TWENTY-EIGHT
prodigal son
ansley
When the girls finally went to sleep that night, I knew Mom had to have been beyond exhausted. I tried to take her to bed, but she refused.
“Darling,” she asked, instead. “Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?”
“It’s no trouble at all, Mom,” I said, walking back into the house.
A few minutes later, I was about to open the door when I heard Jack’s voice on the porch. I stopped, my back pressed against the wall inside. I could just make out Jack saying, “I honestly don’t even know when I would ask her, if we will get to that place. But I can’t bear the thought of marrying Ansley without your blessing.”
Mom laughed. “Oh, darling, I can’t think of anything much finer than that.” I couldn’t see her, but I could imagine the way her eyebrow rose as she said, “It would be lovely to have your family back together again.”
I heard Jack choke. My heart was racing. Oh my Lord. She knew. My mother knew. “I’m not sure what you mean,” Jack recovered.
“Oh, Jack,” Mom said. “Anyone who has ever seen you and Caroline side by side would know you possess a shocking likeness.”
There was silence, and then I barely heard Jack say, “I thought that was only in my mind.”
I held Mom’s hot cup to my chest and gasped quietly. She knew, and he had corroborated. I was about to burst out the door to confront Jack.
But then he said, “You have to understand. Ansley needed something, and I gave it to her.” He paused. “I would do anything for that woman, then, now, and forever. I would move heaven and earth for her—”
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 chew on. She was making sure I would be OK after she was gone. It meant more than anything else I could have imagined.
She should have had weeks longer to live. Hospice wasn’t even coming until the next day. But that night, my mother closed her eyes and didn’t open them again. None of us was with her, but she wouldn’t have wanted us there. In fact, I’m quite sure that if we had kept vigil over her bedside, she would have held on longer, too long even. I love that the last memory I have of my mother is her smiling, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, on the beach. I love that she closed her eyes for good in Peachtree Bluff, one of the places she treasured most in the world. She would have told us not to cry, would have told us to dance instead. But how could I dance when my mother was gone? Simply knowing she was there made me feel like I had someone.
The last person on the planet who loved me unconditionally was gone. Forever. I would never see her again. At first, it terrified me to my core. But then I realized that was my job now. My job was to love the other people in my life unconditionally. I could give that so fully because I had received it so very well.
If anyone had asked, I would have told them that was the thing my mother taught me best of all.
OUR HOUSE HAD BECOME a command center. So many people were filing in and out that I couldn’t remember everyone’s names. As it turned out, the Peachtree “Funeral Fairies,” which were instated when my grandmother was alive, were still thriving. They were here to help, like it or not.
They stuffed the already full freezer with yet more casseroles, defrosted frozen lemonade for the funeral punch, and generally made a lot of noise to keep me from hearing my thoughts. I was most appreciative, as my thoughts were not ones anyone would want to hear.
Well, except for one. The one I kept hearing over and over again, between the bouts of crippling devastation: you have six months.
“Ansley, dear,” I heard Mrs. McClasky say. My skin crawled. I wasn’t wild about having all these people in my house.
I heard the back door open and saw Hippie Hal with a bucket of wildflowers in one hand. He took one look at Mrs. McClasky, made a horrified face at me, and jetted back down the steps. I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep her from seeing my laugh. Hippie Hal and Mrs. McClasky were on-again, off-again mortal enemies because, in addition to a variety of other very useful skills, Hal refurbished bikes—and generally had no fewer than 150 of them scattered about his front yard, which Mrs. McClasky found reprehensible and deemed it appropriate to say so at every single town meeting.
If she noticed my laughter she didn’t let on. “Darling, the altar guild brought these dreadful black napkins. I thought your mother would much prefer white linen.”
I smiled supportively. “Thank you so much. I appreciate your attention to detail. I have 150 linen napkins starched and hanging in the coat closet.” I paused. I needed to give her a job, preferably a time-consuming one, if I was going to make it through this. “Mrs. McClasky, would you be so kind as to fold them for me?” I whispered behind my hand, “I’m certain none of these people knows how to do it properly.”
