going. I’m already late. It’s almost dark.”
“Okay. Call me if you need me, okay?”
“Right. Oh, and by the way?”
“What?”
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“You’ll thank me when they all live long enough to give you gorgeous grandchildren!” I called after him. He kept walking.
“Without criminal records!” I called again.
He shot me the finger without missing a step. It made me smile, which says a lot about how our relationship had matured.
I watched him walk toward his car, thinking his shoulders were broad enough to handle anything, but this was not going to be pretty.
3
About Amelia
L ATER THAT EVENING, AFTER SUPPER was cleared away and Millie had gone home for the night, I was still in the kitchen, channel-surfing, looking for something to watch to kill time before crawling upstairs. Four hundred channels and nothing to hold my interest for more than thirty seconds. But then, relative to the drama in my real life lately, how could I expect the worlds of network and cable to concoct something as compelling? I decided to take a walk outside and see what wonders were on display in the night sky.
The stars were just coming out, littering the heavens with glistening crystals and slivers of diamonds. The longer I stood and watched, the more tiny lights flickered their hellos from high up in the skies. I thought of my father then, James Nevil Wimbley, III, known to all as Nevil. He had known how to find many of the constellations and would point them out to Trip and me. When I was a very young girl, weeping inconsolably from a terrifying dream, he would perch me on his hip, take me outside, and tell me to look up. “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful, more peaceful?” he would say. I would shake my head, unable to tear my eyes away from all the marvelous stars winking against the vast navy-blue sky. “Let’s count them,” he’d say, and the next thing I knew I was falling back into a peaceful sleep.
Clear quiet nights and star-strewn skies were reassuring about order in the universe. Standing there in the side yard, I could feel my pulse slow down. I meandered toward the cluster of Adirondack chairs, situated for years between the live oaks like old friends, inviting me to sit and visit. At last I breathed more naturally. There was nothing like a Lowcountry night to put life in perspective. Moments like this made me believe for that fleeting moment that there was a real possibility for peace on earth. Why not?
The trials and tribulations of Frances Mae and Trip were frightening and the new battle lines had yet to be drawn. I was wondering and then desperately hoping that Trip would have the chutzpah to stand up to Frances Mae and that he would use his talents of persuasion to make Rusty understand the urgency of acting now. I was pretty confident, because she was a very generous and sensible woman, that Rusty’s cooperation would be easily gained. Frances Mae’s alcoholism, which had made her so deadly unpredictable, and the risky situation in which she had placed Chloe made me absolutely ill. Frances Mae would do it again and again until someone made her stop. I knew it and it terrified me.
I was on my way back inside when I heard the phone ringing. I rushed to grab it before it went to voice mail. It was Eric calling from school.
“Hey, Mom! What’s up?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. You called me, remember?”
Some of the current phone manners were bewildering to me, never mind tweeting with Twitter, texting, and whatever the new deal was. Maybe I was just too literal in the way I processed language.
“You sound out of breath.”
“I was outside looking at the stars. Pretty gorgeous out there tonight.”
“Yeah. I’m sure. So, I was just wondering if there was any more news on Aunt Frances Mae?”
“No. Nothing new to my knowledge. Why? Did Amelia say something?”
“Amelia? Amelia said plenty! From the time we dropped Aunt Fan and Chloe off in Walterboro
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