Bulls Island (34 page)

Everyone in the room took a collective gasp.

“Whew, Dad!” J.D. was flabbergasted…there were a lot of flabbergasting things afoot. “Son? This seems like the perfect moment for you to come meet your, uh, uncle Mickey!”

I thought we would have to call for oxygen when young Mickey stepped up and shook Adrian’s hand.

“Uncle Mickey,” Adrian said, towering over his uncle whose voice had only recently changed. “Do you happen to have an Xbox?”

“Nope. Do you?” Mickey said.

“Yep. The Three-sixty. And Rock Band.”

“Oh, this is very cool news.”

“Holy cow,” Joanie said, recognizing another truth. “What’s next?”

What followed was a lot of laughter as the flame of our ages-old family feud sputtered to a final fizzle. I watched them all as love bloomed and old wounds healed as though bathed in the waters of
Lourdes. It was like nothing I would ever witness again. Or that any of us would ever witness again. Generations of ghosts roamed the room, whispering warnings of eternal unrest, please free them from all of it. I could hear Bruton’s voice in my ear:
Don’t be a fool, Betts. Life is short.
My mother’s breath was all over my neck:
Love him, forgive them, bring my family back together, please do this for me, for all of us.
It was up to me, up to everyone. Most of us were game. Something larger was at play as, God help us all, Louisa herself had once said.

Okay, I thought. I’ll be the fool for this generation. After all, the odds were finally on my side. I’d take the risk, the gamble, the bet. And you know me; I’m only Betts when I know I’m going to win. I like a sure thing.

T
here are some things you need to know before we part. I am not an evil woman but I certainly committed a terrible crime. I paid for it with more cold sweats and heart-skipping nightmares than you could count. In some ways, I will probably continue to pay for it forever. Now, one year later, there are still residual eruptions of anger and resentment from J.D. and Adrian, though fortunately not at the same time.

After Bruton’s funeral, I decided to stay in New York for an extended visit to be near Adrian in case he wanted to talk. Adrian did not want to talk to me or anyone.

He kept saying, “Look, Mom. This doesn’t change the fact that I still have to study and make grades…. I have a job to do.” His tone of voice was terse and I knew his quiet rage bordered on volcanic. I did not blame him. “So do I, Adrian. I just keep thinking that there must be questions that you have…. I don’t know, things you want to know?”

“I guess I want to know how you could do this to me, to all of us? How could you?”

These are the words I had dreaded, absolutely dreaded, hearing for the past twenty years. There they were, naked and cold, spoken quietly and matter-of-factly by the one person I had ever loved so dearly. Not hurled at me like hot coals, not chucked in my direction on a tail of fire, but spoken by my beautiful son, of whom I was so proud, from a place of unimaginable pain. I wanted him and everyone—J.D., Daddy, Joanie, J.D.’s family, Sela, and Ed—to look in my face and down the tunnel of my years, to see my life through my eyes, what I had seen and lost, and the family celebrations for which I had yearned. Christmases. Birthdays. Graduations. I had celebrated them all alone, except for the company of Aunt Jennie and an occasional visit from Sela. If they could have seen with my eyes, father and son might not have been so judgmental in those early weeks, once the initial joy of knowing each other wore off and their questions became more hostile and begging for answers I could not provide.

I wanted them to know that my whole heart had been a lifelong investment in Adrian and that eventually I would’ve told them all the truth. I had planned to and I
would
have told them, I swear. I said so, didn’t I? The horrors of reality had beaten me to the punch.

Sela says I have to quit torturing myself, and she’s right. I could not undo what was done. Whether we want to ride the tides or not, life washes over us until the passage of time can dull the pain of our betrayals. Thankfully, eventually everyone began to come around. The thaw began to show itself at Christmas.

Adrian and I agreed to spend the holidays in Charleston, and we were actually looking forward to it. I figured the answer to happiness would be found in a higher incidence of exposure to J.D. and the family, giving us more chances to adjust and less time to consider our many regrets.

