Slightly South of Simple Read online

  Carter shook his head. “This is so unfair,” he said. “We work hard, we pay our taxes, we rescued those kittens from the subway. Why would this happen to us?” He paused. “Option two is not an option, as far as I’m concerned. We are parents. We are supposed to be parents.”

  Then he got quiet and looked at his hands.

  I didn’t say anything else for a minute. Then I said, “So we adopt. That’s fine. We’ll get on lists, we’ll start looking. Hell, we can probably call some of our doctor friends and skip that altogether.”

  “You and I both know that could take forever,” he said. “And then you don’t get to be pregnant. We don’t get to feel kicks and go to doctor appointments. You don’t give birth. We don’t stand together in the hospital room ecstatic and overwhelmed.”

  This was one of those times when our age difference really showed. We were practically from different generations. Although private adoption was fairly common then, Carter was definitely still leery of it.

  “I am aware of that, Carter, but these are our choices. I’ve already said I’ll try IUI again, but you seem to be against that.”

  Carter was always a determined man. He was steadfast and reasonable, but he got what he wanted. And something in his face told me that this was what he had always imagined, and this was what he was going to get, one way or another.

  I watched him closely as he ran his thumb over his forefinger. He bit the inside of his cheek and said, “You could get pregnant.”

  I wanted to throw something at him. No, in fact, I could not get pregnant, which was why we were in this mess to begin with. I put my arms up in frustration. “Carter, for God’s sake.” I threw my arms down and started to get up, but he grabbed my hand. “We can talk about this later,” I said. “We can think about it some more. I’m just finished with the conversation for right now.”

  “Sit down,” he said gently. “I can’t stomach the idea of this, so I will only say it once. I can’t ever know about it. I can’t ever hear about it. You have to make certain that I never do.”

  I truly thought the man had lost his mind. One bump in the road, and he had become a raving lunatic. “What are you talking about?”

  “You should get pregnant.” He motioned toward the door. “We will continue to try. I will have every reason to believe that it is my baby. We will be the only two people in the world who know this. And even we won’t be sure.”

  Now I really looked at him like he had lost his mind. “Carter, you can’t be saying what I think you’re saying. This is insanity. We will adopt, and that’s that. I won’t hear of it again.”

  He took my hands in his and said, “Ansley, this is up to you. What I am saying is that I will never know one way or another, and I will choose to believe this baby is mine, no matter what the doctors say.” Then he whispered, “This baby will be mine, no matter what.”

  He got up, and I said, “Carter, you can’t know that. You can’t be sure that’s how you’ll feel. What if you don’t feel that way at all?”

  He turned back to me and said, “Have you ever known me not to keep my word?”

  He walked off toward our bedroom, leaving me feeling cold. He couldn’t believe that I would actually do this. Go sleep with some stranger on the street? Of course not. What about diseases, what if someone found out, and so many things that I couldn’t even process. Carter was the only man I could imagine who would love me enough to actually go along with this scheme. Wasn’t he? I couldn’t fathom getting pregnant with another man’s baby and keeping it a secret.

  I couldn’t do that. Could I?

  I tossed and turned over that conversation for weeks and actually rethought a lot of things about my relationship in the wake of my husband even mentioning something as crass and vile as my getting pregnant by a stranger.

  One night a couple of months later, I was walking home and passed a happy family with one child in a stroller and the other on his father’s shoulders. It made me feel so irreparably empty. It steeled something inside me against Carter’s idea, too, though. Because that was the way it was supposed to be, I thought. Children were supposed to be created out of love.

  As if from outside me, as if from another world and another life, another option came to me. And just like that, I knew exactly what I would do.

