Prologue prologue: ansley the week before labor day peachtree spice
AS HUMANS, WE ARE WIRED to forget. Flight delays, bad restaurants, even childbirth. We go back. Play on a gentler repeat. Somewhere in the murky gray matter of our brains, the memory softens.

Memories, I thought. I had millions of them with this family of mine, all sitting on the end of my dock on this stunning morning, across the street from the white clapboard house that had been my grandmother’s, that had been perched here, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway in my beloved Peachtree Bluff, Georgia, since before the revolution. Instinctively, I put my fingers up to my neck, to the elegant necklace with four diamonds—family heirlooms discovered inside my husband Jack’s house—linked on a chain, a symbol of the three daughters I loved so much and me. We were together in person right now, together in spirit always.

My youngest daughter Emerson threw her head back and laughed, looking so much like her father, my late husband Carter, that my stomach gripped. Some days, I could forget the horror of his leaving me a widow in my forties with a seventeen-, fifteen-, and nine-year-old to raise. It was still sad, still hard. But it wasn’t quite so raw.

My son-in-law Adam, who was currently living in my guesthouse with my middle daughter Sloane and my two darling grandsons, AJ and Taylor, high-fived Emerson. I could go weeks now without thinking about the time when Adam was MIA in Iraq, those weeks when we wondered if the world as we knew it would ever be the same.

My precious granddaughter Vivi was leaning into her boyfriend Tyler, the one who, God bless him, had rescued her when she went missing during Hurricane Pearl. Okay, so that one was fresher; I still thought every day about what could have happened to her, to all of us, really. But she was so much like her mother, my eldest, headstrong and fiercely independent Caroline, who was also, in a wild contrast, perhaps the most maternal of all. One of her arms was wrapped around her five-year-old son Preston, the other hand resting on Sloane’s belly, just waiting for a baby kick.

My three girls and my oldest granddaughter were each wearing their necklaces too, carbon copies of mine, gifts from Jack, connecting our families through time. This way, we were always close to one another’s hearts.

Moments like this, where everything seemed just about perfect, were what allowed me to carry on. The haziness around the edges of my hardest moments allowed me to breathe in and out, put one foot in front of the other, and live a life that can, if we let it, feel like a constant source of danger and turmoil.

This town—my refuge from the danger and turmoil, the place that had enveloped my girls and me after the tragedy of 9/11 stole my husband, that had taken us in when we literally had nowhere else to turn—helps too. I snuggle up beside Jack now, the man I have loved since I was sixteen and my summer wardrobe consisted of a yellow polka-dot bikini and a pair of jean shorts. He squeezes my arm, reminding me that he has loved me all that time too. That he still does.

I take a deep breath as everyone around me laughs.

“You okay, Mom?” Caroline asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I take another deep breath. “I can smell them,” I say.

“Smell what?” Jack asks, amused.

“The fall ions in the air.”

They all laugh.

“Mom can always smell when fall is coming,” Emerson says.

“A person cannot smell fall,” Adam retorts.

“No,” I say, inhaling again, an ever-so-slightly metallic yet very pleasant smell. “I can. Can’t you feel that? The way the humidity has just been sucked away?”

Emerson, my actress, nods animatedly, her entire person lighting up. “It has, hasn’t it?”

That’s how it always is, this glorious change of season. Humidity, humidity, humidity, and then—bam!—the clearest, most perfect air.

“The only thing I can smell,” a voice I would know anywhere says from behind me, “is this.” My soon-to-be son-in-law Kyle, once just my favorite barista, now the man charged with the care and keeping of my most emotional daughter—the one who is so clearly her perfect match I sometimes wonder how I didn’t see it all along—has an old converted wooden Coke crate hanging from a leather strap around his neck. From one of the slots, he pulls out a stainless steel cup embossed with PEACHTREE PERK.

“I helped Keith get the fall lineup in order before we head back to New York,” he said. Kyle still owns Peachtree Perk, but his cousin Keith—who, bless him, doesn’t have the good sense God gave a squirrel—runs it for him while Kyle and Emerson are in New York filming her current show. Kyle has made no bones about the fact that he would follow his Emmy, and their beautiful little girl Carter, to the ends of the earth. Which is all one really wants in a son-in-law if you ask me.

