the screen. My brother Scott. Obviously, this was not the time to chat, so I texted him, BABY TIME!!!!

  He texted back, Right on! Tell Caroline if it’s a boy his name better be Scott.

  “Tell our girl we’re on our way.” I looked up at Jack. “Is this what you imagined? All those times over the years you thought about coming to see me, is this what you envisioned?”

  He kissed my hand, which I realized he had been holding all that time. “Ansley, this is what I’ve dreamed about my entire life. The only thing that could make it better would be to rewind thirty years and get to start from there.” He paused. “Or, well, you know, at least fifteen.”

  I took a deep breath. I called Emerson. “Hey,” I said. “Caroline is in labor, and she wants all of us, even you.” I was so excited and distracted I didn’t even have time to consider what was happening between Mark and her.

  “Oh, my gosh! OK, you guys go ahead, and Vivi and I will meet you.”

  “OK, then. We’ll see you soon.”

  I grabbed my keys and my purse. “All right, Jack,” I said. “I’ll let you know if my new grandchild is a boy or a girl.”

  He looked at me, confused. “Let me know? I’m going with you.”

  “Jack!” I looked at him in amazement.

  He put his hands up. “I’m kidding, Ansley. I get it.” He paused. “In my defense, this dinner wasn’t my idea. What was I supposed to say? Those girls are persuasive as hell.”

  “Just please remember what I said.”

  He nodded. I grabbed my keys and ran out the back door.

  My fourth grandchild was getting ready to come into the world. Three weeks early. But it’s at moments like these that you have to trust that the universe knows what it’s doing. Any fool could see that our family wasn’t at its best. But I couldn’t help feeling that all was right with the world.

  EIGHTEEN

  pipe dream

  caroline

  Emerson had taken a long time to grow hair when she was a baby. I mean, she had some, but it was really short. By the time she turned three, I was sick and tired of people saying, “What a beautiful little boy.”

  Mom and Dad did not seem terribly concerned about this state of affairs, which annoyed me to no end. I considered getting her a wig, but she wouldn’t even keep a hat on, so I knew that wouldn’t work.

  One afternoon, when Mom had a dentist appointment and we had a sitter, I formulated a plan. Sloane would distract the sitter, saying that she needed a lot of help with her homework. I would kidna
p Emerson.

  It worked like a charm. I had Emerson in the stroller and out the door before anyone was the wiser. I was ten, so no, I wasn’t allowed to babysit or go out by myself. But, well, as you might imagine, the rules have not always been my primary concern.

  I walked to the jewelry store two blocks away, pulled out the allowance I had stuffed into my pockets, picked out a tiny pair of diamond studs, and said, “I’d like to get my sister’s ears pierced, please.”

  The angst-filled teenager with the earring gun gave me a second look. To my surprise, I didn’t even have to launch into the neatly planned diatribe I had practiced to talk her into it.

  Emerson screamed, of course. But I gave her the sucker I’d brought, and that calmed her down quickly. On the way back to the apartment, someone stopped me and said, “What a beautiful little girl.”

  Mission accomplished.

  What I hadn’t counted on was that my mom would come home early or that she would call the police. I mean, yeah, I knew she was going to be mad. But I didn’t know how mad.

  When I left Emerson’s film set that day, I knew exactly how mad I was.

  There were so many things fighting for position in the forefront of how illogically, inexplicably pissed off I was. I think that term is really vulgar, so when I say it, I’m serious. My sister. My own sister. My flesh and blood. Was playing, on TV, for the world to see, the woman my husband had left me for. It was vile. Despicable. And the media was going to have a heyday with it.

  If I could have put myself in Emerson’s shoes, I couldn’t blame her, really. It was a good opportunity for her. It was a starring role in a film with an A-list director. Just because my dream had crapped out, that didn’t mean hers should, too. But I couldn’t put myself in her shoes.

  She hadn’t even had the decency to talk to me about it. Emerson would have accepted this role long before she knew that James was cheating with Edie. But if she had sat me down and explained, I would have . . . Well, I would have been livid.

  But she was my little sister. I usually cut her more slack than most people. Eventually.

  I couldn’t wait to get home and give her a big, fat piece of my mind.

  But before I could, I felt this sharp pain in my stomach, one that I recognized all too well. But I was thirty-seven weeks. I was sure it was Braxton-Hicks, my body preparing itself for the real thing.

  The pain was getting sharper. And fast. I was going to call my mom, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to worry her yet—and I especially didn’t want to worry Vivi. So I did something I couldn’t have imagined: I called James. I wanted him to worry.

  “Hello,” he answered breathlessly.

  “I am not forgiving you, and I do not want to be with you, but I’m pretty sure I’m in labor.” I groaned. “And it feels really strange. Not like last time at all.”

  We’ve established how I feel about hospitals, but like I said, once the grand event was actually taking place, I ran right in, because, you know, I didn’t want the baby to fall out on the floor. I was less acutely aware of the germs but more aware of the horrid fluorescent lights.

  Before James even arrived, the doctor confirmed that the baby was breech and he was performing a C-section stat. This baby was coming, ready or not.

  I was kind of whimpery, because my midwife, Hummus, who would be flying in next week to wait until the baby arrived, wasn’t there, and I wanted a normal birth, and it was three weeks early, and all of that. So I give James a tiny amount of credit for taking care of everything, for scrubbing in and wearing that ridiculous hat and mask.

