I reasoned that a girl can’t have everything. While my friends complained about their husbands not wanting to take them out or go on vacations or watch Bravo, my small concern seemed paltry. Thad and I had fun. We had love. The lust would be gone eventually anyway, I justified. I was married to my best friend.
I fell asleep, my face pressed against the plastic window, jolting awake when the plane touched down. Shocked that I’d slept through the entire flight, I powered my phone up, and, momentarily forgetting what had transpired, I, out of habit, said sleepily, “Hey, Siri, text Thad. Landed.”
My phone rang, and I immediately realized my mistake. This was going to take some getting used to. “Thad,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Oh, Amelia,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you. I swear I was.”
“But it never seemed like the right time to destroy my entire life?” I responded angrily.
“Let’s talk about this,” he said.
“I can’t. I have to go ruin my parents’ lives now, too.”
“Amelia,” he said sadly. “I do love you. I swear I do. I wanted to be different for you. I tried.”
“Do not make me feel sorry for you, Thad,” I said softly, knowing he was telling the truth. “I can’t go there yet.”
“Okay,” he whispered. “Please just promise you’ll call me. Please, Amelia.” Then he added, “I miss you already.”
I wanted to say something sarcastic like, Well, I’m sure Chase will soothe your hurt feelings, but I could tell he meant it. For a brief moment, I thought maybe we could move forward in a different way. But no. I didn’t want to live a lie. I felt like all the blood was draining out of my body into my feet. I was light-headed from a sorrow so deep tears felt too ordinary, too trite.
“I’ll let you know when I get back,” I said noncommittally. “But I’m not sure I can be around you right now.”
“I understand,” he said softly. “But please call me if you need me. Please let me know if I can help.” He paused. “I really am sorry,” he added one more time. “I didn’t want to lose you, and that was selfish.”
“Goodbye, Thad,” I said, his name foreign in my mouth. It wasn’t a Bye for now! or a See you next week! It was goodbye. For good.
After leaning on my carry-on in the cramped aisle of the plane for an interminably long time, I walked down the steps and onto the tarmac, wrapping my sweater tighter around me. The two-gate airport was small, clean, bright, and lovely in every way. Home.
Remembering I still had Thad’s credit card, I charged a rental Mercedes convertible that he couldn’t afford and, with Taylor Swift blaring over the Bluetooth, put the top down and cranked the heat. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I felt free. With the wind in my hair and water all around me, maybe I would be okay.
* * *
My parents’ house in Cape Carolina could only be described as rambling. And thank goodness. Because thirty-eight years earlier, my aunt Tilley had—as Southerners describe it—gotten “the vapors.” She still had them. People said my mama and daddy should put her in a home.
My father was all for it. But my mother said she wasn’t going to abandon her sister. So the east wing was converted into an apartment for Aunt Tilley, with a bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room, and a kitchenette with a refrigerator and microwave—nothing that Aunt Tilley could use to burn the house down. Or so my parents thought. The fire department had to come that one time Aunt Tilley put a frozen macaroni and cheese into the microwave for sixty minutes instead of six minutes. But Chris at the appliance store rewired it so that it would only turn on for one minute at a time, an idea of my brother Robby’s that he hadn’t been able to figure out how to implement.
Chris had been two grades above me in high school, and he could rewire anything, including Principal Trusken’s car. How he got it onto the roof of the school remains an urban legend. He and his friends all had to go to summer school and didn’t graduate on time because of it, but if they could, they would do it again. Glory days are fleeting. One must make the absolute most of them.
The classic white colonial might have seemed out of place compared to the beach houses that had taken up residence all around it, with their cedar shakes and hardy board siding. But this grand estate at the long end of a narrow peninsula—alone except for the Thaysdens’ house beside it—was the oldest home on the beach. Saxtons had lived in this house for hundreds of years. We had moved into it when I was seven, after my grandparents retired to Florida. I knew every back staircase and hidden nook, every ghost, every creak of the stairwell. And I loved it all. As I drove down the long, live-oak-lined street, I smiled at how the ancient trees made a canopy over me. Not for the first time, I thought that I would love to live here one day. It seemed a little bit crazy, since I wouldn’t have children to brighten the shadowy corners or fill the antique beds.
But Robby and his wife, Trina, already had three adorable but very rowdy boys. They, no doubt, would be the next Saxtons to inhabit Dogwood. I always teased them that when they moved in, I would take over Aunt Tilley’s apartment. Every Southerner needed a batty relative living in the attic—or, in this case, the east wing. Trina would squeal and go on and on about how much fun we would have while Robby looked horrified. I shuddered, thinking of it now. It had been all fun and games until my recurring nightmare about turning into Aunt Tilley had started.
I had a hard time deciding whether to go see Daddy at the farm first or to head straight home. I figured that, either way, my parents’ worlds were about to be shattered by the news that their golden girl had disappointed them.
I decided to go home first. As much as they drove me crazy, I really couldn’t get enough of Mom and Aunt Tilley, especially when they were together, a little codependent disaster area full of hairspray.
I pulled into the grassy lot—well, mostly dead grass, since it was winter—that served as Dogwood’s overflow parking, opened the door, and was finally embraced by the smell of the salt air that had begun wafting in through the lowered convertible top the moment I reached the beach. As I stepped out of the car, it actually brought tears to my eyes. When I lived here, I got used to it, couldn’t smell it. After a day or two, I would lose it again. But, for now, it was the scent of coming home.
Despite the near-Christmas chill in the air, Mom and Tilley were sitting side by side in rocking chairs on the front porch when I pulled up in my rental car, Mom in a pair of sensible but stylish black pants and a yellow double-breasted jacket and Aunt Tilley in a white lace corset dress with matching parasol. She really seemed normal a lot of the time. This was not one of those times.
They both stood and began squealing for me to hurry up, waving their arms and gesturing to me, but they wouldn’t step off the porch, as though contained by an invisible fence. The porch floor was, as always, painted black for winter, to attract heat and keep it warmer. In the summer, it would return to the palest gray. The ceiling remained blue all year long to keep the evil spirits away. (And the mosquitoes.) But my separation from Thad was one evil spirit even the bluest of blue couldn’t scare off. Long and healthy marriages were a hallmark of the Saxton family, and I was ruining that streak.