As I crossed back into my yard, I thought again that this wouldn’t be so hard. Little did I know what these next few days held for me.
I WAS ANXIOUS TO get to the store the next morning. I had arranged for my two best friends, Sandra and Emily, to keep AJ and Taylor for two hours so I could get in there and grab all the fabric swatches, rug samples, and look books I might need for Jack’s house. When I had asked Sandra, she had said, “Honey, Em and I will be thrilled to watch those sweet boys. We would do absolutely anything to make sure you get to decorate Jack’s house.” Sandra and I had been close since we were children, so I knew what she wasn’t saying was that they would do anything to make sure Jack and I spent some good, long, quality months together.
Whatever it took to get her here was fine by me. But I didn’t want Sloane to know I was leaving her kids with sitters—even sitters who were practically family—so I needed her out the door. And fast. I went out to the guesthouse and called, “Caroline!” But I ran into James first.
He put his fist out. I bumped it with mine and laughed.
“It’s you and me, Ans.”
“It sure is,” I said, feeling a little conflicted about that. “In fact, could you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” he said, obviously, because he seriously needed to get back into my good graces.
“Could you please take AJ and Taylor out to breakfast?”
He went a little white. “All three of them?”
I slapped him on the back. “Oh, James. I know you can handle it. I’ll have Emily and Sandra pick them up from you. It’ll only be like half an hour.”
I had lain awake all night thinking about fabric and furniture, and I had to get moving on this right now.
“Caroline,” I called again. “I’m leaving.”
I heard her footsteps on the stairs. “But don’t you want to see us off?”
“Yes, darling.” I grinned at her. “I want to see you off very, very much.”
She opened her mouth in shock and swatted at me. “Mom! That is so rude! I can’t believe you want us gone!”
“Kiss your sisters for me. See you in a week.” As I opened the back door I yelled, “And call me!”
Just like that, I was out the door, the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. For two entire hours, I was going to be free.
ELEVEN
real living
sloane
November 16, 2009
Dear Sloane,
There is no substitute for the sea. I feel its absence when I’m away, tugging at me, even when I’m landlocked for months on end. I can feel the tide within my soul.
It’s the same with you, Sloane. I see it already. Like the sea, you are a part of me, a loss I would feel indefinitely, the rolling tide for which I would eternally search . . . We’re not supposed to admit it, but there’s this fear that runs through us all the time, this low level of dread. What if I don’t make it home? What if my mother has to fold the flag at my funeral? And then, even worse, what if my wife has to? It certainly comes to mind from time to time. I wouldn’t be human if it didn’t. Even still, I know in my heart that I will always return home to you.
All my love,
Adam
THEY SAY HEARTBREAK IS soothed by the sea. Well, not they. Jimmy Buffett. It would have sounded more intellectual for me to quote Thoreau, maybe Shakespeare. Anyone, really. But it was Jimmy Buffett’s lyrics I thought of on that trip.
And Adam’s words in that letter that I remembered. I knew them as well as the sound of my own breath as it entered and left my body. How many times had I read those words? How many times had I handled his letters?
I have always thought I could feel Adam, that his pulse and my pulse were connected, that his soul and mine were one. It eased my fears when I woke up startled in the night, searching for him on his side of the bed, because I could feel him. Whether he was in Iraq or Afghanistan, off the coast of Carolina or the mouth of the Danube, my heart beat in time with his. Maybe it was his letters that made me feel that way; maybe it was his words, the rhythm of them, that made me feel his presence.
That’s what scared me the most. Once those uniformed men visited me to deliver the unthinkable news, I quit feeling Adam. So I read and reread his letters trying to feel him, to bring him back to me, wherever he was.
When Caroline pulled me out the door that morning, I felt conflicted at best. As we walked through the front yard to the gate, I started to feel a tightness in my chest. My head felt light and woozy, and my breath came in short gasps. Emerson, who was on my left side, supporting me while Caroline pulled, stopped suddenly, alarmed. “Caroline,” she scolded. “Stop!”
I leaned over, trying to catch my breath.
“No,” Caroline said. “No. We are fifty yards from the boat. We’re not stopping now.”
“Are you OK, Aunt Sloane?” Vivi asked.
I stood, about to cross the street to our dock. I could turn back. I could get into bed, close the draperies, and go on like I had been. I could continue to neglect my children and obsess over the myriad ways in which my love might be suffering. Or I could take Caroline’s hand. I could cross over, not only to the other side of the street, but also to
