“Starlite Sisters,” Caroline said quietly, pointing to where it was painted in beautiful script on the boat’s stern.
James kissed her again. “I figured this boat would really be yours, Sloane’s, and Emerson’s, so it seemed like the right choice.”
Caroline put her hand to her heart. “Honest to God, James, I’ve never loved a present more.”
I was close enough to hear him say in her ear, “I’ve never loved a person more.”
They weren’t all good moments between these two. The damage that had been done cut deep. But this was one of the sweetest things I’d seen in a long, long time.
I put my arm around Emerson and said, “I am so excited for tonight.”
In typical mother fashion, I was worried that my eldest daughter’s extravagant birthday would take some of the shine away from my baby girl’s prewedding celebration. It was too late to call it an engagement party, really. But in essence, that was what it was.
She pursed her lips and said, “Your sleepover with your real family looked fun last night,” and pulled away from me.
Great. “Emerson,” I called behind her, but she was already on the other side of the boat, cuddled up to Mark. At this point, I figured it had to mostly be for show. She couldn’t honestly think they were my real family and she wasn’t. But oh, my Em. She had always had a flair for the dramatic. It actually surprised me that she didn’t have a whole mantel full of statuettes. There was no point in forcing her to talk about it. She was my child who had to work things out in her own time.
Sloane was scolding Taylor and AJ as they chased each other around the table, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t help but understand how Emerson felt. These grandchildren were biologically mine and Jack’s. That had to hurt.
Jack handed me a plate overflowing with crepes and eggs Benedict; thick, crispy bacon; and a salad of dragonfruit, strawberries, and kiwi.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I said. “But you know I’ll never be able to eat all of this.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, his mouth full. “This one is mine. But I thought I would look like less of a pig if I pretended we were sharing it.”
Caroline was sitting in the captain’s chair with Preston on her lap, who was pretending to steer. It took my breath away to think that seven entire months had gone by since these girls had first come home to me, since my Caroline had been as hurt as I had ever seen her. It made me think that maybe time could heal this latest wound. It had healed all the others.
It also reminded me that next month, Carter, my husband and my love, would have been gone for sixteen years. Sixteen years since the world had changed. We had moved forward—my family, the country. We would never be whole in the same way we were before those towers fell, and I knew that didn’t only mean me or my family or those who knew the victims. It meant all of us, the citizens of this country, who, when it really mattered, when our backs were to the wall, could join together in one united pulse, a voice singing a song that broke all of our hearts and yet, at the same time, put us back together again.
I walked into the cabin to find Sloane alone.
“AJ had to use the bathroom,” she said, making air quotes. Toddlers were endlessly fascinated by new bathrooms, and I could imagine that this one was pretty novel and exciting.
I could see Adam outside, laughing with Jack. “He seems like himself again,” I said quietly.
Sloane nodded and smiled, and for the first time in a long time, I sensed that it was an actual smile, a real one. “He’s so strong, Mom. He’s getting better every day.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “I am so blessed to have him here. I can’t believe it.”
I smiled at her, and she continued. “He thinks he’s ready to start talking about the future. For a while, he said he wanted to stay in the Army, that he would serve in some other way. But now he says he can’t bear to be behind some military desk if he can’t be in the action. He thinks it would kill him.”
“And you?”
Her eyes locked with mine. “I know it would kill him. And I just got him back.”
I felt that lurch in my stomach that this was really none of my business, but it worried me anyway. Adam had planned a career in the military, and I was fine with him now choosing a different path. But he had gone to only one year of college. What would his future hold? Of course, between her art sales at Sloane Emerson and Sloane Emerson New York, Sloane could support her family—and certainly while she was living for free in Caroline’s house.
“I can see something starting to shift in him,” Sloane said. “I know when he was finally rescued and going through the worst days of his treatment and PT, he felt trapped, but now, in Peachtree, it seems like he’s starting to feel free.” She paused. “I know it seems weird, but I remember that feeling.”
I nodded. Growing up in a small Southern town, I used to feel a bit under a microscope. It wasn’t all bad. I was a good girl who made good grades, so there was a bright light that shone on me, for sure. But there was also that keen awareness that people were always watching me.
For me, moving to New York was freedom. No one knew me. No one was watching. I could succeed or fail as I saw fit, and no one was commenting on it or even noticing. But I realized in raising my girls there that their story would be quite the opposite. By the time they were born, we had friends and a church, schools, and sports. We had a community who was watching their every move, waiting to talk about what they did right or wrong.
But when we moved to Peachtree Bluff, life became different for them. Their Peachtree Bluff was my New York, a clean slate where no one knew who they were or what they had done. No one had seen them take their first steps or heard stories about how they refused to eat mashed peaches or washed their hair with finger paint. No one knew the exact time and place of Sloane’s first kiss or knew the name of Caroline’s homecoming date or had seen Emerson in her first stage production.
So I understood what Sloane meant about a clean slate for Adam and for her family. Sometimes it’s too hard to go back to an old life that will be forever altered.
I told Sloane all of that and said, “You know, in a lot of ways, places are just places. The South and the North aren’t really all that different.”
“Well,” she replied, “Georgia is the Empire State of the South, after all.”
