caroline
“Do you remember the day we lost our fairy stones?” I asked Sloane, as she was lying beside me in my disheveled bed in the guesthouse. She was sipping coffee, I was sipping tea, and for the moment, the world was still. And mercifully quiet.
She just nodded. “Of course I do. It was like losing a part of who we were.”
It really had been, though I couldn’t explain why. It made me feel better to know that even after all these years, Sloane still felt that way, too. Of course, things gain their meaning when we ascribe meaning to them. But I swear it was more than that. Even now, twenty-five years after I had weighed one of those dense, heavy stones in my palm, its mineral flecks sparkling in the daylight, I could still feel the magic coming from it, the power it had. Grandpop told us those stones would keep us safe. And losing them had meant losing a part of our childish invincibility.
“Do you remember the little bag I made to carry them in?” Sloane asked, looking over at me.
“Of course.”
Grammy had taught us to sew that summer—or at least attempted to. Sloane had made a little bag, misshapen and uneven, with a pink satin ribbon threaded through the top. Grammy had embroidered all three of our initials onto that bag in a matching pink, and inside we had placed our fairy stones for safekeeping.
“I was never meant to be a seamstress,” Sloane said seriously. We both laughed.
We had been playing at Starlite Island one day, Mom and the three of us girls. Emerson was two, Sloane was eight, and I was ten. We had built a tall sand castle and placed our bag of fairy stones on the very top.
“The fairy stones reign over the kingdom of Starlite,” I remember Sloane saying.
We all laughed, even Emerson, who repeated, “Fairy stones, Sissy.”
She had run back and forth with her pink bucket that day from the sea to the castle to the sea to the castle, filling it up and dripping the water over her sand kingdom just so. Even then, she had such a determined little spirit.
I had realized that Mom wasn’t playing with us, and when I looked over, brushing the hair out of my face, I saw her, maybe twenty yards away, talking to a man. I remember that she wasn’t smiling, that she didn’t seem happy. And neither did he. The look on her face unnerved me.
“Who was that man on the beach that day?” I asked Sloane, lying beside her in bed.
She shrugged. “I have no idea. But I remember who you’re talking about. And I remember Mom coming over and making us leave when she was finished talking to him.”
Mom had seemed almost scared that day, something we hadn’t seen much. I remember wanting my dad to be there, feeling like something wasn’t right, as she scooted us all into the skiff we had used to putter over to the island. Emerson was screaming as we got into the boat, because of course, you can’t just grab a two-year-old off the beach and take her home with no warning without a tantrum. It’s Parenting 101, and the mother of three daughters would have well known that.
“She seemed kind of frantic, didn’t she?”
Sloane nodded, taking a slow sip of coffee. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but yeah. So much so that we left the fairy stones.”
Grandpop had taken us back to the island that evening, and we had searched high and low for our little bag with the stones. Maybe the tide had washed them away, or maybe a bird had snatched our bag. But I remember how devastated I felt, how empty. It was different from the feeling of losing a toy or misplacing a piece of clothing. It was a sadness I felt in the core of my being.
“Remember how we cried over losing those stones?” Sloane asked.
“Of course. And Grandpop said—”
Sloane interrupted. “All that meant was that the fairies sent those stones to someone who needed them more than we did.”
I laughed. “I found that strangely comforting.”
“Me, too.” She smiled at me. “I still do, kind of.”
“Wonder who found our stones?” I looked down into my tea as if it held the answer.
“I wonder who found my one sewing masterpiece.”
That cracked us both up. A masterpiece that bag was not.
Sloane slapped my leg and said, “Well, my dear, all I can figure is that Hummus found those stones, and they made her a magical baby whisperer.”
“I know. What two-week-old baby sleeps for six straight hours?”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “None that I know, you lucky duck.”
Six hours! I could survive on six hours. I could thrive on six hours and a thirty-minute nap.
“All right,” Sloane said. “I’m heading off to rally my troops for breakfast.”
I smiled at her, but I had to admit that even remembering that day made me feel a little bit off. And I hoped that whoever had found our stones cherished them as much as we had.
I could hear Hummus’s footsteps in the kitchen. James had decided that Hummus needed to stay at least another month. He had no idea what we were having to pay her, but I didn’t argue. I had inadvertently let him spend the night two times the week before when Preston was still waking up every two hours. But that didn’t mean that I was speaking to him. I wasn’t. Only tersely and when absolutely necessary.
We had had a massive fight about Vivi going to school in Peachtree. In the end, Vivi had sweet-talked her daddy. I remembered those days when I could sweet-talk my own dad. Just seeing her with him made me miss my dad so much that I persuaded Vivi to let her father back into her life. Yes, he had hurt her. But he hadn’t meant to. He had only thought he was hurting me—which was totally asinine, by the way. Even still, nothing was more important than family. Luckily, she is less stubborn than her mother. So she conceded.
James arrived at the guesthouse on Preston’s two-and-a-half-week birthday wearing the suit. That was my first clue that something was up. He looked very, very nervous. That was my second clue.
He dove right in. No small talk. “I want to take you out,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
I looked down at myself. Every square inch was covered with either breast milk or spit-up. But that wasn’t the half of it. Mostly, I couldn’t imagine having to sit across the table and look at that jackass for an entire dinner.
“James, have you lost your mind? I’m not going to go to dinner with you like nothing happened.”
He leaned on the kitchen counter. “We don’t have to pretend nothing happened. I just want a chance to explain and to apologize properly.”
“Apologize?” I was skeptical.
“Yes. You deserve an apology. A real, true, long one. And then, if you still want to divorce me, I’ll file the papers.”
I laughed. “There is nothing you can say that will make me not want to divorce you. You will probably make me hate you more, if that’s possible.”
“Caroline, I’m trying to show you that I’m sorry. I love you, but I don’t know how else to prove it.”
I put my finger to my mouth. “Hmmmm. Maybe rewind and don’t sleep with Edie Fitzgerald, and definitely don’t let anyone find out about it if you do, and even more, don’t appear on national television for millions of people to see and judge.”
“If I could, I would,” he said.
“Remember that for your next wife.”
“Caroline . . .”
He didn’t say anything else. And I wondered why Edie Fitzgerald wasn’t going to be his next wife. Maybe she had dumped him. It would serve him right. All I knew was that as of now, I had only one James Preston Beaumont in my life to worry about. And he weighed eight pounds.