THIRTEEN
top of the food chain
sloane
It was the first time I had slept through the night since I got the news about Adam. Maybe it was the rocking of the boat, the way the waves tossed you ever so gently, like a baby in his mother’s arms. I woke up that morning to the sun coming through the porthole in my room, and praise the Lord, I missed my children. I wanted to squeeze them close to me, run my fingers through their hair, and kiss the tips of their little noses. The hardest part about Adam being gone was the numbness, the coldness, the horrible fear. My emotions had shut off. With the water surrounding me and the light streaming in, I felt like a mother again. I felt my heart ache for my boys. I felt stronger, cleansed, as only the sky as seen from the sea can do.
I walked up the stairs and out through the main cabin. I could see my bikini-clad sisters, sipping mimosas at the table. “There’s our girl!” Emerson exclaimed when she saw me. Even in my self-absorbed sorrow, I couldn’t help but notice how prominent her collarbones seemed.
She handed me a croissant. “They’re so divine that even Caroline ate one.”
I knew she wanted me to respond with fake shock that Caroline had eaten anything resembling a calorie and play into the repartee. But I couldn’t smile and laugh and pretend nothing was wrong. I didn’t have the energy. Caroline didn’t say anything, but she pointed to the corner, where they had set up an easel and a canvas, along with brushes and paints.
I shook my head. “No.”
“You know it will make you feel better,” Caroline said.
She wasn’t wrong. I looked out at the sun glazing the blue water, the wind cooling the air. It would make me feel better. Eventually. But first it would absolutely wring me out, gut me to the point I wasn’t sure I would survive, and bring me, like a chemo patient, to the brink of death before reviving me at the last second. I wasn’t there yet.
Emerson reached for my hand. “Where’s Viv?” I asked.
“Sleeping,” Caroline replied. “Reveille is going to be a rude awakening for her.”
Reveille. Each morning, at six thirty sharp, those notes rang out through post with a shock of cannon fire that startled me every time. The memory made me homesick.
I looked at Caroline, and for the first time in a while, I really saw her, the girl she had been, my best friend, my partner in crime, my support system in everything I did. She had saved me so many times. It seemed fitting that she would be trying to save me again.
I looked out over the water, and it hit me. “Does anyone else find it a little strange that we’re on a boat called the Miss Ansley when our mother mercilessly dumped the poor man?” They knew I was the only one not totally thrilled about Mom dating after Dad passed away. When we were young, it horrified me to my very core, and I still had my misgivings. But we all loved Jack. He was perfect for our mother.
“Well, Mom wants to be available for all of us . . .” Caroline said.
She trailed off, and I felt a pang of guilt because taking care of all of us meant taking care of me. But my husband was MIA. For once, I felt like I deserved the extra attention.
“Do you think she’s scared or something?” Emerson picked up. “Of falling in love again? Of losing another man she loves?”
Caroline bit her lip. “I try not to think about it because when I do, I come up with so many far-fetched reasons why she won’t be with Jack.”
I cocked my head to the side. Maybe it was my near comatose state, but I hadn’t thought about anything like that. “Caroline, your imagination is too vivid.”
Even though she was trying to be upbeat and witty, she seemed distant. “Car, you OK?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s just sad, you know?”
“What’s sad?”
“Everything. Mom loves Jack, yet she thinks she can’t be with him. You love Adam, and he’s MIA. I love James, and he betrayed me . . .” She bit her lip, like she always did when she was trying to hold back tears, and looked out over the side of the boat.
“I hate seeing you like this, Caroline,” Emerson said. “It’s your life and your decision, but I just feel like you should move on. It’s not worth being miserable over.”
Caroline and I shared a look. Emerson wasn’t a mother. She hadn’t been married. She didn’t understand.
“Em,” Caroline said, “have a brand-new baby and let some judge tell you he and your other kid are going to be away from you every other weekend and Wednesday nights, and then call me.”
Emerson rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. You two are wives and mothers, and I don’t understand anything. I just wonder if maybe it shouldn’t be easier.”
I wanted to point out that her relationship with Mark didn’t seem terribly easy, but I bit my tongue. Caroline rolled her eyes.
