“Well, they knew. They had to. But they were all for it. An unwed daughter with a baby was more than they could take. I swear it bothered them almost as much as her illness.” She laughed lightly. “I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, Amelia, because it isn’t the facts, and the facts are what your life is all about. But my truth is that that little baby boy was my son. And there is nothing that anyone can do to take that away from me. It was the best decision I ever made. Well, that and having you, of course.”
“So that’s why he’s named Robby,” I whispered. “Not after C-Pop. After his father, Robert.”
I knew what she was doing here, and I said so. I gave her credit because it was a super-ballsy move. She had risked the biggest secret she had—at least, I hoped it was her biggest secret—to make me see the truth I hadn’t grasped yet. The gesture meant something to me.
“Look, Amelia, I made my peace a long time ago with the fact that you were going to have a life different from mine. You live the life that you want to live. If that doesn’t include marriage or babies, so be it. I’ll be fine. But don’t walk away from something you really want because you’re afraid. That isn’t the brave girl I raised.”
I looked down at my hands. “It’s just weird, you know? I spent so many years certain that I didn’t want children, that I didn’t want that life. So why now?”
Mom looked at me, eyes bright. “Honey, I know that you’re a different generation, that you come from a timewhere women are supposed to know their own minds before they know someone else’s, love themselves before they can love a partner. And I respect that. But when you are so close to a person that you are contemplating spending your life together, things change.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean, when you were with Thad, you didn’t want children and neither did he. That was fine. Harris didn’t want to get married and, when you were with him, you didn’t either. But being with someone new means necessarily shifting parts of your life to fit in with parts of theirs. Parker wants children. Changing your mind about wanting them too isn’t a crime, honey. It’s a part of being in a relationship.”
I could tell she was about to get up, leave me alone with thoughts I didn’t want to listen to. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you just sit with me for a while?”
She pulled me into her side, and I rested my head on her shoulder.
And so we sat, two Southern women who’d grown up in this same house in this same town on this same street—but who, somehow, wanted completely, entirely different things.
ParkerSOUTHERN COAST
I HAD VERY DEFTLY PROVENthat the conversations you never want to have are inevitable. I wanted to say Amelia was overreacting. In the moment, I believed that she was. And so I huffed out, walked away, mad that she couldn’t bend just a little, as though giving birth to and raising children that weren’t biologically hers were a small favor to ask someone.
I realized hours later, about halfway out to the middle of the ocean, in my dad’s boat, alone, that I had probably overreacted. Okay,definitelyoverreacted. I had also played this all wrong. What better way to show the woman you love that you love her no matter what, that you love her more than the life you had envisioned for yourself, than to escape to the sea? Nothing saysI’ll do anything for youquite like getting the heck out of Dodge.
What if she was looking for me? The water was dark andstill, the sky bright with stars and a full moon whose reflection off the water increased the ethereal feeling. It also felt ominous. My stomach churned with the knowledge that I had done the wrong thing and that it might cost me the love of my life.
Theotherlove of my life, anyway. It hit me like a punch in the face (probably from Mason) then. The other love of my life. Yeah, it was hard for me to move on. But Amelia was having to live with the fact that, no matter what, there would always be this other person between us. Roles reversed, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to do it.
Now I understood that the crux of the situation wasn’t even really about babies. I had been too self-centered to realize that Amelia still worried about being in Greer’s shadow. I had done everything I could to let her know that she was the one I wanted. But maybe I hadn’t done a good enough job. Or maybe there was no use trying to hide something so huge from someone who knows you so well.
I should have been more honest with her. Was I even capable of making the right choice anymore?
That was when I turned the boat around. When I looked down at my phone, I saw I was still too far offshore to get service. But as soon as I did, I texted Amelia immediately.Babe, I don’t know why I got on this boat when all I want is you. I’m sorry. I swear.
Nothing. No dots. She could be asleep. But if she was asleep, then she wasn’t as worried about all this as I was. I looked down again. No dots.
I pushed the throttle forward, tired and distracted and unable to keep my eyes off the phone screen, searching for a response that wasn’t coming.
About the time the house came back into view, the phone rang. It was exactly five a.m. I pulled the throttle to slow the boat and answered frantically, “Hello!”
“Parker, my boy,” George said, not frantically at all. George. Not Amelia. “I just sent you a prospectus.Southern Coasthas gone under. It’s being dismantled for parts. We might not want it, but we could pick it up for nothing, headquarter it wherever.”
Southern Coast. Greer and Amelia’s favorite magazine. Now my head was pounding. I was too tired to think about this, too drained to deal with it. But my instincts were sharp even when I wasn’t. I couldn’t let Amelia’s favorite magazine fold. I knew she would want it. Whether she forgave me or not, I wanted her to have it. “We can revamp that one, George. It has to be relocated to a Southern town.” I paused. “Maybe even a small one. It needs Southerners writing for it…” I trailed off. “Let me sit down at my computer, and let’s meet about it next week.”
“Ten-four. Good man. You’ll take the lead on this one.”
I nodded and hung up. It was as clear as day to me that Amelia had to be editor in chief. I couldn’t imagine anyone in the vast numbers of McCann employees who could reenvision it like she could.
An hour later, as I was pacing around the bedroom in the guesthouse, all thoughts ofSouthern Coastgone, I couldn’tstop thinking about my favorite passage in Greer’s last book. It rang so true I had committed it to memory.
Everyone always thinks that thing is going to happen to someone else. That cancer or car wreck, infertility battle or bankruptcy declaration. Other people’s problems. But we tend to think that the really great things only happen to someone else, too. They never believe they will be the one to become CEO, to start the nonprofit, to get the record deal, to change the world. Other people’s successes. But none of these things belong to other people.
