Dear Carolina (33 page)

I think in that instant I grew up and settled down all at once. It was like I had handed Jodi my wings when she walked out the door and, finally, after all this time, I couldn't have been happier to be grounded.

BOOKENDS

I always get real nervous 'bout preparing seeds for plantin' and plowin' the dirt after a crop. That's 'cause I ain't never been too good at beginnings or endings. That's why it all made a lotta sense that your momma was the first person to hold you in the hospital. And that's why I couldn't tell you good-bye when I said your momma and daddy could adopt you. I don't never know the right things to do or say. And I always get to thinking on what shoulda been different. So, between you and me, I stick with the middle. Once you're in the middle, it's nice and comfortable. The butterflies of the beginning are over but you ain't had all them tears at the end.

But even the middle ain't without its heartache. I'm getting to know that right good. Sometimes my visits with you make my heart sing and spill over with joy. But sometimes they near rip that same heart in two. And I cain't figure how I could ever have give you up.

Them days I think it was harder the way I did it, giving you up after I had you for a while. I start thinking it woulda been easier if I never even seen you once you were born. But then I woulda spent
my whole life wondering where you were, what you were doing, if every little girl I passed on the street was you. And I don't have to do that. 'Cause you're right there, on the same farm, growin' and gigglin' and happier than a chick peckin' at the ground. And that's all a momma really needs in life, to know that her child is happy.

There's gotta be a lotta things a lot of women standing where I am would want to say to their youngens. But all I need to tell you, baby girl, all you gotta know, is this one thing: You are loved. There ain't no day too hard, no mistake too big, no mountain too tall that will ever make a dern difference in that love. Cain't nothin' take it away.

It's real simple. But at the end a' the day, it's the only thing in this great big ole world that makes a smidge a' difference.

It took me right near twenty-one years to realize that, to know that there's people in this world who love me so good that they wouldn't never let nothing happen to me. I'm thinking, looking over at him sitting beside me, him grinnin' like his kid's winning the Little League tournament, that Buddy just might be one of them. He's here with me today at the Kinston farmer's market, the place it all began. “I'm just gonna bring my biology textbook,” I told Buddy. “Might as well get some studying done for my exam, 'cause it ain't like I'm gonna be busy here.”

Buddy smiled. “You might be surprised at how many people wanna come get them books signed by you.”

I got all my cans and jams lined up on this here table. But I also got my brand-new book, all glossy-covered and me smiling with my hair fixed. Khaki and Graham and Buddy, they wanted to have me some big fancy party at the country club for my book launch. But that ain't me. This place, right here under the big green awning, with the air fresh and the other farmers around me, this is where I got to getting my life back together, the place that made me remember there's something I'm right good at after all. It gets me
choked up to see the line of my regulars, all waiting to buy my book. And to tell me that I actually taught
them
something.

It makes me think a' my grandma, how she shown me that, even when everyone on this green, wide earth lets you down, the ground, it won't never disappoint you. It just keeps on givin' in ways you never could've expected.

And I feel real blessed because, even though I'm not the one that's spending all my days makin' sure you grow up right, I get to teach you that. You and me and Alex and Grace, we go out into that little plot a' soil that your daddy tilled up just for us and you dig in that dirt with them chubby fingers, and, even though you can't talk real good yet, I know you get that same feelin' as me. That bright smile and happy laugh and joy over the digging and raking and pulling—well, that's from me. And, of all the things I could've give you, I sure am glad that's the thing you got.

Some days it gets real hard, but loving you like I do, getting to watch you grow and learn and change, it's the best damn thing that's ever happened to a girl like me. And, you know what? It makes me so happy, I'm thinking that I might could make it right by being a mother to a youngen who don't have one, just like Khaki is to you. Well, you know, one of these days when I actually take Buddy up on his offer to get married. But me and Buddy, we both know that me finishing college is the most important thing right now.

Them voices, they still creep in that I shouldn't have done what I done, that I don't deserve another chance. But them voices, they're getting quieter. And you never know when God'll put that second chance right in your path.

So that's all. The whole story. The truth. Maybe it's 'cause I already lived it, I fought the battle and got out alive. Maybe that's why I ain't as nervous 'bout them bookends that mean it's over—and something else is starting up. 'Cause this, baby girl, for you and for me, is only the beginning.

NUMBERS

I've always thought the crux of my life, the great symbol when I looked back, would be beautiful design. Instead, looking around at your birthday party that day, I realized it was numbers. I had suffered one monumental loss, had two great loves, three perfect children, and four best friends.

Deciding to give up the big-city life that I'd dreamed of for so long would have been impossible without the support of those people. I'd spent too long worrying about all those voices in my head, those ghosts of my childhood that ridiculed my ambition and doubted my dreams. And now, the only people I had to prove anything to were the ones around me, the ones that mattered: my family.

I don't think I've ever done anything particularly right or great to deserve the life that I'm living now. When I think back, I can't imagine that I have paid enough dues to have gotten this amazingly lucky, had it all fall into place like it did. But Pauline always tells me you can't think about it that way. She says, “Baby girl,
whenever you start to feeling guilty, you drop to your knees and thank the Good Lord up above for everything He give you.”

Tonight, especially, feels like a gift. You and your brother and sister are asleep and your daddy and I, as we do every so often, pop a bottle of champagne, and, with the video of our wedding streaming on the TV in the background, get out those little scrapbooks.

“We need to put down that Grace rolled over today,” I say, and we clink glasses and take a sip.

“And Carolina did a somersault at Little Gym,” Graham says.

I take another sip and say, wide-eyed, “She did not!”

He nods, and I let a wave of sadness mixed with guilt that I wasn't there wash right on through me like y'all crawling through the tunnel at the park. Instead of ruminating, I add, “Alex hit his first home run at T-ball tonight.”

Another sip, and Graham forces a manly burp, making us both laugh, and says, “That's my boy.”

I make little notes in each book and then scoot to lean my back on the couch and snuggle up under my husband's bare arm. I can't help but smile looking at me looking at Graham saying those wedding vows. I lay my head on his shoulder and say, “Oh my Lord, we were so young.”

Your daddy kisses my head and says, “Sweetheart, it was only five years ago. We look exactly the same.”

“Maybe,” I say. But I don't feel sure about anything.

This has been my first week of full-time motherhood—with a little bit of design thrown in during naps and preschool. No flying to New York. No store. And I know without hesitation that I have worked harder, slept less, and been more exhausted than ever before in my life. But, as I run my finger over the monograms on those books again, I feel the ecstatic tears spring to my eyes that make me know that I've never, ever been happier.

Some moments those voices creep in again, the ones that tell me I'm not living up to my potential. The ones that whisper that they knew I couldn't make it long-term. But when I look into the faces of my children, I know that those voices don't mean anything anymore. Because I'm right where I need to be.

I'll probably start working more when we find a great nanny. Graham and I might move away. We might even have another baby. But, for now, we're content to let the chips fall where they may.

As I watch us run down the aisle of the church for probably the hundredth time, I have a wonderful thought: It might be the end of the wedding, but, for this new chapter of our scrapbook, it's only the
beginning.

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