I push open the slider on the lid, inhale, and squeal. It is official: We have arrived in my favorite season. (To be fair, I say that about every season.) This handmade, hand-delivered concoction from the best coffee shop in the world has confirmed it: It is fall. The tourists have gone home. It is still warm, but not sweltering. The water is calm, the swimming is perfect, and, if I squint, I could swear that the leaves of the maple across the street in my front yard are just starting to tinge yellow around the edges.

The only negative to fall is it means that my Caroline, Vivi, and Preston, who spend the whole summer here, go back to New York. And my Emerson, Kyle, and Carter, who have been here every possible moment this summer, will be firmly rooted in Manhattan until Emerson is finished filming. But Sloane and her boys will still be here. And there is work to be done at my design shop, things I have put off. And, besides, I love visiting my girls in New York in the fall. There is a season to everything under the sun, I remind myself, trying to think of Labor Day and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Emerson’s wedding, when we will all be together again, so I don’t feel sad.

I take a sip of my drink, holding it in my mouth, savoring it, hugging the cup to my chest. I swallow and whisper, “Peachtree spice.”

Everyone around me has gotten their cups, and they are all oohing and aahing over the fall deliciousness in their hands.

“Have you finished packing?” Jack whispers.

I put my hand on top of his, a gentle shushing. Because the golden light is so picture-perfect over the water that words will only ruin it. I sip my coffee, feel the pure, liquid joy of it. The coffee, the sunrise, the water, this man, this dock, this family. So many of the things I love most are right here, right now. Most of them, really.

I don’t remember yet that it is hurricane season, that a hurricane two years ago changed our family forever. I don’t consider that this glorious golden fall will give way, in a few more months, to the chill and dark of winter. I avoid the fact that my children will get on planes to go back to where they came from this afternoon and that I will get on a plane with my husband—the one I pledged my life to only a few years ago, but who has held my heart for decades—in a few days.

He says the trip at the end of the week is only for an interview, a discussion, a consulting gig of sorts for a company that is trying to expand and then sell out, like he did with his business—before he retired, that is.

We travel plenty, but I feel so uneasy about this plan, about leaving the place I feel most centered, most alive. I feel like there is something unknown lying in wait in this trip, something that could change the safety and sanctity of everything I have always felt here, with my three girls, all grown up now, on this dock.

I take a deep breath and, as if he is reading my mind, Jack whispers, “It’s just a meeting, Ansley. Don’t make so much of it.”

His words are soothing, but my stomach turns at the thought of another huge change in a life that has been marked and marred by it.

We have been in similar places before. And I remind myself that perhaps this feeling is induced only by how haunted I am by the past.

Because, yes, indeed, we are wired to forget. Even still, as Jack puts his arm around me and pulls me close, I don’t so much think about as feel the remnants of how hard we fought to be together. I remind myself of the enormous amount he has sacrificed for me. I look up at him, remember that I never want to be without him. I look back at the sun-drenched sky, at the way it blazes pink and orange, the birds flying across. I take a mental picture. Of the calm sea, the sky bursting into color, the smiling faces of the people I love with a ferocity I can’t put into words. This is a morning I want to remember.


1. Caroline: A Starring Role caroline: a starring role
IT STILL HITS ME EVERY now and then. As I walk down beautiful, gritty Fifth Avenue in the most wonderful city in the world, New York, striding in my pumps, I stop, look up, take a deep breath. Cooler weather has been bestowed upon us early this year. It seems the steamy, sultry summer is behind us earlier than usual—not that I experienced much of it; my daughter Vivi, my son Preston, and I fly south to Peachtree Bluff the moment school lets out. But still, there’s just something about fall in New York, the crispness of it. It’s like a fresh start, a new beginning. The heat has lifted. Everything feels possible: A bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils and a blank, pristine notebook. That’s what life is right now.

Amid the honk of car horns, the hustle and bustle of bodies going to work, going shopping, going out for the day, the world goes silent. It is just me and that glittering, gleaming golden sign. It looks like it has been there forever and, yet, it is so new, that sign: SLOANE EMERSON NEW YORK.

Only four years old, yes. But also, maybe even more so, twenty-two years in the making. A creation that began, in some small way, when my mother Ansley Murphy moved my sisters, Sloane and Emerson, and me from my beloved New York to the sleepy seaside town of Peachtree Bluff, Georgia. I was a persnickety teenager then. I told her if she named her new design shop on the main street running through that one-stoplight town after me, I would die. Instead, she named it after my two sisters, who I suspect she liked more than me at that particular moment: Sloane Emerson.