  TWENTY

  right as rain

  caroline

  Sloane and I have always known that our dad wasn’t our biological father. Maybe it should have bothered us more. Maybe we should have spent more time wondering about our sperm donor. But we didn’t. Dad raised us. He loved us. We loved him. He was our father. Mom used to tell us this cute story, when we were small, about how mommies were princesses and daddies had special prince dust they sprinkled on mommies to put babies in their tummies. Mommy and Daddy loved each other so much and wanted babies, but Daddy was all out of his special prince dust. So another prince let us borrow some of his so that Mommy and Daddy could be parents.

  This was a perfect story, because it was the right amount of information for our little toddler minds to process, and when we went to school and told the other kids that another prince spread prince dust on our mommy, the teacher didn’t send notes home.

  So prince dust it was.

  I was realizing now how very unimportant the prince dust was in comparison with the work of actually being a father. I needed a husband and a partner and a supporter right now, not a sperm donor. I had forgotten what a mess new motherhood can make you. How vulnerable you suddenly are. How exhausted. How utterly alone. And the last time, I hadn’t been cut from stem to stern. Were you honestly expected to breastfeed when you had a giant (well, I mean, you know, like a two-inch) incision across where the baby was supposed to lie?

  Aside from the pain and the feeling that I was going to lose my mind, life was perfect. I had a brand-new little boy with ten fingers and ten toes and chubby pink cheeks and that intoxicating baby smell. Even three weeks early, the kiddo had been nearly eight pounds, which was still bigger than Vivi had been at full term. It might have been because I was much bigger this time, but it’s not polite to discuss such things.

  Mom had been utterly amazing, despite the fact that although she was trying to hide it from me, I knew something was going on with Grammy. I had caught her in a few hushed conversations with Uncle Scott.

  Every time the baby woke up, she would get him from his crib, bring him to me so I could feed him lying down in the bed, sit with me the whole time so I didn’t accidentally fall asleep, change his diaper, and then do the whole thing over again in another ridiculously short amount of time. I was thankful that Hummus was to arrive this afternoon. She might have missed the birth, but we begged her to come help with the baby. I couldn’t stand the idea of a baby nurse I had never even met coming to live with us.

  I couldn’t believe that Preston was already one week old. Even though his father was a schmuck, I still named my beautiful boy James Preston Beaumont IV, as planned. In reality, we were city folk, and James Preston Beaumont was a name you could really use if you lived in Manhattan. In addition to its New York cachet, it also rang of old Southern money, where it had originated, which thrilled my mother.

  Mom and I were putting clothes away in Preston’s drawers and making up the twin bed in his room for Hummus when she said, “I know you’re kind of delicate right now, but have you given any consideration to what you’re going to do about James?”

  The baby was napping, so I kept my voice low, but I looked at her like she had suggested I take up vampire hunting as a new career. “What I’m going to do about him?” I whispered. “I’m going to divorce his sorry ass and take him for everything he has is what I’m going to do about him.”

  She nodded, but I knew there was more.

  “What, Mom? Just say it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I told him I would tell you not to take him back under any circumstances.” She paused. “But Caroline, being a single mother is a hard life. You girls weren’t
even that small, and it took all I had.”

  I looked around. I needed a Preggie Pop. I didn’t see one, so I rubbed a tiny Kissy Kissy convertible day gown on my cheek to calm me. It was so soft. “You know what else is hard, Mom? Wondering if your husband is cheating on you all the time. Walking around New York with everyone talking about how you’re the idiot who took back the guy who paraded all over national television with someone else while he was married. I don’t think I can be that girl.”

  She shut the drawer quietly and said, “OK. I get it.” We stepped out of the room, and she crossed her arms and looked at me squarely. “I know you know everything,” she said, “but I am your mother, and I am allowed to have an opinion, and I will continue to do so until I die. So we’re clear.”

  I raised my eyebrows. What was clear was that she was really tired. I could scarcely remember the woman ever standing up to me. I smiled at her. “Go, Mom. Way to assert yourself. Is it the new man?”

  She sighed, exasperated. “There’s no new man. Only an ambush from my daughters.”

