“Yup. I’ll never forget it. The woman was blond, and the only thing she had on was a black cowboy hat. She was sitting on top of the guy. It took me a few years to figure out she was riding him. At the time I just thought she was jumping up and down on the bed naked.”
Presley cracked up. “Oh my God.”
“I told them to stop jumping because they were going to break the bed. A few minutes later, the man stormed out half-dressed and spoke to Grams. When Pops came home from the hardware store, she turned him around and made him go back to get screws. All the headboards were bolted to the wall from that day on. No more banging to attract curious kids.”
“That’s hysterical. And I can totally see your grandmother pushing your grandfather right back out the door.”
I smiled and nodded, feeling warmth in my chest. This old place had a million memories.
“By the way, where have you been?” Presley asked. “I haven’t seen you the last few days. At first I thought maybe our peace treaty had been short-lived. But then I went down to pick up Alex’s equipment for football camp and spoke to Jeremy Brickson. I came to your room earlier to talk to you. You didn’t have to pay for Alex’s camp. My bounced check would’ve cleared this time. I have some savings. I just hadn’t transferred any money over to my checking when Tanner bounced that check.”
“I wanted to pay for it. It’s the least I could do for being such a cruncle.”
Presley smiled. “Well, thank you. That was really generous.”
“It was nothing.”
“Are you in a rush right now?”
“Not really. Why? You need something?”
“No, but I’ve been cleaning out this room all morning, and I found some old albums. They have some incredible photos. I didn’t realize how much Alex looks like you when you were a kid.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, come look.”
She showed me a photo from Little League. I almost did a double take. Everything from the expression on my face to the shape of my eyes matched my nephew’s.
“You’re right. I thought that was him for a split second.”
“I know. Genetics is pretty crazy.” Presley laughed. “I thought the same thing.”
Even though Alex wasn’t mine, the fact that Presley had given birth to this human who looked like me made me feel oddly connected to her. Who knows if I’d ever have a kid of my own someday.
She flipped the pages of the album and stopped at a photo of a lemonade stand Tanner and I had set up in front of our house when we were around Alex’s age.
“That little side hustle made us some good moola back then. Too bad it never helped my brother learn the value of a dollar. He likes to piss money away now.”
Presley’s smile faded. “Well, yeah. Unfortunately, it’s his way of dealing with…everything.”
Her empathy surprised me a little—especially now that I knew he’d cheated. It takes a big person to sympathize with someone who shit all over them.
“On some level, I understand it—how he could get caught up in an addiction like that,” I said. “But on another, I feel like smacking him upside the head. At some point you have to get your shit together before your life passes you by.”
She sighed. “Yeah.”
I turned to the next page of the album to find a photo of Tanner and me on a boat with Gramps. “Man, look at this one. I remember this day like it was yesterday. Gramps took us fishing, and Tanner caught a spotted bass. It was the first time either of us had ever caught anything. I remember being so damn jealous. I barely spoke to him the rest of the day.”
That was kind of ironic now. I knew my brother had to endure a lot watching me continue a successful career in the NFL when his own dreams had been cut short. The jealousy I experienced over the bass that day was nothing compared to that.
“See?” Presley said. “Stuff like this is why I want Alex to have the experience of growing up here. Beaufort is nothing like New York, where the kids are inside all day messing around on their devices. This is the kind of life I want for him, playing out in the sun with his friends and family.”
Family.
“Tanner couldn’t have taken you moving so far away very well.”
“He gives me shit for leaving, yeah. But he never took advantage of having us there, Levi. That’s the difference. I would’ve never left if he’d been there for Alex, day in and day out. But he barely ever was.”
It disappointed me to realize how absent Tanner had been all this time. “Yeah, I get that, Presley.”
It was one thing to suck as an uncle—which I absolutely had, as my nephew was quick to remind me. But it was another thing entirely to suck as a father.
“Anyway,” she said. “You can’t beat the experience of growing up in a small town like Beaufort. I wrote a letter years ago to remind myself of how important this place is to me.”
“You wrote a letter…to yourself?”
She blushed a little. “Yeah. It’s about all the lessons I learned from my mamaw growing up.” She smiled. “Want to see it?”
“Sure.”
She left to go get it. As much as I knocked her for having delusions of grandeur when it came to the future of this place, I did admire her respect for where she came from.
Presley returned holding a book.
“What’s with the book?” I asked.
“Just a hiding place for safekeeping.”
I looked down at the title—I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. “Why that one?”
“I remember reading it in high school. It left an impression on me. I always found it inspiring. Maya Angelou was amazing. I love what she has to say about learning to love yourself and showing kindness to others. So her book seemed like a fitting place to keep my letter.”
Presley handed the paper to me, looking a bit shy, which I found kind of adorable. Yeah, she might be growing on me a little.
I spent the next couple of minutes reading Presley’s letter as she watched, seeming to try to gauge my reaction. Reading these words made me feel even worse about the misconceptions I’d had about her until our chat the other night. I’d had no clue my brother had cheated on her—twice. That was certainly not the story he’d told us. We all assumed she’d left him selfishly, when in fact, she’d had damn good reason for it.
When I got to the end, I handed it back. “Your mamaw was a smart woman. I think it’s cool that you wrote this. We could all use a reminder of what’s truly important from time to time.”
She took a deep breath in. “So…”
I suspected what she was leading up to. “What?”
“If you truly get it—if you appreciate the importance of Beaufort and growing up in this idyllic place—why can’t you understand wanting to preserve The Palm Inn?”
Here we go.
And we were getting along so well.
“You can still have the kind of life you want here in Beaufort without running the inn, Presley.”
“But what about preserving your family’s history?”
“The Palm is a building. It doesn’t have a heart that beats. Moreover, I don’t think it’s important to preserve something that’s not relevant anymore. It would be much smarter to take that money and invest it—make a new history for yourself and Alex so you can have a fresh start.”