Charlie cringed. "He said better, Khaki, not apocalyptic."

I put my hands on my hips. "Why would it be so bad for you to be pregnant? I think you'd be a great mother."

Charlie crossed her arms. "I know you think it would be so great for me. You've made your point. But not everyone has to be exactly like you to be happy."

I shifted my body language to say that that was true, and she understood. "I didn't say I wanted you to be pregnant," I amended. "In fact, I'm kind of glad you're not, because then you wouldn't get to be my kids' cool, fun aunt Charlie because you'd be too busy."

"Speaking of." Charlie smiled and reached behind the island to produce a Jacadi box.

"Yay!" I squealed, and Graham said, "Are you ever going to let them tell you the best part?"

"The Jacadi isn't the best part?"

I turned to Greg, and he shook his head.

"You know how Momma has been wanting to downsize ever since Daddy died," Graham said, "and since I built this place for us and we won't take it off her hands she has been pouting?"

"No!" I exclaimed.

"Yes!" Charlie shouted back. "We're buying Mrs. Jacobs's house!"

I turned to Greg. "Are you okay with all this? I mean, do you feel like you've been kidnapped by aliens who are forcing you to inhabit Venus?"

The South was a bit of a different planet, when you got right down to it. Greg just shrugged in his cool, California surfer way, pushing his long hair out of his eyes and said, "I'm all about life experiences."

I turned back to Charlie and could feel myself salivating like Pauline's fresh-baked cheese biscuits were about to come out of the oven. "Anything you want to ask me?"

"Of course, Khaki. Would you be so kind as to assist us in getting the new place looking straight?"

I clapped and jumped up and down and gave Graham a big kiss. "I know, babydoll," he said. "You've been wanting to clear that place out for two decades."

Graham's mom could have borderline been on one of those shows about hoarders. She lived in this grand, gorgeous home with the widest hand-carved moldings you've ever seen, door casings that would make you cry, and a free-hanging staircase that would take your breath away. And she had every square inch so crammed with hideous knickknacks and furniture that you could barely breathe, much less take in the incredible display of architecture around you.

"Actually," Charlie amended. "Could you do it however you want and send me the bill?"

I nodded and patted her on the shoulder. "You know you don't even have to ask."

Charlie trying to decorate a home like Graham's momma's was like Shaq trying to comfortably drive a Prius. Furthermore, she couldn't have cared less if the place had folding chairs and empty cardboard boxes for a coffee table. As long as she had her comfortable mattress and a sofa to curl up on and watch Downton Abbey, life was good.

I put on my happiest face, smiled down at you and Alex, and said, "Hey, Char, can I talk to you for a minute in the living room?"

"Khaki . . ." Graham started. "I told you everything is fine. You worry too much."

I pinned on an enthusiastic grin. "You don't even know what I'm talking to her about, Graham." But he did know. And he'd known me about two decades too long not to know my lying face.

Charlie studied my face and said, "Is everything okay?"

I sat down on the couch and she followed suit, tucking her feet up underneath her.

"It's fine," I said, still sort of lying, having been unable to sleep well ever since my conversation with Mother about Jodi getting you back. "I know you're the best at what you do, but I just want to make sure . . . I mean, I know you wouldn't make a mistake, but I guess I just worry . . ."

Charlie reached over and took my hand. She set her eyes on mine and said, "Khaki, I swear. There isn't one margin space out of place on those adoption papers. They can look high and low from here to hell and back and they're not going to find anything. And Ricky had already signed his rights away. I mean, I didn't do that paperwork, but it doesn't seem like he's clamoring to be a dad or anything."

I nodded. "I didn't want you to think I didn't trust you, but Momma was just reminding me about-"

Charlie nodded. "I know. The Taylors. That's the most god-awful thing I've ever heard, and I think they should put that judge in prison." She said, very slowly, "There's no way she can get her back now."

Then she smiled. "And, besides, you know there isn't anybody in this county that would make a move against your daddy."

I smiled too now, feeling at least ninety-five percent better. "Okay," I said. "You're right." I stood up, and, walking back toward the kitchen, said, "You know how nutty pregnancy makes me anyway."

"Your words, not mine," Graham called. He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. "See," he said. "Feel better?"

I nodded, smiled, and was pleased to find that this time, I wasn't lying at all.