Well played, Mom. Well played. I’d like to think that every now and then I handled my daughter just that deftly. I glared at a rollerblading Door Dash delivery boy who nearly ran over my shoe, which, frankly, I had no right to do. I didn’t own the sidewalk, after all. I did, however, own the building I was standing in front of. Or, well, at least half owned with my husband James, a hedge fund manager who was only my husband on paper. We’d been separated for years. Amicably, now, to my immense credit since he was the one to have an affair with a reality TV star on national television. As I put my hand on the gleaming brass handle—perfectly polished—and opened the door, two things hit me at once: the air fragrant with our signature jasmine, dogwood, and magnolia blend candles, and the fact that I really should proceed with our divorce. It was getting a little ridiculous to let it linger.

Well, maybe I’d do that tomorrow. If fall meant anything, it was new beginnings.

“Good morning, Missus Beaumont,” my store manager Deenie said. Her blond hair was pulled back in a severe, yet somehow perky, ponytail and she was wearing a floral-print dress that could have been ever-so-slightly too springy for a chilly day in New York but that, all the same, made me feel optimistic about life.

I had hired her on a day that I was missing Peachtree Bluff and the good manners and slow pace of the South. I had hired her because her real name was Gardenia, perhaps the only Southern flower not in our signature candle blend, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have another flower in Sloane Emerson New York. I had no idea how fully capable she would be of running this flagship store while I tended to franchise business all over the country with my once-sort-of-boyfriend, now-sort-of-gray-area-person Wes and, of course, my mom and sisters. Deenie was an expert at smoothing over HR problems, could sweet-talk any vendor, delivery person, or customer, and had this way of talking people into things so subtly that they always agreed with her yet never quite knew it had been her idea. What I lacked in diplomacy, she made up for in spades. I was the bad cop, she was the good cop. We were, like the quartz bookends I adjusted ever so slightly on the round center table in the store, a perfect pair.

“Deenie, darling, how long have you worked here?” I asked as I walked toward the counter she was perched behind.

“Two and a half years next week.”

“Yes, right. And how many times in those two and a half years do you imagine that I have asked you to call me Caroline?”

She smiled sheepishly. “Twelve, thirteen hundred?”

“That seems about right. So, might I ask, why is it that you insist on calling me Missus Beaumont?”

“Growing up in North Carolina my dad always taught me that you call your boss mister or missus. Even if they are younger than you are, it is a sign of respect. And I respect you oh so very much.”

I smiled. She was so cute with those sweet little dimples that belied her nearly thirty years, making her seem much younger. I shrugged. “I can’t argue with that. But just know that when and if you decide to start calling me Caroline, I will still know you respect me.”

“Duly noted, Missus Beaumont.”

Alright. Well, whatever.

“Are you okay to start training Vivi today?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “I just can’t wait. She’s so pretty and smart, just like her mama. She is going to take to this store like a fish to water. I just know it.”

I scrunched my nose. That was a strong overstatement, but Deenie could almost make me believe it. Vivi had never been much for manual labor, but I couldn’t deny that after Hurricane Pearl had swept through Peachtree Bluff, she had worked so hard to help rebuild the town. But, back in New York, it was back to her snarky, teenage ways. When she wasn’t texting Tyler—her long-distance Peachtree Bluff boyfriend—she was posting selfies or gossiping with her friends. All typical teenage stuff. But we were Murphys. As I had said before and would say again: we were made for greatness.

My mother always believed high school children needed to either be playing a sport or working in the afternoons to keep them from getting into trouble. I believed she was right, and, the truth was, as a junior, Vivi had a lot on her plate working to accrue accolades and activities for her upcoming college applications, which had occupied a lot of our summer. I was almost ready for school to start next week for Vivi and Preston because we all needed a break.

Vivi hadn’t been giving me as hard a time lately as she had after her dad and I first separated—and she had blamed me for everything even though he had been the one to cheat—and I was grateful for that. I was also grateful that her boyfriend lived a plane ride away and getting pregnant via Snapchat was a technology not yet invented. But I wanted her to be a hard worker, someone who could make her own way in the world. You never knew what life was going to throw at you.

