Emerson had done wonders with Mom’s hair. She looked lovely in her knit pantsuit. I smiled, but then it hit me what we were here for: her literal going-away party. I was going to wake up one morning, probably soon enough that I could count the days on my fingers and toes, and she was going to be gone. I would never again see her face. Never hear her laughter. Never call her on the phone to ask her opinion.
No, it hadn’t been perfect. I would never fully understand her decision when Carter died, and sometimes she wasn’t as touchy-feely a mother as I really wanted her to be. Still, although she may not always have been what I wanted, I had to consider that she had always, always been what I needed.
I felt the lump in my throat growing, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to control it much longer. As everyone chattered around me like this was another ordinary day on the island, I turned and walked as quickly as I could without arousing suspicion into the luxurious interior of the boat and into Jack’s room. I closed the door behind me and sat on the end of his unmade bed, the same unmade bed I had not only picked the linens for but also made love to him in. Then I started to cry. I knew I had to get it over with. I would never get through this day without at least a few tears.
When I heard footsteps and a hand on the doorknob, I tried to gather myself and wiped my eyes. But when I saw Jack’s face coming through the door, I lost it again.
As he came closer, I expected him to wrap me in a hug, rub my back, tell me it would be OK or anything soothing that would calm my nerves and dry my tears.
But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he put his hands on my cheeks and kissed me so passionately that I truly felt like I was living that night by the lighthouse all over again. Only, this time, the only thing making me feel giddy and free was Jack.
We looked at each other for a long moment after that kiss, neither of us daring to speak. “You have six months,” he said. “Six months to get your shit together, to get over your excuses and your fears, whatever they are.”
He’d never spoken to me so firmly or so intensely. “Let’s face it, Ansley. Your life is a disaster zone. No one, and I mean no one, in his right mind would want to get mixed up with you. But I do. I want you.” He paused. “I won’t say it again. Six months from today, a ‘For Sale’ sign will go up in my yard. I will leave. I will wish you well and be on my way. I am too old to play these games.”
He turned and, with his hand on the doorknob, repeated, “Six months.”
I knew I’d never make it that long.
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY BELIEVE SEEING your husband become a father can only make you love him more. That had certainly been the case with Carter. Bringing Caroline into our world changed him completely, and I was in love with how in love Carter was with baby Caroline.
If seeing Carter with his daughter made me love him more, if watching him change diapers and get up for middle-of-the-night feedings and take her off on errands so I could get some sleep had compounded my love for Carter, then seeing her eyes change into Jack’s, watching the way her lips curled when she smiled and the color of her hair darken into his made it impossible for me to forget about him. That was perhaps the unexpected consequence.
It shouldn’t have been unexpected, of course. I should have prepared myself for that, closed the wind shutters, battened the hatches. But I hadn’t known yet how spending those weeks with Jack and giving birth to his baby would cause a deep longing for what we could have had to take permanent residence inside my chest and remove the light from my eyes.
I never talked to Jack. Never called him. Never visited or wrote a letter. But it was no consolation. No salve existed for the pain of being apart from him, yet I knew instinctively that the anguish I felt over losing him was nothing compared to what it would be if I left Carter and chose Jack like he had asked.
So the night Carter had come to me and said, “I think we should start trying again,” I held myself back, but I wanted to run upstairs, tie my shoes, and hop the first plane to Atlanta. I was like an addict who had spent years without a fix, still craving it with every ounce of her being. I was going to give in to my primal need for it again. In the back of my mind, I knew it would only make things worse and prolong this profound loss I felt in every cell.
Time would never erase the memory of Jack and what we shared, would never allow me to get past what I felt for him. And so, seeing him again, asking him this unaskable favor for a second time, might be, as my father would say, a temporary solution to a permanent problem.
If I wanted another baby, which I did, desperately, this was how I would get one. I knew already without hashing it out with Carter again.
At the time, it didn’t seem odd to me that he was so against people delving into our personal and financial lives. He had always been private. He had convinced me that if we let an adoption agency dig around, they might find out that Caroline wasn’t really his. I could never let that happen.
I realize now that was just a cover. He wasn’t worried about them finding out about Caroline; he was worried about
