TWENTY-THREE
love connections
sloane
June 27, 2010
Dear Sloane,
I never understood why, but I never felt at home in college. I was searching for a purpose, a passion, something that lit me up inside. I know it sounds crazy, but the day I signed those papers to join the Army, I felt whole. I felt complete. I knew I would never be fulfilled unless I was fighting for something bigger than me. It’s only now that I consider what this job really means in terms of what it is I’m giving up. Because being away from you feels like a punishment. Even still, I know this is where I’m supposed to be. Just like I know when I come home, in your arms is where I’m supposed to be. Meeting you, Sloane, loving you, has given me another purpose. And where, at one time, I lived for my country, now, my beautiful bride-to-be, I live for you.
All my love,
Adam
MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED for military spouses. It’s a fair concession. We have to spend years of our lives worrying about our partners—for the good of our country. We should get this in return.
I hated smoking of any sort. But eating brownies was fab-u- lous.
I peeked into the boys’ room. They were both still out cold. I don’t know what I did to deserve a twenty-one-month-old who slept until nine in the morning. Maybe it was restitution for the fact that AJ was such a terrible sleeper as a baby. I took a moment to gaze at them, the best parts of Adam and me. Clutching their stuffed animals, they looked like little angels. I prayed quickly that I wouldn’t have to break their hearts and blow up their world.
I hadn’t gotten that with my father. It seemed like a fair request.
The smell of pancakes wafted up from the kitchen, lazily and unhurried, like the morning itself. There is nothing in the world—and I do mean nothing—like having your mom make you pancakes. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to feed yourself or how you’re going to handle the million requests of, “Mommy, I’m hungry,” when your little ones wake up. It’s all taken care of. Our mom had always just known what we needed, understood what to do.
I wanted to be that effortless. But that nagging feeling that I needed something more had never really gone away. What did that do to the vision I’d had of myself as the ever-present, constantly available mom?
I walked down the hall and slid into bed beside Emerson. She was sleeping so peacefully, her blond hair draped across her beautiful face. She would be horrified when she woke up and realized she wasn’t on her back. She was convinced sleeping on her face would cause wrinkles. As the big sister, I had always felt the need to protect. Only, this sickness wasn’t something I could fix.
I couldn’t even make her go back to the doctor. She kept putting it off and rescheduling. She was afraid to learn the truth. So was I. But there comes a point when even bad news is better than no news at all. She would get there soon. Or maybe she would get tired of Caroline and me harassing her mercilessly about it. Either way.
I got up and walked quietly down the carpeted steps in my sock feet. Mom was alone in the kitchen, crying into the pancake batter.
“The recipe only calls for a pinch of salt, Mom,” I said, hugging her from behind.
She smiled at me and sniffed. “I’m sorry. I think this is how it’s going to be around here for a while.”
I looked around the kitchen, as clean and pristine as ever, even though we were all here, making a dozen sandwiches a day and three times as many snacks. Somehow, in between helping clients, trying to put time in at the shop, and taking care of Grammy, Mom managed to keep it looking like no one lived here. She was a marvel, really, and I wondered if she had always been this way and I just hadn’t noticed.
Mom poured batter onto her griddle, and it sizzled, filling the air with the scent of many a childhood Saturday morning. I grabbed a pancake off the “done” plate. It was delicious even without syrup.
She pointed with her spatula. “Grammy’s request.”
I nodded. “When do we have to start withholding food? I mean, isn’t that one of the hospice things?”
She shook her head. “She can eat if she wants to. It’s more about giving her a bit of pleasure than sustenance.” Her eyes filled again. “We could feed her all day, every day, though, and she’d never come close to a normal size.”
I walked to the easel that was crammed into the corner of the kitchen. It probably should have been in my room, at the front of the house, where I could overlook the water, but it seemed my mother and sisters gave me just as much inspiration as the water did. And, once the floodgates opened, they hadn’t closed. The paint was pouring out of me now.
The back door opened. Caroline swept in wearing a floor-length white silk robe. “What have I missed?” she said. “Besides carb circles.” She scrunched her nose.
“They’re for Grammy,” Mom said. “Not you.”
“I want in on that action,” Emerson said as she walked into the room. I smiled at her. She seemed less vulnerable when she was awake, vivacious and so full of life.
I picked up the brush in my hand, and the strokes flowed from my heart to the canvas. These past few days I’d done the best painting I ever had, the most raw, the most real. Were these strokes of fear? Pain? Independence? Were they strokes of horror? Exhaustion? Dread? I’ve only ever been able to express what I felt through a brush. The easel was the only place where I could make sense of who I was and what that meant.
Mom was neatly stacking the pancakes, a generous pat of butter between each one, and squeezing syrup on the side, just like Grammy liked.
“Mom,” Caroline said, “Sloane and I are going to come help you out in the shop a little. I’m trying to convince her to sell paintings, too, but I’m not as persuasive as I once was, obviously.”
She gasped and dropped the syrup, and Mrs. Butterworth bounced on the counter. She put her hand to her mouth. “No! You don’t mean it!”
This was not exactly the reaction I had expected, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Yeah. We want to help you in the store. Whatever you need. I just feel like something is missing. Adam, obviously. But something else. Like maybe it’s time for me to have a little time away from the kids.”
“Oh, girls. This means so much to me! It will be so much fun to have you at the store.”
I laughed. I hadn’t expected her to be so excited. “We all talked about it, and Caroline, Emerson, and I are going to take turns staying with Grammy so her care doesn’t fall completely on you.”
“And the boys can go to Mother’s Morning Out at St. James’s,” Caroline said.
“St. James,” Emerson snorted.
Caroline rolled her eyes. “I know. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“He’s kind of being St. James these days,” Mom said. She disappeared down the hall with her pancake plate.
“He really is,” I added. “I would never have imagined he would stay so long in Peachtree Bluff.”
“I know.” Caroline walked to the stove, filled a pot with water, and turned on the burner. “He has to head back to New York, but I think I want to stay the rest of the summer.”
I knew the work James and Caroline had ahead of them was daunting—and far from over. I wondered if being in Peachtree for a little longer might help give them a stronger foundation before they went back to their real lives.
Mom reappeared. “What’s up with Mark, Emerson?” she asked.
Emerson only shrugged. She was being uncharacteristically tight-lipped about him. But there were weeks and weeks left of summer. If I knew anything about the sea, it was that nothing had the power to pull things out of you quite like it did. And, at the same time, nothing had quite the power to fill you back up again.