If only helping Sloane now could be as easy as ripping up that carpet, we’d be all set.
I was sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, looking at my phone, when Caroline walked in. Preston and Mom were both napping, Vivi was at a friend’s house, and Caroline’s husband, James, who had gone back to New York for a couple of days for work, would be here any minute. Kimmy and Kyle would be here in two hours to start setting up our dinner.
“What are you doing?” Caroline asked.
“Worrying,” I said. “What else?”
She wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. Anything in particular or just the usual?”
I sighed and got up, turning on the tap to fill the teapot. “I just got off the phone with Linda.”
“Oh.” Caroline opened the cabinet beside me and pulled out two mugs. “You sit down. I’ll make the tea.”
I did as she said. “She’s worried about Sloane.” As Caroline filled two strainers with loose-leaf tea, an herbal, calming blend that Kyle had concocted as an experiment, I added, “She thinks Sloane’s delusional.”
Caroline looked confused. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “She said Sloane is convinced Adam is going to come home.” I paused. “She said she didn’t know whether she should call and that she wanted Sloane to have hope. But Sloane was so insistent about his coming home safe that it worried her.”
Caroline poured the steaming water into two oversized brown-and-white-striped Henri Bendel mugs. “But that’s just how Sloane is. She’s positive. She’s hopeful. She’s the Pollyanna of the family.”
I nodded, hoping she was right.
“I have some news that might cheer you up,” she said.
I looked at her doubtfully as Emerson came through the doorway. I could just make out the line of her neon bikini underneath the pareo she had tied around her neck.
“I was looking up Hippie Hal’s phone number for one of the neighbors, and when I Googled him I found out today is his birthday.”
That was nice, but why this might cheer me up, I wasn’t sure. “I invited Hal to dinner tonight so that we could surprise him and celebrate. Kimmy is going to pick up a cake across the street on her way here.”
“Oh, fun,” Emerson said. “I love Hal.”
“That’s great, sweetheart,” I agreed.
“You OK, Mom?” Emmy asked.
“Yeah. I’m excited for you,” I said. “I’m excited about Mark.” Something about Emerson had seemed lighter lately, like a fog had lifted. Now that I knew she was inviting Mark, her high school sweetheart, to dinner, I had to wonder if he was the reason for the change.
She smiled sweetly. “I am too. I mean, I’ve been sort of putting him off, but I’m here now. And we can worry about the future in the future.”
“Exactly,” Caroline said.
I heard Caroline’s gasp and followed her gaze to the driveway. The black Mercedes convertible James had bought for her when she got her license pulled up. I watched as her face fell, and it was clear that she had just remembered what her husband had put her through, that he had cheated, and that everything was different. I took her hand and squeezed it as he walked through the back door.
“There’s my girl,” he said, sauntering in, pulling Caroline to him and kissing her. He had come straight from work, in his suit, to see her. It made me happy.
There was no denying I had always had my doubts about James. With his dark, coiffed hair and suits that were too fitted for my liking, his obsessive gym-going and charming dimples, I was afraid he was too charismatic to be a faithful husband. I hadn’t been wrong on that end. But in some ways, I had misjudged James, too. There was no doubt that, despite his total lack in judgment, he truly loved my daughter. He was fighting for her every way he knew how. “Hi, ladies,” he said to Emerson and me.
“I’m going to get the kids settled in at James’s house,” Caroline said. James had bought the house down the street so he could stay in Peachtree Bluff and try to convince Caroline he wasn’t an awful person. It could be a long visit.
Emerson raised her eyebrow at me. “Never a dull moment at the Murphys’.”
I nodded. Wasn’t that the truth? In the driveway, James put his arm around Caroline, and she smiled up at him. I couldn’t help but think of my first love. Jack had come back to Peachtree Bluff and fought for me, despite my misgivings, like James was fighting for Caroline now. I was so close to having a second chance at happily ever after, a second chance at true love. For the first time since Carter died sixteen years earlier, I felt like maybe true love could happen to a woman more than once.
And then I let him go, told him it wasn’t the right time for us. Now he was gone. I didn’t even know if he was still in Peachtree Bluff, if the fifty-eight-foot Huckins I had helped fully restore for him, the one he had named Miss Ansley for me was at the dock. I couldn’t bear to look.
I told myself I couldn’t be with him because of Sloane and Caroline and Emerson and my mother, because of how busy I was. I told myself if we were together, the secrets we had shared were in danger of coming back to light.
But as I watched James and