She smiled authoritatively. “Oh, of course, darling. I’ll do them all myself.”
I peered into my dining room where there were women polishing silver, women arranging flowers, women standing in the corner admiring or criticizing my light fixtures, women fussing over the punch bowl. In the living room were yet more women, who I assumed were waiting to receive gifts, food, and flowers from whoever stopped by. I wanted to tell my mother about it. She would find it terribly funny, all these women making such a fuss. And then I remembered my mother was gone. I would never talk to her or laugh with her over one of life’s little absurdities again. I wanted my mother. It was as though the rest of my life was stretching out in front of me, long and bleak and empty.
I suddenly felt so sorry and so stupid that I had wasted time resenting her for not being there for me. And now she was gone. All I wanted was the time back. The typhoon of all those emotions washed over me.
I knew all these people meant well, and in some ways, I was grateful for them. In others, I just wanted a quiet house where I could mourn my loss. When no one was looking, I opened the pantry door, thankful I had opted against the French style with the glass panes, and sat down on the overturned mop bucket, my head in my hands.
My mother was gone, and I was all alone with these three daughters who were my responsibility and, in some ways, that felt harder and bigger and even crazier.
I heard a hand on the doorknob and wiped my eyes. I don’t know who I expected to see. One of my daughters, my grandchildren, Jack maybe. One of the dozens of women who had invaded in the march of the Funeral Fairies. But nothing could have prepared me to stand up and nearly run right smack into a teary-eyed John. When he saw me, he didn’t say a word, just engulfed me in his massive hug. He was tall, broad, and strong, and much to the chagrin of Scott and me, the most attractive of the siblings. He had these bright blue eyes and long eyelashes that were balanced out by his masculine features. He was stoic and a giant ass, so it was a tad shocking to be standing in my pantry with this hulk of a man sobbing onto my shoulder.
For just a moment, a beat of a beat, it was as if we were children again. John was my protective big brother. I was his vulnerable little sister. As we stood there in the closet, crying together, I forgot for just a second that we were at odds and he had scarcely talked to me in the past several years.
I was drawn back into the past, into Tammy Hager’s grandma’s basement in tenth grade. Tammy’s grandma was on a cruise, so the beer was flowing, the cigarette and pot smoke was a dense fog, and there were bodies everywhere, some talking, some dancing, some kissing. John was friends with Tammy’s older brother Chris, who, much to my delight and John’s horror, was the senior boy I had been dating for the last two months.
John and I had arrived at the party together. Even though I had spent the previous four years being his annoying little sister, John and I were getting to be friends again, as if he knew college was looming and he was starting to feel just the smallest bit nostalgic.
“Be good, kid,” he had said to me as I made a beeline for Tammy and he made a beeline for the keg. I was a good girl and didn’t get into too much trouble. Even still, I never missed one of these parties.
I remember how good my hair looked that night—Mom had ironed it stick straight—how my new wedges made my legs look longer, and how I thought Chris wouldn’t be able to take his eyes—or his hands—off me. “Where’s Chris?” I had asked Tammy breathlessly.
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t terribly thrilled I was dating her older brother. He was the captain of the football team. He drank too much and smoked too much. He was beautiful and dangerous. And out of all the girls in the world, he wanted me. Me. What fifteen-year-old girl in her right mind would have turned that down?
Tammy wasn’t going to be much help, so I walked around the perimeter of the room, searching for Chris, a flutter in my heart, a smile on my face. I caught a glimpse of John on the opposite side of the crowded, musty basement with its low ceilings and concrete floors. And I think we must have seen it at the same time. There in the middle of the room was Chris. And Debbie Larkin. Making out. In retrospect, I should have felt angry. But I wasn’t. I was devastated. I thought I was in love with Chris. I would learn that summer, the summer I met Jack, that I hadn’t been in love with him. Not even a little bit. But at the time, it was as though all the oxygen had left my body. I didn’t want to cry in front of all those people. But my heart was broken. I was humiliated. How could he do that to me? I turned to run, and there was my big brother. He wrapped his arms around me and said, “Let’s get you home.”