  Emerson appeared at the top of the stairs, and I could tell she had been crying. In retrospect, she had been kind of weird the past few days, but I was so overwhelmed I hadn’t had much time to worry about it.

  “Caroline,” she said, her chin quivering. Sometimes I wondered if she really got this upset about things or if she was that good an actress.

  I didn’t know what this was about, but I was sure I wasn’t up for it.

  “I am soooo sorry,” Emerson said, one fat tear falling down her cheek.

  My heart started to pound. I sighed. “What else could possibly have happened to be sorry about?”

  She hugged me and said, “I feel so guilty.” Now the sobbing began in earnest.

  And she should feel guilty. I was too busy to be paying attention, but it was definitely out in the media that my semifamous sister was playing my husband’s überfamous lover in a new movie. You couldn’t blame the people. It made for a fabulous story.

  And I was still mad, for sure. But having Preston put everything into perspective. I was a mother. I had a brand-new life to attend to. The miracle baby I had prayed for and wished for and tried to have for years and years and years until I had finally given up had arrived. So I was still angry with Emerson. But having Preston reminded me what really mattered.

  “It’s my fault that Preston was born early!” Em sobbed.

  She was still hugging me, and I rolled my eyes at Mom over her shoulder. I actually hadn’t considered that it was Emerson’s fault that Preston came early.

  “Emerson, I really can’t right now, OK? Preston is healthy and fine, and it doesn’t matter.”

  She pulled away from me, those big blue eyes full of water. “I know, but I feel awful. Car, I just need you to understand. It has been so hard for me to get ahead in this business. It’s like, all of a sudden, everyone is talented and beautiful and special.” She looked me straight in the eye with a steeliness that told me, no matter how down she might be feeling, she wasn’t going to give this up. Not yet. Not without a fight. “You can’t imagine how terrible it feels to be average.” She shuddered as she said the word and I smiled in spite of myself.

  I nodded and winked at her. “I’m the one who just gave birth. I’m supposed to be emotional. Not you.”

  She sniffed, wiped her nose on her shirtsleeve, and hugged me again. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Em, I have been your biggest fan since the day you were born. No one wants you to succeed more than I do. If playing my nemesis gets you closer to your dream, I’m in.”

  Her face was so expressive, it was as if the relief was drawn on by a talented makeup artist as she said, “Really? Because I never, ever meant to hurt you. It was just like I was in it and I was so deep I couldn’t tell you.”

  I nodded. “I get it. I forgive you. All is forgotten.”

  She hugged me again. “You’re the best sister in the world.”

  “I know,” I called breezily as I walked down the hall toward Vivi’s room to see if she was ready for lunch. This had become my life. One big feeding schedule. I peeked in, but she wasn’t there.

  Mom followed me down the hall. “Anyway,” she said, “back to what I wanted to talk about.”

  “Mom, can’t we be done with this?” I sighed. “You don’t understand. You and Dad were the perfect couple. You never dealt with anything like this. It’s nearly impossible to recover from.”

  A strange look came across her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but she shut it again. Then she said, “Fine. I won’t say another word. But you chose him. You knew what he was like. I’m just saying that he’s here in Peachtree, it doesn’t look like he’s going anyplace, and while you’re still in anonymous territory, away from those vultures you call friends, maybe you should listen to what he has to say.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Doubtful, but I hear you.”

  We made our way downstairs to the kitchen—me gingerly, very slowly, but with much more ease than even two days before. Vivi wasn’t there, either. I figured she was in the main house. “Sit down,” Mom said. “I’ll make you lunch. What are you in the mood for?”

  “Tequila.”

  She laughed. “Grilled cheese and tomato soup it is.”

  That sounded delicious. “Gluten-free,” I said.

  I sank down in one of the comfortable dining chairs that was mere feet from the stove. And I figured that now was as good a time as any.

  “Mom,” I said. “I need to ask you something. And it’s kind of uncomfortable.”

