Sloane: High Water Thanksgiving Day

MY BRILLIANT, FIERY, BEAUTIFUL SISTER was broken. You could see it in her shoulders, in her jawline, around her mouth. She was tired. She was defeated. And I could tell in my infinite sisterly wisdom that it wasn’t only because of her divorce from James. It was also because of her daughter.

We all sat in silence around the antique pub table in Jack’s dining room for a few moments after Vivi stomped off. The smaller kids were playing happily in a little cluster in the corner, not even noticing anything weird was going on, thank goodness. As I looked at my amazing husband sitting beside me, I wondered how Caroline did it. I wondered how she faced the hurricane that Vivi had become each day alone, without a good man to weather the storm with her.

“Jack, you shouldn’t have stepped in,” Mom scolded.

Caroline shook her head, tears springing to her eyes. “No, he should have. Thank you, Jack. It felt really good to have someone come to my rescue.”

“Well, if I had known that…” Adam started. I looked up into his kind eyes. Sometimes it still startled me to see how long his hair had grown. I was so used to his cropped military cut. I squeezed his knee, bare beneath his khaki shorts, as everyone laughed, my heart fluttering at the very thought that this man was so good. No doubt about it, my military hero of a husband would have come to the rescue if Jack hadn’t gotten there first. Man, woman, child, dog, bat, field mouse—if you were in trouble, Adam was your guy.

Caroline smiled at him. “Trust me, Adam, we all know you are always available for a rescue.”

“I feel like I should step in here, but as the least manly, least dominant male at the table, I imagine it would be useless at this point,” Kyle interjected.

Caroline shook her head, wrapping her hands around an oversized coffee mug. “No, Jack is her grandfather. He can scold her.”

“Caroline!” Mom glared at her.

“Okay, she doesn’t know he’s her actual grandfather… but he is. Whatever. I don’t know. Guys, I’m just tired. I’m so tired. I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this.”

“We can stay in New York a little longer to help,” Emerson said. But, really, how much could she help? She had a two-year-old and a grueling full-time job. She loved it, but it was all-consuming.

“How can we help?” I said. “We have more time than Em.” That probably wasn’t strictly true. But, well, Em was the little sister.

“Oh!” Kyle interjected. “That reminds me. With that hurricane coming and Ansley and Jack leaving, you guys should come to New York with us.”

“That hurricane is not coming here,” Mom said. “Y’all need to calm down. These things almost always veer off course or get downgraded. It’s fine.”

“Even still,” Caroline added. “You haven’t been in forever, and it would be fun.” She paused and grinned at me. “Plus, I could really use your help at the store.”

That was fair. We were all part owners, and, while creating the art for Sloane Emerson, Sloane Emerson New York, and Sloane Emerson LA was a big job, it was the fun part. Mom and Caroline were left with most of the drudgery: the bills, the ordering, the inventory, the paperwork. Emerson, as the baby, was required to do very little. Because that’s how it was. Even still, even now, we always stepped up to do what needed to be done for her. It was the unspoken system.

I looked over at Adam, who looked at Jack. Jack and Adam owned Peachtree Provisions, the corner grocery and deli, and it was packed at all times. Tourists coming in—of which there were many—counted on the store for their provisioning. And, with its laid-back atmosphere and amazing sandwiches, it had quickly become a local favorite too.

“Sloane, I love the idea,” Adam said slowly, “but with Jack taking this trip, I need to be at the store. I don’t think a visit to New York is in the cards for us.”

“But there’s a hurricane coming,” Caroline interjected. “You might have to board the store up, at least for a few days.”

“There isn’t going to be a hurricane!” Mom protested.

“Mom,” Caroline said dully. “Just because you say it over and over again doesn’t make it true.”

Jack shrugged. “You know, Adam, maybe this is the time to put Alisha to the test. We’ve been talking about making her manager. Let’s see how she does for a few days with us both gone. Obviously, if we evacuate, she isn’t going to stay here either. But if the store opens before you get back from New York, it will be a good time to see if she’s up for the challenge. I had great managers that I trusted at every one of my hot dog shops before I sold out. I couldn’t have grown without them.”