I had relished the knowledge that John was my protector, and that no matter what happened, I would always have him. As we were walking toward the door, I heard Chris calling, “Ansley! Ansley, wait!”
I wouldn’t wait. I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to see me cry. I felt John’s hand leave my arm, and through the smoke haze, I watched my brother turn and punch Chris so hard he fell to the ground, clutching his cheek. As he was writhing there, John peered down over him and said in a measured tone, “No one messes with my little sister.”
My hand shot to my mouth, and John took my arm again and steered me out of the basement. I felt so safe. No matter what happened, my big brother was going to be there.
In my pantry, I felt that all over again. Despite what had happened between us, despite how much he had hurt me, my brother was here now. And it was all going to be OK.
As he said, “I didn’t even get to say good-bye,” I came back into the present, where my brother had scarcely talked to me for years over the fact that my grandmother had left me a house, where he had barely called me when my beloved husband was killed in one of our nation’s worst tragedies. I needed my big brother to be there for me. I needed him to protect me like he had in Tammy’s grandma’s basement. I wondered if we could ever get back to that place.
At the same time, a tinge of anger remained, and I wanted to snipe at him, I sure as hell gave you plenty of chances, or Our mother knew exactly what to expect from you at this point, you lazy, selfish moron.
But he was actually crying. Real tears. It didn’t seem like the right time to admonish him for all his failures. I got the feeling he was admonishing himself plenty.
But, let me tell you, I took full comfort in knowing I wasn’t the one who had something to be sorry for. I wasn’t the one who’d stopped returning his family’s phone calls and disappeared off the face of the earth once he was married and settled into his own new family. That wasn’t me. That was him. Quite frankly, he should feel sorry.
“What did she say?” John asked, pulling away and sniffling, wiping his eyes. “Was she angry at me?”
I shrugged. “No, John. She wasn’t surprised.”
He ran his hands through his hair in total distress. “I screwed this up like I screw everything else in my life up. I’m such a failure.”
Ah. This was about more than our mother. “Did Sheila leave you?”
He nodded, wiping his eyes. “I didn’t even really care, but now she’s gone and Mom’s gone, and I have no one.” He started crying again. “And it was Sheila who turned me against all of you in the first place. She was the one who made me believe you were all against me. She’s the one who cared so much about the damn house.”
I rolled my eyes. That didn’t surprise me in the least. I had always thought Sheila was a vile little yip dog. The minute she and John started dating, something had shifted between us. I remember him telling me she was jealous of how close we were, of how much we talked and depended on each other. I had told him to run. He didn’t.
But he was my brother. And I could tell he was sorry. I didn’t want to say it. I really didn’t. In fact, the words came up like vomit in my mouth, sour and bitter and downright disgusting. “You have Scott and me,” I said.
Things weren’t as tense between Scott and John, probably because they were men. Probably because Scott didn’t feel like he needed his older brother’s emotional support and unconditional love. That’s why I had made Scott call John to tell him Mom was gone. I couldn’t be let down by my big brother’s response. Not again.
John hugged me and said, “I promise I’m going to be better, Ansley. I’m going to come home for Christmas and remember my nieces’ birthdays. I’m going to make you love me again.”
I sat down on my mop bucket and sighed, the pantry suddenly feeling its size with my huge brother crowded into it. Now I was mad. “Yet again,” I said, “you have taken something that is supposed to be about someone else and made it about you.”
He looked shocked.
“What?” I asked. “You expect to show up here after almost ten years, the prodigal son returning home, and be welcomed with open arms and forgiven for all your sins? This is my time. I get to mourn the loss of my mother in any way I see fit, and I don’t need you around to make me feel guilty about that. I’ll deal with you when I’m good and damn ready.”
I stood and pushed by John and walked with a purpose through the kitchen, feeling guilty already. This was the thing about us. He behaved badly, but the moment I tried to reciprocate that, I just welled up with love for him again.