“The hard part,” Caroline said, “is that I still love James so much. But it will always be different now. For all these years I’ve had this sort of warm glow of knowing he loves me more than anything. And now it’s gone. I’m mourning the life I lost.”
She looked at me and winced. “I’m sorry. Poor choice of words.”
I crossed my legs on the bench and shook my head. “No. You’re mourning. I get that. Just because I’m going through something doesn’t mean you aren’t going through your own thing.”
“So what if you make something new?” Emerson asked, and I finally felt like she was getting it.
“You didn’t exactly help with that, Emerson.”
She looked shocked. “How does this have anything to do with me?”
Caroline laughed incredulously. “Are you serious? Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you played Edie Fitzgerald in a movie and made the media storm a million times worse?”
Emerson had been apologetic then, but she wasn’t now. “Like you wouldn’t have done the same thing? I’ve seen you do way worse to get ahead. So don’t act all holier than thou.”
“Girls,” I said. “Let’s just calm down and talk this out.”
“Talk it out?” Caroline said, and I immediately regretted turning her fury toward me. “She played my husband’s mistress on TV. What’s there to talk about?”
Emerson crossed her arms. “It was a part.”
They both looked at me. “Look,” I said, “I can’t answer this one, but I wouldn’t have done it, Emerson.”
“Of course you wouldn’t have,” she replied.
I was taken aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What it means,” she shot back, “is that you’re just like our mother. Vanilla. Predictable. Never done a shocking thing in your life.”
I smirked because, believe you me, I could blow that theory right up.
“Fine,” Emerson said, stomping into the salon. “Just gang up on me like you always do.”
“Do we always gang up on her?” Caroline asked.
I scrunched my nose. “I’m pretty sure we don’t.” I paused. “But she isn’t wrong about finding happiness in a new way.”
Caroline softened and nodded. “I know. I’m going to try. I really am.”
“Do you think you’re going to let him move back in?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Caroline said. She paused. “Maybe when the summer is over.”
“There she is!” I said, interrupting Caroline, as Vivi emerged from the cabin, bleary-eyed. Her hair was messy from sleep, and she was wearing a huge T-shirt and gym shorts. But she was still beautiful, with that fresh face you really couldn’t appreciate until you were older. She was a little Caroline, no doubt about it. But she was sweet—an upgrade if you asked me. This was a conversation she definitely didn’t need to hear.
TWO HOURS LATER, EMERSON had reappeared, and I heard her quietly apologize to Caroline. I felt like I deserved an apology too, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat.
I announced on the radio: “Camp Seafarer tower, this is the vessel Miss Ansley requesting permission to dock.”
I laughed when I heard the signature response, “Ahoy, there, Miss Ansley!”
“Ahoy, there,” I said.
Vivi rolled her eyes, and I said, “Oh, sugar. Get used to it.”
“Take a southwest approach,” the voice on the radio said. There was a pause, followed by, “Welcome back to camp, Captain Caroline and mates Sloane and Emerson.”
We all laughed.
This was one monster of a boat to dock, and the current was ripping through the channel. Emerson was in charge of the bowline, and I had the stern. “Bow to stern,” Caroline said, the steering wheel spinning through her hands. “Actually,” she said, reversing the port engine at the last minute, “stern to bow. The current’s got me.”
“Switch the lines!” I yelled to Emerson, as I pulled the rope out of the port cleat and moved it starboard. I always wondered why you couldn’t just keep lines on both sides of the boat, but Caroline always chastised me, saying that wasn’t proper yachting.
I recognized the camp director as she hustled down the dock. “Caroline! Sloane! Emerson!” she cried. Seeing the campers captaining their Sunfish and tiny Boston Whalers brought back fond memories of making friends, sharing Reese’s Cups from the canteen, writing letters to the boys at Camp Seagull, and sneaking out of the cabin at night to meet said boys on the golf course. It was all so innocent, so simple. I wanted to hug Vivi and beg her to never grow up.