Adam nodded. “Agreed.” He turned to me. “I’m in.” Then he got up, took his plate, and walked to the sideboard for more breakfast casserole.

“Yay!” Emerson, Caroline, and I said at the same time.

As Adam and I walked out Mom’s front door, AJ and Taylor in tow, I couldn’t help but smile. The antique-looking streetlamps were already adorned with huge wreaths with red bows and twinkle lights. The sun glinted off the water. I took a deep breath, feeling the breeze in my hair. Neighbors waved as they walked by.

Adam took my hand. “So, I know we decided no store-bought gifts for each other this year.”

I nodded. “Yes.” We were trying to build our nest egg. Plus, I had Adam and my kids and Peachtree Bluff. What else could I possibly need?

“This is admittedly harder for me than for you—”

“Babe,” I interrupted. “Seriously, don’t even worry about it. I don’t want a thing.”

He grinned widely, his dimple showing. “No, what I was going to say was that even though I thought this would be harder for me, I think I finally figured out something that you might like.”

As I reached our gate—well, Mom’s gate—Adam dug into his pocket and pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. It just said Sloane in his distinctive penmanship on the front.

I gasped. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked.

Adam shrugged. “Might be.”

I smiled. “Can I open it now?”

“Well, I’m writing you one every day between now and Christmas, so if you want to keep up, I think you should.”

I squealed and kissed him. “This is the best gift ever.”

Wow, how different a letter from Adam felt now than when he was in the military—it was less of a lifeline and more of a wonderful addition to an already rich, full existence. Honestly, when Adam went MIA three years ago, I never imagined that we would be in this place, where we would all be together again, happy and healthy. And we wouldn’t have gotten through any of that without Mom and Jack. I wasn’t sure Adam would have made it through life without the military—he had too many lasting injuries to ever be back in the field—if Jack hadn’t stepped up to help him start a business. We were so richly blessed to have them.

As if he were reading my mind, Adam said, “Babe, I wanted to talk to you about something: We can wait until after the holidays, but do you think it’s time to start looking for our own house?”

My stomach gripped at the mere thought. I looked up at the white clapboard house with the black shutters and wide double front porches where I had spent my summers as a child, where I had healed after the death of my father, where my husband and I had started our life over again. It was still Mom’s house, even though she was kind enough to let us rent it. Well, she’d wanted to let us stay there for free, but Adam wouldn’t hear of it.

Adam opened the gate on the white picket fence, and the boys ran inside the front door. He let me go first. “Well, I mean, we could move,” I said, “but aren’t things going well as they are now?” I was trying to hide my horror.

Adam nodded. “Yeah, of course. But we can’t mooch off your mom forever.”

“We’re paying rent! Plus, you know she’ll never sell it, and she and Jack are living at his house.”

I was being a little spoiled. But we were living in a big, beautiful house on the water, next door to my mom. It had all my memories—and seven-piece hand-carved moldings. And while, yes, Adam and I had worked hard over the last few years and really saved some money, we couldn’t afford anything like my mom’s house.

“We need to start building equity in something we own,” said Adam. “We’re throwing away money every month.”

I stopped and looked at him, at the scar over his eye he’d gotten while he was held captive in Iraq. He still limped just a little, but with the number of injuries he had sustained, the recovery he had made—especially mentally—was a miracle.

“Plus, don’t you think your sisters resent it a little?” he asked.

I scoffed. “Um, no. Caroline already has a house here, and Emerson and Kyle seem to have hung their life on gathering as few possessions as possible. So no, I don’t think they resent me.”

Plus, if they did, Caroline would tell me.

“Maybe after the holidays we’ll start getting an idea of what we could afford. And maybe we can save a little longer for a bigger down payment so we can get something closer to what we really want and not have to move again in a few years.”

Adam leaned down and kissed me, smiling, amused. “So what you’re saying is I’m not moving come hell or high water?”

It was just a saying, but it gave me a chill. I looked out over the peaceful inlet, finding something eerie in its stillness. High water. I took a deep breath, and suddenly I could smell it, an electric charge, a ferocity in the air. The calm before the storm. It was a smell, a feeling that I knew well. My mother was dead set against it, but I knew then that she was wrong. A storm was coming. All that was left to find out was how big it was going to be.