I heard Mrs. McClasky calling, “Oh, Ansley, dear,” as I was walking out the back door, but I pretended not to hear her. I had had it with all of them. Fortunately, Jack’s house was only forty steps from mine, so I walked out my back door and into his. I stopped for a moment to admire the finish on the floors. It was one of the most amazing cases of floor salvation I had seen. I’d been certain we would have to replace them all, and it broke my heart. But Hippie Hal had managed to scrape away decades of hideous paint colors that were terrible for hardwoods, reveal a lovely oak underneath, and restore it to a vibrant sheen.
“Jack!” I called. But I didn’t run into Jack. I ran into that horrific Georgia. As if my day could possibly get any worse.
“Oh, Ansley,” she said, “I’m terribly sorry to hear about your mother.” She did seem sorry. She did seem nice. I didn’t see any reason why she had to wear those sleeveless turtlenecks that were so tight, but I might have been able to like her. We might have been able to be friends. If it weren’t for Jack, of course.
“Thank you, Georgia,” I said. “It’s a really hard time, but I’m lucky to have so many wonderful people around me. I’m so grateful to live in Peachtree Bluff.”
She smiled. “Well, silver linings.”
Jack came down the stairs, and much to my delight, walked to me first, gave me a big hug, kissed my cheek, and said, “I hope you’re here because you’ve thought of something I can do for you.”
I cut my eyes at Georgia. “No, no,” I said. “I just needed a little peace. There are like forty-two Mrs. McClaskys over there.”
Jack’s eyes widened in mock fear. “Yikes. That is absolutely terrifying.” He patted my arm and said, “You may hide out here as long as you like.”
“We’re going to look at houses,” Georgia said.
I didn’t like the way she said it, like they were going to look for houses—for the two of them. “Like rental property or something?” I asked.
Jack shook his head. “No. I’ve been toying with the idea of moving back to Atlanta.”
“I was in the area,” Georgia trilled, “so I thought I’d pick him up.”
In the area, my left foot. She was in the area like I was born yesterday.
I could feel my throat go tight. He was actually going to do it. He was toying with the idea of moving away from here. Away from me. “Hey, G,” he said, “would you mind giving us a second?”
She nodded. “ ’Bye, Ansley. Sorry again. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
You can get the hell out of my life and away from my Jack, I wanted to say. Instead, I smiled tightly.
Jack squeezed my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t going to tell you all this right now. This doesn’t change anything. Finish the house. Make it a dream. I just have to look ahead.”
I thought I might cry for the fortieth time that day. Instead, I stood there, open mouthed. “You said six months,” I whispered.
He smiled. “And I meant it, Ans. This was a convenient day for both of us, and I thought I’d see what Atlanta has to offer.”
He didn’t add anything like, “We can have a city getaway.” Or, “Wouldn’t it be so convenient for you to stay there when you go to Market?” Nothing to indicate that he saw me in his future at all. But maybe he saw Georgia in it, which was even worse. She represented the very real idea that he wasn’t going to wait for me forever, as he had clearly signaled. I liked to fancy myself the love of his life. I liked to believe he couldn’t possibly be with another woman, that what we had was too deep and too consuming. But Jack had waited for me for a long time. And he was serious about being through with all of that.
I walked out the back door, and I could see my brother’s big head on the screened-in porch—and my other brother’s smaller head beside it. A row of beer bottles were lined up in front of them, ready to be consumed. I sat down in a chair across from my brothers, handed a beer to Scott to open for me, and took a swig. Then I looked at John. “I forgive you,” I said. “I still think you’re an awful person, but I forgive you. I think I actually did a long time ago.”
I smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot.”
“Oh,” I added. “No one invited you for Christmas.”
We all laughed. I knew even then it couldn’t be this easy. It would get infinitely more complicated as the months went on. But, for now, I was sitting on the porch in Peachtree Bluff, drinking a beer with my brothers for what must have been the millionth time. I pretended my mom was right inside the kitchen and I had to be ready to hide my bottle behind my chair if I saw her coming toward the door.
I pretended Georgia was nothing more than Jack’s Realtor and nothing was or could be going on with them.
Because, sometimes, the truth, like warm beer, is simply too hard to swallow.