The Bulls Island construction was well under way; I still had the condo at Wild Dunes and was only too happy to spend Christmas Day morning watching the ocean rolling in. I had spent the last six months or so nursing a fantasy that time had done some healing and I could set things right. Adrian and I were walking on the beach in the morning and after many weeks of stilted conversations and without provocation I felt Adrian’s arm loop around my shoulder. I had missed that arm and that assuring hug so much. Well, just ask any woman with a son how important her boy’s love is and she will sigh with the force of a hurricane wind.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Oh, son.” I stopped and put my arms around him. “I love you so! Merry Christmas.”

“I love you too,” he said. “I really do.”

With that, I could feel my stress melting away and I began to cry.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“No more tears. Everything’s gonna be okay. Trust me.”

And thus I began to recognize that the man inside my boy had decided that perhaps I had suffered enough. We drove over to the city to have our Christmas at Daddy’s with Sela and Ed, J.D., Sandi, Cam, and Joanie and we enjoyed a traditional turkey dinner and jokingly fought over the wishbone amid many toasts. If we couldn’t have peace on the whole earth, at least we could bow our heads and pray for peace among us.

Then we exchanged gifts. I bought J.D. a spotter lens to be used in the ongoing efforts to find Gatorzilla. We all had a good laugh about that, except that the poor fellow who had been a gator snack had passed away, so we sadly toasted his memory wishing him eternal rest. Then J.D., whose divorce papers had damp ink but would be final any moment, handed me a small velvet box from Crogan’s
Jewel Box. I held my breath as I opened it, thinking perhaps it was an engagement ring, but it was not. Inside was a stunning pair of diamond stud earrings with removable pearl drops. They sparkled and flashed and I didn’t know what to say. Simply gorgeous!

“I planned to start with your ears,” he said. “Like them?”

Start with my ears, indeed.

“You know I do! Oh, J.D.! They’re beautiful!”

“A man who gives a woman a gift like that had better have honorable intentions,” Daddy said.

“Yes, sir,” J.D. said. “I think you know this is not the first time I have attempted to declare my intentions.”

We swapped sweaters and books, bottles of perfume, DVDs, and all manner of remembrances until we had exhausted Santa’s booty for 2008. There had been thoughtful gifts for everyone and it became clear that J.D. and I were not the only ones taking one step closer to a commitment. Joanie and Cam were looking very cozy, too.

A week or so later Daddy announced that he had taken an interest in the Bulls Island housing and was considering buying something spectacular for himself, saying that Joanie and I could have the house downtown if he relocated full-time. He thought he might open a grocery store on Bulls Island, nothing very complicated, a high-end greengrocer that also carried eco-friendly household goods.

“I can’t see people taking a boat to go get milk, can you?” He would say.

“No, and no one understands the business as well as you do, Daddy.”

“Maybe my grandson would like to have, I don’t know, a summer job? Work his way up? You know, he would have to sweep the floors. Pay his dues like everyone else in the world. What do you think?”

“I think Adrian would be tickled to pieces, Daddy. I really do. But I’ll have to ask him.”

“I’ll call him myself,” he said. Then he smiled.

I thought it showed great optimism and tremendous love that Daddy wanted to be involved in something that might forge another link in our chain. After all, Bulls Island had brought us all together in one fashion or another.

What about J.D. and me? Well, J.D. divorced Valerie, and I’m sure that comes as no surprise to anyone. Louisa refused to discuss it, not that she spoke to me very often, which was the perfect arrangement in my opinion. I felt enormous pity or sympathy or call it what you want for Valerie because here was a woman who got dealt a lousy hand and went on to make her life worse. She went back to her family in Georgia, who underwrote and guided her to one rehab facility after another until around Easter we heard that she finally met a sympathetic psychiatrist and they fell head over heels in love. Her most recent communiqué said that she was looking into becoming a counselor herself. I wished her all the best.