  Oh, yes! I saw it. A Preggie Pop, right there on the counter. I grabbed it and ripped the paper off.

  “Ooo-K,” she said, drawing out the one word as if it were two.

  “When the divorce goes through, I think I’ll be fine. I’ll probably have to get a job, but I’m sure I’ll have enough money that I can wait until Preston is in kindergarten.”

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “But you know how Dad always talked about the money he was leaving for us? Was there some sort of date attached to our receiving that? Because I think if I knew what was coming down the pike, I could prepare better.”

  Mom stopped stirring the soup for a long moment. Then she turned to me. “You know, Caroline, I am going to have to look into that. I’ll call the financial adviser right away.”

  She looked kind of weird and pale when she said it. I had this horrifying thought, momentarily, that she had spent it. But there was no way. The house was paid for, and yeah, there were expenses, but she surely made enough to cover those. While I wanted Mom to be taken care of, she had always had this simple life and seemed fine with it.

  “I’m sure Sloane could really use it, too,” I said.

  “Sloane could use what?” Sloane asked.

  Oops. “Oh, a break from the kiddos every now and then,” I said breezily. I didn’t want to put Mom on the spot.

  But Sloane needed money worse than I did. She was always cutting coupons, and her kids dressed in hand-me-downs from God only knew who. They were lucky they were cute. I had learned long ago that not everyone needed to be exactly like me to be happy. But I was sure that her life would be better if she could buy those Dove chocolates she liked, even when they weren’t on sale. Although Lord knows, she didn’t need to be eating them.

  Sloane sat down beside me. “Oh,” she said. “Hummus is here.”

  I tried to move, and she said, “Don’t get up. She’s with Vivi and the boys in the main house. She said she would come back here before Preston woke up from his nap.”

  I instantly relaxed. “How do you do this, Sloane?”

  “Do what?” She took a sip from the bottle of water in her hand. I knew she didn’t drink those at home, only at Mom’s. She wouldn’t have spent the money.

  “Take care of your kids alone all the time.”

  She smiled. “I love it. It’s what I’m here for. My job is to take care of them and take care of our
house and keep things together when Adam is gone. So that’s what I do.”

  Adam had been deployed the first time when little Adam was only four months old and hadn’t seen him again until he was nearly one year. I couldn’t imagine that, not seeing your child for that long. It was certainly one of the biggest sacrifices a person could make. Seeing the life my sister lived made me more appreciative not only of everyone in our armed forces but also of the spouses they left behind. Because it didn’t matter if your wife was nine months pregnant. When it was time to go, you went.

  Mom set a plate with one of those good, smashed grilled cheeses in front of me and a bowl of soup beside it. “Sloane?” she asked. “Can I get one for you while the pan’s still hot?”

  She smiled like Mom had offered to pay her kids’ college tuitions. “That would be amazing, Mom.” Then she said, “The only hard part is the worrying.” She paused and laughed. “And not seeing Adam. That is torturous. But at least we have Skype. I don’t know what people did before Skype.”

  “They talked to each other!” a booming voice said from around the corner.

  I was so happy I could cry. “Hummus!” I said.

  I struggled to move, but she, with one hand, told me to keep my seat. She was wearing brightly printed scrubs and those terrible clogs that were supposed to be comfortable. She was a large, sturdy, fleshy woman with a thick blondish-gray ponytail that looked like it could use a flat iron. She wore no makeup and no jewelry except for a plain gold band on her right hand. She was a sensible woman, unlike basically all of her clients.

  “Don’t get up. I am going to change into fresh scrubs so that Ms. Caroline here doesn’t have a fit about airplane germs, and then I am going to go take care of my baby. I will bring him to you when it’s time to eat.”

  “I’m so happy I could cry.”

  Mom dropped the spatula into the sink. “Me, too!”

  Vivi walked in with James, and I mouthed to Sloane, “Oh, yay.”