LATER THAT NIGHT, SO late it might have been morning, it was as if it were calling to me, as though I could feel it. The crisp linens and bedding my mom had chosen for the room on the boat draped around me. They made me feel protected and secure in the way only the most comfortable beds can. It was cool and perfectly dark in the boat that night. Yet, I couldn’t sleep. Because I could feel it. I ignored it for what must have been hours. But, finally, like a clandestine lover you know is wrong but can’t resist, I went up to that canvas.
I rolled up the sleeves of Adam’s oxford, soft and thin from being washed so many times, like another layer of my own skin. It felt like his arms around me, and I imagined him whispering in my ear that he loved me. The water was perfectly still, the moon’s reflection bright on the surface. As the stars danced and twinkled, I prayed that my husband was fighting, that he was feeling me supporting and loving him. Because I was. With every breath.
My easel set up overlooking the boats in the Beaufort, North Carolina, harbor where we had moored for the night, I tentatively swiped my brush into the paint, and with that one motion, I was gone, consumed by another world that lived inside my head, a world that was trying desperately to get out, to escape the darkness and burst into the light.
I have always been cautious with my paintings. I am a perfectionist by nature and refine and edit until they are perfect. But not that night. That night I tore through the canvases, strokes flying. I didn’t care if the paintings were complete, didn’t want them to be perfect. They weren’t supposed to be perfect. They were supposed to heal me, to give me courage, to set me free.
I let myself feel the thing I thought I shouldn’t. It welled up inside me and took over my mind, my body, my brush. Anger. Not only that Adam had left me, that he was sacrificing himself, us, our family, but also about everything in our marriage that had ever been tough, every time I’d wanted to stand up for myself but hadn’t, every time I had wanted to speak my piece but held it in. For the first time, I didn’t feel guilt, just pure, unadulterated, hot rage. This stroke was for all the times Adam came home and didn’t ask if he could help with the kids. This one was for the times he looked disapprovingly at a pile of laundry on the floor when I had cleaned up after babies all day. These were for using my toothbrush, leaving the toilet seat up, refusing to leave his dirty shoes by the back door.
I felt it all, all those emotions I had buried so deep. And when I was done, I cried. Not a cry of fragility, but of cleansing. I knew my husband wasn’t perfect. Admitting that to myself made me feel a little better. He was a good man, a good husband. But he wasn’t a saint, and neither was I. My only prayer was that the perfectly imperfect world we had created together would continue to spin.
AS THE SUN ROSE, bright and bold and beautiful, I heard Caroline’s panic-laced voice calling, “Sloane!”
“I’m up here,” I called, yawning.
She appeared in the doorway, clad in a short silk and lace nightgown.
“You’re wearing that to sleep alone on a boat?” I asked.
She grinned at me. “You scared me to death.”
“What did you think? That I’d jumped or something?”
She shook her head. “Not jumped. You wouldn’t kill yourself and leave your children. But maybe swept out to sea in your grief like in a Victorian novel?”
She finally looked down around my feet. “Oh my gosh. Wow.”
She sat down on the deck of the boat, crossing her legs in a very unladylike manner for someone wearing a tiny nightgown. “Caroline, honestly,” I said.
She gasped, ignoring me. “These are amazing. The best paintings you’ve ever done. For real.”
They were all shades of gray, silver, and a little white. Not as much black as I had expected. That was how my life felt now. Less dark, a little brighter, but still completely devoid of color.
“Pain will do that to you, I guess.”
“Girls,” I heard Emerson groan. “It’s like six a.m.” She stopped in her tracks and picked up the first painting I had done. “Whoa.” She held it to her chest. “This one’s mine. Sign it now. I’m taking it to my room.”
I laughed. “You can have it. You don’t have to hoard it away.”
“Get your bikinis on,” Caroline said, clapping. “We have big plans today.”
“I’ll get breakfast ready,” Emerson said. She pointed to me. “You keep painting.”
“Then I guess I’ll drive,” Caroline said, as if that weren’t a foregone conclusion.
“Should we check in with Mom and the kids?” I called to Caroline.
“Later!”
I stretched my shoulders and wrists. I had one more painting in me. The brushstrokes became less precise as Caroline cut through the waves. But that was the beauty of it. This was the painting that would always remind me of this trip, my sisters, and how they saved me, pulling me out of the sea when I was certain I was drowning.
