Mom cut him off. “You would keep a secret that would eat away at your soul for nearly thirty-five years.”
It took my breath away to hear her say that, and I felt the tears gathering in my eyes. After everything we had been through, everything we had lost, everything we had shared, Jack had still been there for me. And I couldn’t help but think that maybe it was high time I shared some of myself with him.
“To be honest,” Jack said, “I wish I could let her go.”
“But true love lasts a lifetime,” Mom said.
“Exactly.”
She said quietly, “And now I’m ready to be reunited with mine,” as I opened the door.
I smiled brightly at Jack. “Oh, hi,” I said casually, not wanting them to know I had overheard. “What are you doing here?”
“Just saying good night to your mom,” he said. He stood, leaned over, and kissed Mom on the cheek. She patted his arm. “You’re a darling boy,” she said. “You’ve always been my favorite.”
“Mom!” I scolded. She was nonplussed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I love Jack. So what?”
I shook my head, and Jack laughed as he wrapped one arm around my shoulder and kissed my head. “I’m here if you need me,” he whispered, before walking off the porch.
Of course I need you! I wanted to yell after him. But I didn’t. Not for the first time and not for the last, I watched Jack walk away, his silhouette disappearing down the street. I handed Mom her tea and sat down beside her.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you really should marry him.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mother. We aren’t even dating.”
Her eyelids grew heavy, and for a moment, I thought she was about to fall asleep. But then I realized she was glaring at me. “I know true love when I see it, Ansley, and it doesn’t take too much to make a man forget you are his. Men who will love you like that, sacrifice for you, do anything to make you happy don’t come along all that often. I suggest you beg for his forgiveness before he runs off with a forty-year-old who isn’t moody and menopausal.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Moody and menopausal. Thanks, Mom. Glad to know what you think of me.”
“I think you will both feel much better once you tell the girls he’s Caroline and Sloane’s father.”
I nearly spit out the water in my mouth.
“Jack tried to deny it,” Mom continued, “but the man is a terrible liar. That is a wonderful quality in a husband.”
“If that day ever comes, I will say yes, Mom.”
She smiled and nodded, realizing I had overheard their conversation.
She always knew the right thing to say. Always. Which is why I would never understand. I had needed her advice, her encouragement, and her fortitude for all those months when it felt like I was suffocating, when it felt like Carter wasn’t the only one who had died.
Now she was dying. And I didn’t have much time. So I took a deep breath. “Mom,” I said, “all these years, I’ve never brought it up, but I can’t let you go without asking. Why didn’t you help me when Carter died?”
She smiled calmly at me. “Look around you, darling. Look at the life you have, the life you built.” She leaned in closer to me. “You. Not me. Not Daddy. You.”
I began to understand then that we were different parents. But her methods weren’t selfish, just how she showed love.
“You built this life for yourself, honey. Your store. Your town. Your friends. You raised those girls and you fought through your pain and you came out the other side. You survived. Hell, you thrived. And you did it all on your own.”
Mom sighed and said, “I know it came between us. But, Ansley, if you had come home and wallowed in your self-pity and your fear, that’s all you ever would have done. Look at you, my girl. You are magnificent.”
That day she told me I couldn’t come home was the scariest day of my life. I had this jewel of a house my grandmother had left for me, but that was it. I had no job. No plan. No idea where the world would take me. But I had to wake up every day. I had to get out of bed and take care of my girls.
I thought of Sloane, and I wondered if maybe I had done the wrong thing. Maybe my mother was the one who had known how to handle tragedy and adversity. Maybe I should have taken a page from her book. But there was no right way to parent. We all just have to do our best.
She smiled at me sleepily, and I knew she was about to drift off. “That’s a good girl,” she said.
“Can I take you to bed, Mom?” I whispered.
“No, darling. I need to be here with the sea and the stars and the sky.” Then she fell asleep, breathing heavily, no doubt dreaming of the near-perfect day she’d had on the beach. I put more pillows around her so she wouldn’t fall. I sat by her for quite some time, and I’ll admit it, I prayed. I was still ambivalent at best about God’s presence, but I prayed for her safe passage into another world, where she could be with Daddy and check on Carter, where she could be happy and out of pain.
I didn’t know that was the last conversation I would ever have with my mother. But it was perfect. It wouldn’t have felt right for our last conversation to have been dripping in “I love you’s” and “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me’s.” No. She told me what she thought, gave it to me straight, and left me with something to