  He held my hand and looked down and brushed my hair off my sweaty forehead and said, “Car, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. I’m so grateful for all of this.”

  He was right. I didn’t want to hear it. What I did want to hear was how my baby was. “Everything OK down there, Doc?” I asked.

  Right about that time, I heard this unfathomably beautiful cry, and he didn’t even have to announce what the baby was, because before I saw baby, I saw some sort of yellowish liquid flying through the air. Yeah. So that pipe dream that maybe my kid wouldn’t pee on me like Sloane’s was not going to come true after all. One minute in the world, and he’d already started.

  “Oh, my gosh! It’s a boy!” James said. “I was sure it was another girl.”

  I tried not to feel resentful that James got to hold my son first. He didn’t deserve it. But I was tired and happy and relieved, so I let it go. James held the baby up to my face, and I kissed him. “Hi, Preston. Welcome to the world.”

  “Is he OK?” I asked the doctor.

  “He’s absolutely perfect,” the nurse said. “He’s all yours, Mom.”

  By the time the nurses were wheeling the bed holding Preston and me—he was now cuddled up to my chest where he belonged—my very surprised family was in the waiting room. When they saw me coming down the hall, I heard Vivi first. “The baby is already born?” she asked.

  “Sure is, kiddo,” James said. “You have a baby brother!”

  “Can I hold him, Mom?” Vivi asked.

  My mom walked over and took Vivi’s arm. “Sweets, let’s let Mom get settled in her room, OK?” Then I heard her say, “James, you make sure that vile curtain is gone. Sprint!”

  I couldn’t help but remember when Vivi was born, what a perfect day that had been. James and I had been so happy, so in love, and I had been certain that we were going to have the best life together. Nothing could come between us, nothing could hurt us. But something had. Irreparably, I was afraid. And so, while I was ecstatically in love with my new son, I was also worried about what his life was going to look like. I could already say that no matter what some judge said, James was not getting my baby every other weekend. That was not happening. Not a chance.

  I didn’t know that tears were running down my cheeks.

  “Are you in pain?” James asked.

  “I most certainly am,” I said. “I want you out.”

  “But Caroline—”

  “Out, James. I mean it.”

  “He’s my baby, too.”

  “You should have thought about that,” I said coldly.

  He made a face like I had crushed his hopes and dreams. Please. Shoulders slumped, James left, and I smelled the sweet top of my son’s head. I knew my whole family was going to come into the room in a minute. But for now, he was all mine. No one else’s. And no matter what happened with James and me, no matter what sacrifice I’d had to make to get Preston here, it had all been worth it for this one, perfect moment.

  NINETEEN

  plain and simple

  ansley

  Carter and I found out he couldn’t have children during a visit to Peachtree. I remember standing in my grandmother’s kitchen, dialing the doctor’s office on her rotary phone—it was 1982, after all—my heart beating louder with every click-click-click the dial made as it returned to zero. Devastated doesn’t begin to describe how we felt, but we held it together pretty well. I gained so much respect for Carter, because he didn’t let it wound his pride. He didn’t act diffident or moody or let it make him feel like less of a man. He simply suggested that we go back to the drawing board. We agreed pretty much immediately that we’d use a sperm donor.

  I expected to have a hospital stay after my IUI—a term I much preferred to “artificial insemination.” But I expected it to come about nine months later, not in two days. When I started feeling pain in my uterus, I was thrilled. I knew something was happening. I thought that something was a baby, not a massive infection that would soon cause my low-grade fever to spike to almost 104 and make me spend more than a week in the hospital, much of which I don’t remember.

  Carter never left my side. And he never said anything about the baby.

  I remember crying the night we got home, sitting with Carter on the couch in our living room, feeling as low as I had ever felt. But Carter held me and stroked my hair.

  “We just have to try
it again,” I finally said. “It will work the next time.”

  It was a minor miracle that the infection hadn’t ravaged my insides, hadn’t destroyed my ability to carry a child at all. As stubborn as I was being, you couldn’t help but wonder if a husband who was shooting blanks and a wife who nearly died from an extremely rare complication while trying to conceive weren’t signs to hang up the baby thing.

  I’ll never forget the way Carter looked at me, the shock in his face. “Ansley, no,” he said. “We will never, ever do this again.”

  And then he began to cry, too, something I’d seen only when his father died. I thought it was because of the frustration, the anger, the lack of control.

  But he said, “You have no idea how sick you were. What if I had lost you? No matter what else happens, I can’t lose you.”

  That was the moment I realized that what you see in movies, what you read about in books, that isn’t the good part. Not at all. The butterflies make you feel giddy and alive, and that’s sweet. But it’s what happens after that really matters. It’s the time you realize that your love has grown exponentially since that first day, when you discover that being someone’s wife, being in it for the long haul, having someone there beside you day in and day out, is so much better than any roses on Valentine’s Day or any first-date jitters you could ever have.

  That was when I was strong again. Because that’s what marriage is. When your partner is falling apart, you have to buck up. Plain and simple.

  I wiped my eyes and sat up straight. “These are our options, then, love.” I took his hand in mine. “One, we adopt. Two, we don’t have children.”