But back to J.D. and me? Well, there’s no rush. I resigned from ARC, staying on with Triangle until our island paradise would be completed. McGrath, Pinkham, and even Traum understood and offered me return employment any time the mood struck.

“I envy you, McGee,” McGrath said. “All that free time? But I understand.”

“So do I,” Pinkham said. “You’re a young woman and there are many roads to heaven.”

“Thanks, y’all. I’ll miss you like crazy!”

“That’s some bull,” McGrath said.

“He’ll never stop with the bull jokes!” Pinkham said.

Somehow, I couldn’t see myself in New York anymore. I didn’t have a lick of enthusiasm to return to the craziness of private equity and all that that lifestyle demanded, so I put my co-op on the market and went back to Charleston. Just like that. No one was more surprised by my actions than I was. And as everyone except me probably
would have expected, the more I gave into my past, and the more I brought Adrian along on the journey with me, the happier we all were.

I had given the woman I had become so much thought and there were some radical changes I wanted to make. I didn’t want to be cynical anymore, strapped to a sword, doing battle with currency markets, housing markets, or any market at all. I wanted to wipe out the suspicious, calculating side of myself and see what it would be like to trust somebody else’s judgment for once. And that somebody was J.D. It always was J.D. At some point you might receive an invitation in your mail.
The pleasure of your company is requested
…and then you’ll know what I have always known. Life’s design is only drawn up to a point by your hand. The rest looms out there by the sea. All you have to do is face west at sunset or east at sunrise or walk out on a crisp night and look up at the sky. Especially on Bulls Island.

Bulls Island is a real place and is indeed and hopefully will always be part of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. There is great discussion over whether to call it Bull Island or Bulls Island. I have called it Bulls Island because that is what we called it when I was growing up on Sullivans Island, which used to have an apostrophe and now does not. Nonetheless, Bull Island and Bulls Island are one and the same and I ask my readers to kindly indulge this tiny reach in artistic license.

If you would like to visit, one way to do so is with the wonderful folks at Coastal Expeditions. Please stop by their website at www.coastalexpeditions.com or call them at 843-881-4582. They also offer family kayak tours and many other short trips to acquaint people from “over the causeway” to the exquisite and unique pleasures of Lowcountry living.

To learn more about conservation of the Lowcountry’s incredible landscape, wetland protection efforts, water- and air-
quality protection efforts, and what’s on the agenda around the State of South Carolina in overall environmental concerns, please visit www.coastalconservationleague.org or e-mail [email protected].

Special thanks to my dear friend Marjory Heath Wentworth, South Carolina Poet Laureate, whose spectacular words enrich mine. We are all so proud of you, Marjory, and I am particularly honored to offer one vehicle to share your glorious talent, that of a
living American woman poet
, with readers everywhere. Bravo! Also huge thanks to my dear friend, Dana Beach, founder and executive director of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, for so many fabulous plot possibilities and details for this story. This would be just another Beaufort Boil without you! And to my childhood friend Anthony Stith, fire chief of the Sullivans Island Fire and Rescue Department, for his explosive ideas!

To my New Jersey literary friends, the geniuses: Pamela Redmond Satran, Deborah Davis, Debbie Galant, Benilde Little, Christina Baker Kline, Mary Jane Clark, and Liza Dawson. Huge thanks for your support and your friendship which I value more than you could know. And my love to all the members of MEWS, which is
run by the indefatigable Pamela Redmond Satran, who keeps the five hundred plus writers who live in the Montclair area informed on all issues pertinent to the fun and games of a writing life.