Thirty minutes later Caroline was expertly docking in front of some tennis courts and a gazebo while a very taut, tan twenty-something boy grabbed our lines and tied us up.
A large sign read, Private Club. Docking for Members Only. “Caroline,” I whispered, “what are we doing here? You aren’t a member of this club.”
She looked toward heaven like I was dense. She and Emerson were already out of the boat and held their hands out to me.
“She’s a beauty,” the boy on the dock said.
Caroline put her arm around me and said, “She is, isn’t she? She’s my sister.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think he meant the boat.”
“Ah, yes. Well, she’s a beauty too.”
“Do you have your membership card?” dock boy asked.
My heart raced.
“Tanner has it,” Caroline said.
He grinned. He was very, very cute. I turned toward Emerson, but she didn’t seem to notice. “By all means, go right ahead.”
Caroline linked her arms through mine and Emerson’s.
“It’s good to have friends in high places,” she said.
“Who’s Tanner?” Emerson asked.
“Top of the food chain,” Caroline said. “The person who runs it all.”
I assumed she meant the owner or manager, but when Emerson cocked her head to the side, Caroline said, “The bartender, of course.”
Before we had even reached the clubhouse across the street, yellow-and-white-striped beach loungers with matching umbrellas had been swept out for us.
“Ms. Murphy,” our beach attendant said to Emerson, “someone is bringing down morning refreshments for you right away.”
“Oh, OK,” she stammered. “Thank you.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You used Emerson’s name to get us in the club for the day, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did,” Caroline said, as if offended I would ask something so obvious. “I do it all the time.” She grinned at Em.
I settled into my cushioned chair.
“Maybe you aren’t so insignificant, after all,” Caroline said to Emerson. Suddenly I was more certain than ever that Caroline was always up to something. She was making sure her sister knew that while, no, she might not have made it as big as she had dreamed, she had made it pretty far.
Emerson was already sunning her long, tanned limbs, and I admired—and envied—the line of muscle that ran from her ankle all the way up to her hip bone. She was spectacular. The beach club probably granted us entrance so people could stare at her all day. “We’ll talk about this later,” Emerson said, “when I’m not so relaxed.”
“Excuse me.” I looked up to see a woman about our mother’s age in a huge hat and sunglasses, standing over Emerson with a napkin and a pen. “Emerson Murphy? May I have your autograph, please?”
Emerson smiled. “Of course.”
“I just loved you in Secret Lovers. You made that movie. I can’t wait to see what you do next.”
Caroline and I smiled at each other.
“Miss Murphy,” another beach attendant said quietly, “your publicist told us when she called that Bellinis were your favorite. These were made from organic, local Georgia peaches and Moët and Chandon, as requested.”
Emerson lowered her sunglasses at Caroline, who was trying to avoid her glance. “Really, Caroline? Moët and Chandon in a Bellini?”
“Take a sip and see what a difference it makes.”
It was terrific.
“I will ignore, just this once,” Emerson said, “that Bellinis are your favorite, not mine. If you’re going to use my name, at least get my drinks right.”
“They don’t carry Smirnoff Ice here, Emerson,” Caroline joked.
Only, that’s where Caroline was wrong. An hour later, a very handsome young beach waiter was asking, “A fresh towel, Mrs. Beaumont?”
Caroline unrolled it and, hiding inside, was a Smirnoff Ice. A hot one.
The game of “icing” someone had been out of practice for years as far as I knew, but it was something my sisters and I used to love to do to each other. Like a champ, Caroline, perfectly coiffed and manicured, got down on one knee in the sand, popped the top, and chugged that hot Smirnoff Ice. She dramatically wiped her mouth—while Emerson howled with laughter.
And then it happened. The thing I was afraid I was no longer capable of, the thing I thought I might never do again. As a laugh escaped from my throat, I realized that no one—and no Bellini—in the world could make me feel as carefree as my sisters.
A FEW HOURS LATER, back on the boat, my sister was saying, in typical Caroline fashion, “Girls, the beach walk was great, but we need a little Yogilates before we get going.”
Emerson and I groaned. “No one wants to exercise after drinking on the beach all afternoon, Caroline. That sounds awful.”