“I hope you’re right, Deenie,” I said, taking a sip of what was officially my first cinnamon spice latte of the season. My favorite organic coffee shop made a sugar-free, stevia-sweetened syrup that was literally the nectar of the gods. I was trying to get Kyle, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, to start a Peachtree Perk in New York like he had in LA. No luck yet. Until then, this was the second-best latte I’d ever had. “And, listen, Vivi can be, um… acerbic. So don’t let her hurt your feelings.”

Deenie bit her lip, hiding her smile. “Huh. Interesting. I wonder where she gets that from.”

I smirked. “Perhaps Missus Beaumont.”

She stifled a laugh and said, “I have an update on all the deliveries that have been delayed. Would you like it?”

Before I could answer, my phone rang. It was my middle sister, Sloane. I talked to her pretty much every day, but not usually so early. It was only 8:21, so she would just have gotten home from dropping off my nephews, AJ and Taylor, at school. But we were all in hyper wedding-planner mode for our baby sister Emerson’s upcoming nuptials, so I assumed it was some sort of Peachtree Bluff hilarity, and I was here for it.

“Good morning, my love,” I practically sang.

“Caroline.”

Right away I could tell my sister wasn’t okay. “Sloane? What’s going on?”

“I think I’m losing the baby.”

I felt panicky, but I was trying to stay calm. My first thought was why in the world was she calling me? I was in New York, hours away from her. I wasn’t going to be much help in this situation. Then again, I was the big sister, the one who was good under pressure.

“Okay. Don’t panic.” Why did I say that? When in the history of the world has telling someone not to panic ever helped?

“This can’t be happening again,” she cried.

“Okay, Sloane. Listen to me. We don’t know anything yet. Where’s Adam?”

“He’s in Atlanta at a trade show, and, well, I can’t find Mom. Her phone must be off or dead because it’s going straight to voicemail.”

“Okay. Are you in pain?”

“Not physically.”

“Okay. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to talk to you the whole way, and you are going to drive yourself to the doctor. Can you do that? Can you drive?”

“I think so,” she said sullenly, sniffling.

This was not ideal, but she was only a couple miles away from the doctor’s office. Although, at twenty-three weeks pregnant, this could be an ambulance-requiring emergency. The nearest NICU was hours away. They would have to be airlifted if the baby was born now. It probably wouldn’t survive. But maybe? Twenty-three weeks was the absolute cusp, I knew. I had to stop myself from spinning.

“I can’t do this again,” she said, crying again.

“Sloane, listen to me. Take a deep breath.”

I heard her breathe on the other end of the line.

“Put me on speaker, put your seat belt on, take another deep breath, and drive. You’ve got this. You’re tough and brave, and you’ve got this.”

“Right,” she said, sounding stronger. “I’m okay. I’ve got this.”

“You had a husband who was MIA, and you cared for your children and held yourself together through all of that. You can do this.”

That wasn’t strictly true. I’d had to sort of manhandle her back to life. But we eventually got her out of bed and, after a week on the water, she carried on. So, you know. Kind of the truth. I heard the car shift into drive, and I said, “Tell me about Emerson’s wedding photographer.”

“Caroline…”

“Sloane, do it. Tell me.”

“Fine. She showed us her portfolio, and you’re right. She’s the perfect person to do the photos. They’re very journalistic in style, not too fussy. Just what Emerson wants.”

“Perfect. And have the bridesmaids’ dresses come in yet?”

As soon as I asked I knew it was a misstep.

“Mine is going to be too big,” Sloane sobbed.

Damn it, Caroline. Get your head in the game.

“We don’t know that, Sloane. Stop. Did Taylor’s and AJ’s ring bearer outfits come?”

“Yes, and they hate them.”

Despite the circumstances, I half-smiled. “Well, that’s good. If the boys hate them, that means they’re beautiful.”

I could tell that made her half-smile too. I exhaled deeply and Sloane said, “Okay, I’m at the doctor’s office.”

“Perfect. I will be there in four hours.”

“Caroline, you can’t come home. You have way too much to do. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. And I’m sure Mom will be back any minute.”

“Sloane, I’ll be there in four hours,” I repeated.

“But how— Oh. Oh, Car, seriously?”

“It’s worth it for you. Go get checked out. I’m sure it’s a false alarm.”