To my South Carolina literary friends, who constantly inspire with their endless wit and the choir of their authentic southern voices: Josephine Humphreys, Walter Edgar, Anne Rivers Siddons, Sue Monk Kidd, Nathalie DuPree, Jack Bass, Tom Blagden, Barbara Hagerty, Robert Rosen, Mary Alice Monroe, William Baldwin, Roger Pinckney, and especially to the sainted one, Cassandra King, whom most of you know is the long-suffering wife of my favorite old grizzly bear, Pat Conroy, who gave me the courage to write and continues to explain the publishing world to me, one drop of ink at a time. To Jack Alterman, for my youthful author photo and for his photographic genius in general.

To the other real people who appear in this book—Jessamyn “Jessie” Jacobs, Ed O’Farrell, Paul McGrath, and David Pinkham—huge thanks and folks, if their characters act out of character for them, it’s my fault not theirs. And as always, to the out-of-state belles, Rhonda Rich, Mary Kay Andrews, Patti Callahan Henry, and Annabelle Robertson—love y’all madly!

Again thanks to my agent, Larry Krishbaum, for his excellent guidance and grand humor, and his team of wise warriors, for their support, especially Aubrey Lynch who has the most sympathetic ears in New York.

To the William Morrow dream team, beginning with my fearless and brilliant editor, Carrie Feron, whose truly stellar thoughts and suggestions were invaluable in shaping this entire work—Carrie, darlin’, if they like this book, make sure you take a large chunk of the credit! (If they don’t, however, it’s your fault.) Thank you for everything! And to Jane Friedman, Michael Morrison, Lisa Gallagher, Virginia Stanley, Carla Parker, Michael Morris, Michael Spradlin, Brian Grogan, Donna Waitkus, Rhonda Rose, and Lord knows, to
Tessa Woodward—whew! Thank you over and over! And to the marketing and publicity wizards—Debbie Stier, Ben Bruton, Buzzy Porter, Pamela Spengler Jaffee, Lynn Grady, and Tavia Kowalchuk—huge thanks! I curtsy to Liate Stehlik and Adrienne DiPietro from Avon for hundreds of thousands of reasons, to Rick Harris in the audio division, and to the visionaries, Tom Egner and Richard Aquan, for my gorgeous covers.

To Debbie Zammit—what can I tell ya? We’re still alive! Thanks for everything, especially the endless hours of scrutiny and your wonderful friendship, compassion, clarity of vision, and humor that saved many a day. To Ann Del Mastro, Mary Allen, George Zur, and Kevin Sherry—you know how much the Franks love all of you and appreciate keeping our mother ship afloat in so many ways. And to Penn Sicre, my friend of many years, for taking the leap (we hope!) from page to screen with
Plantation.

And to the booksellers—especially Patti Morrison, Larry Morey, Emily Morrison, Rachel Carnes, and every last soul from Barnes & Noble in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; Tom Warner and Vicki Crafton of Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island; Jennifer McCurry of Waldenbooks in Charleston; Andy and Carrie Graves of Happy Bookseller in Columbia; Frazer Dobson and Sally Brewster at Park Road Books in Charlotte; and to Omar Dowdy, just for the heck of it.

Special bowing and scraping to my wonderful cousin Charles “Comar” Blanchard Jr., whom we adore for who he is and to whom we owe enormous gratitude for everything he does. And additional bowing and scraping, plus a kiss, to my fabulous brother-in-law, Scott Bagnal, of Edisto Beach, South Carolina, for the inside skinny on how to catch mud minnows and the education on Jon boats. And to Jay Adams for setting me straight on Virginia Gentleman, the best bourbon in the world. Cheers!

Obviously, the bulk of all my thanks I should place at the feet of my wonderful, brilliant, handsome husband, Peter, and our two
gorgeous, outrageously funny, and smart, nearly adult children, Victoria and William. We are so proud of you, and I thank you for understanding this crazy career of mine and always rolling with the insanity with such warmth and love. I love you all with all I’ve got. Seriously, I love you and thanks!

And to my readers? I thank you again and again for all your nice e-mails, for coming out to book signings, and for being so great in every way. Your generous words of support keep me going in the tough moments, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

All this, all of this, is no “bull!” Love you all!