She was already setting up the mats on the bow. I gave Emerson a withering look. “Why?” I asked. “Why do we keep her in our lives?”
“I don’t know,” Emerson said. “I can’t figure it out.”
“It’s because you love me and you know I’m right,” Caroline said.
“Damn it,” Emerson said.
We were only into our second sun salutation when I noticed Emerson’s form looked a little off. Caroline must have noticed it too because she jolted up and screamed “Em!” right as Emerson collapsed to the bow, landing solidly on her right side.
“Oh my God!” I cried, running over to her.
“Did she pass out?” Caroline asked as we crouched around our sister, who had opened her eyes and was looking at us, confused.
She tried to sit up. “No, no. Wait!” I said.
“What is it again?” Caroline asked.
“If it’s red, raise the head,” I said.
“If it’s pale, raise the tail,” Emerson finished. No permanent brain damage.
“She’s definitely red,” Caroline said, sitting Emerson up. “I’m so sorry, Emerson. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I think I’m just dehydrated.”
I looked at Caroline skeptically. “I think we need to get you to a doctor just in case,” I said. Caroline nodded in agreement.
“You guys, absolutely not,” Emerson said. “It’s hot, I haven’t eaten much today, and I’ve been drinking. I’m totally fine.”
“I say better safe than sorry,” Caroline said. “We can get an Uber, run to urgent care . . .”
“I said no,” Emerson said, taking charge.
I ran into the salon and grabbed a water for her. As she sipped, she said, “OK. Yoga is over. Caroline, you go drive. I want to wake up in Savannah.”
Caroline looked at me warily. “Emerson,” she said, trying again. “We are going to be out at sea. If you need help, the Coast Guard is going to come, and it’s going to be very dramatic.”
“Is that what you want?” I teased. “A dramatic rescue at sea by a hot sailor?”
She smiled. “No. I’m fine. I’m ready to get home. I miss Mark.”
I shrugged at Caroline.
“If you’re sure,” she said.
“Totally sure.”
Emerson turned over her water bottle, gasped, and threw it to the ground like it had suddenly grown fangs and bitten her.
“What?” Caroline asked.
“Are you kidding me? You’re feeding me water out of a number-six plastic? Have I taught you nothing?”
I rolled my eyes at Caroline and said, “Yeah. I think she’s fine,” as Emerson chanted, “Five, four, one and two, all the rest are bad for you.”
“I will get you nonpoisonous water immediately,” I said sarcastically as we helped Emerson up and into the air-conditioning. I handled the lines while the boat idled, and we were off again.
It wasn’t until I went to go check on Emerson that I saw them. My heart almost stopped beating. Her cheekbone had a deep, dark bruise, and her arm was covered in what looked like a rash, but upon closer inspection was a cluster of tiny bruises.
“Oh my God, Emerson,” I said.
She shrugged. “You know I bruise really easily.”
Caroline took a couple of steps toward us and gasped. “Emerson, that is not normal.”
I agreed.
She bit her lip. “I haven’t felt great lately. Kind of dizzy, and I’m always exhausted. Just walking up the stairs makes my heart race.”
She pulled down the side of her bathing suit bottoms to reveal a huge red and purple bruise.
Back at the helm, Caroline said, “Look, the moment we get back to Peachtree Bluff, you’re going to the doctor.” She paused. “In fact, James and I have to go to the Hamptons for a benefit. Why don’t the two of you come with us, and we can get you to one of our doctor friends?”
Now my heart was racing for two reasons: There was no way—especially now—I could get on an airplane or face New York, neither of which I’d done since 9/11. And there was definitely something wrong with my little sister.
Emerson shook her head. “No, no. I don’t want Mom to know anything is going on. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll just run to a doctor in Peachtree.”
“And if it’s something more, I want you to be seen in New York,” Caroline said.
“Fine,” Emerson agreed, exhaling. She looked at us. “Promise me,” she said. “Not a word to Mom. She has enough on her plate.”
Caroline and I simultaneously put our three fingers up in scout’s honor.
I hated keeping secrets from my mother. But we had done it before. One more time probably wouldn’t hurt.