I wasn’t sure at all it was a false alarm. Sloane had lost two babies back-to-back, so we were all too aware that this could be an emergency. I pushed End on the call as Deenie said, “Is everything okay?”

I shook my head and said, “I have to get to Peachtree Bluff.”

“Wedding disaster?”

I didn’t want to air my sister’s personal business. “Something like that… I’m going to be gone for a few days.”

“You know I’ve got this all under control.”

I knew she did. She had handled the summer like a pro with me flying back and forth once a month and doing most of our meetings over Zoom. My not-quite-ex-husband worked only three blocks away, so I rushed down the street to the Beaumont Fund. As of last year, James had finally joined forces with his father and brother to create their own hedge fund, and it was going swimmingly. I was in such a hurry it took me two blocks to realize I had forgotten my coat, a thin cream cashmere with a dramatic scarf that was so beautiful it could bring a tear to the eye—and perfect for the cool-not-cold weather.

I stormed through the sleek glass door and rushed past the front desk. “Hello, Missus Beaumont!” Larry, the security guard, called.

“Hello, Larry!”

“Mr. Beaumont is in a meeting,” he called to me again, knowing full well that that news had never stopped me. I took the mirrored elevator to the third floor and knew as soon as I stepped out that James, tall, dark, and handsome as ever, sitting at the end of a table in a glass-enclosed boardroom, had seen me. He put up his finger and walked out.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, looking concerned, putting a finger to his temple—which had just a touch of gray around it—like he did when he was worried.

I might not be in love with him anymore, but no one could deny that that man looked fine in a suit. I had had this one made for him a few weeks ago. I knew it was dysfunctional, but he needed me to pick out his clothes. And now I needed something from him.

“Well, not really.”

“The kids?”

He had seen the kids this morning. We lived in the same building, a few floors apart, and he had popped by for breakfast and to kiss Vivi and Preston goodbye before work.

“The kids are fine. It’s Sloane. She thinks she’s having another miscarriage.” I paused. “Or, well, at twenty-three weeks, I guess she’d be delivering a baby.” I put my hand to my forehead, the weight of the horror of that possibility sinking in. My mind was racing. “And Adam and Mom are out of town, I guess?” We didn’t know whether Mom was out of town, but she was MIA, and I didn’t have time to get into all that.

He looked genuinely concerned. “Oh no. Poor Sloane. I’m so sorry.” He looked confused. “And?”

“Well…”

Now he looked annoyed. “And you need the company plane to fly home.”

“Well, I wouldn’t ask but—”

“Caroline, you always ask. Always. The company plane is a privilege for my wives who aren’t divorcing me.”

I summoned a sweet smile. “But since we aren’t technically divorced yet…”

“And you will explain this to my father? He is not going to be happy.”

I nodded eagerly. “Promise.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll get you a car to Teterboro.”

Sure, he was a cheater, but the man wasn’t all bad.

“Could the car maybe run me by Emerson’s set and then home to throw a few things in the suitcase?”

Emerson had recently scored a starring role in Slightly South, a television series about three thirtysomething sisters from Georgia trying to make it in the big city. It was supercute. She finished filming soon, and I was sad because I wanted her, her fiancé Kyle, and my niece Carter here with me. LA was way too far away. And, come on, it wasn’t New York.

James looked something between annoyed and amused as he said, “You cannot continue to do this to me.”

I smiled again and started to walk away. But then I turned back around and said, “Oh my gosh!”

“I can take care of our children, Caroline.” He paused. “If you can return my plane in a timely fashion, I’ll fly with them to Peachtree for the weekend tomorrow. No point in your coming back.”

I paused. Now that he didn’t have a house in Peachtree, that would put him staying with us. But, well, it was a nice offer, and I was in a hurry. So I gave him a small hug, which he deserved. “Thank you. Truly. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Then why are you divorcing me again?”

“Well, you know, I mean, I don’t know what I would do without you as a human, not a husband.”

I texted Leah, our manager at Sloane Emerson’s Peachtree Bluff location, as I walked back out onto the sidewalk, where James’s car was waiting: Is Mom there? Her phone is off.

She texted back right away: I don’t know where she is. She blocked off the calendar for a couple days? Maybe she’s taking personal days.

Mom didn’t take personal days. And certainly not from her daughters. As I slid in, allowing the adrenaline of the last few minutes to wear off and sadness for my sister to sink in, it hit me: Where in the world was my mother?