"Okay, crew," Graham said. "Momma is going to be here in a few minutes to watch the kids. We've got a Triple Overhead release to celebrate down at the Tap Room . . ." He looked at his watch. "And there are only a few drinking hours left until it gets dark."

Mother Earth Brewing was one of the staples of Kinston's downtown redevelopment, a LEED-certified and award-winning brewery that not only used local farmers but also drew tourists from all over the country.

Charlie saluted dutifully. "Support your local brewery."

Greg looked up from his perch beside you on the floor and said, "Promising me that we'd go to Mother Earth every night for happy hour is one of the only ways that Charlie got me to move here." He smiled and in a truly horrible Southern accent said, "Best beer this side of the Mason-Dixon line."

Graham patted him on the back and said, "We know. We've done the legwork."

"Thank God we have a driver for a few more months is all I can say," Charlie said, elbowing me in the side.

It was so normal and so natural that I could feel tears gathering in my eyes like so many leaves on the sidewalk. My best friend was back where she belonged and my family was growing by the minute. It didn't matter the weather. I knew that, in my life so far, this was my favorite season.

Jodi

TWO OF THEM.

Cooking and canning, them things is right like second nature to me. I can make somethin' in my kitchen easy as pie-even though Grandma's hand-rolled, homemade pies ain't easy. But writing down all them steps, remembering all the ingredients, trying to explain something that's near like breathing to me-it were right harder than I thought. But me and Khaki, we was gonna visit Patrick Zimmerman that day. So I had a taped-up manila envelope all full a' recipes crammed in my bag with my driver's license and my first boarding pass.

It's right funny that I was near grown and you was still such a little thing when you got your first boarding pass scanned. When I told that stranger at the farmer's market about my cookbook, it felt so damn good I couldn't stop. It was soft and sweet on my lips like a long kiss or a cool bite of an ice cream cone. It was still like I told Buddy, though. I was scareder than a weed in a field a' Roundup. I was so used to scraping by, not doing nothing too good or right, that I was afraid I'd do this one thing and it'd be too hard to go back to being so ordinary.

But that Khaki, she said, "Oh, honey, I'll teach you everything I know. Getting what you want isn't about anything more than being totally certain. If you're absolutely sure that what you're fighting for is the right thing, then there isn't anyone in the world who can stop you."

I weren't sure if that was true or not. I was one of them girls so full a' doubt I weren't sure I'd ever do nothing good. But that day, looking out the airplane window in the outfit that Khaki give me, I thought she just might be right: Maybe I could have my jam and eat it too.

Me and Khaki and Graham, we'd gone 'round and 'round about us all spending the weekend together, if that was all right for you. We'd talked to our social worker and some therapy lady and read all over the Internet. Graham finally put his foot down right hard-which he don't do often when it comes to Khaki. "This is absurd. We agreed to do what was right for Carolina, and all this anxiety is what isn't right for her."

He was right. Babies, they know when the people around them is wound up.

Graham and Khaki, they acted like being on a plane with two babies and another on the way weren't nothing. Graham fed you a bottle so I didn't have to see somebody else being your momma. Khaki and me, we played tic-tac-toe with Alex. But he was so excited over the gum he got to chew to keep his ears from poppin' he didn't care about nothin' else. I woulda been right nervous somebody'd get to crying or something. But Graham and Khaki didn't act like they was one bit concerned.

I weren't real sure how I'd take to flying. But being up in the air felt like freedom. Couldn't nobody get to me or hurt me.

Khaki looked up from the tic-tac-toe board and said, "Now you don't worry one bit about this meeting. I'll be there the whole time, and Patrick is about the sweetest thing in the world. What people in the South say about Yankees doesn't pertain to him."

I nodded, but I'm sure I was right green.

Khaki smiled real reassuring. "And this is only a preliminary meeting. So we shouldn't get our hopes up that they are going to buy the book." She squeezed my hand. "And that's a good thing because if you change your mind you don't have to do it." She paused, and whispered, "But I probably don't have to tell you that I think you should!"

That stewardess in her uniform, she said we landed in New York. But it might as well've been Mars for how different everything looked. I ain't never seen nothin' besides trailer parks and fields and them regular buildings downtown, so skyscrapers and all kinds a' people all crowded on the street, it were right different looking. I was fixing to get scared, but Khaki, she held my hand the whole time. I said, "You do know you're not my momma, right?"

"For Lord's sake, Jodi, I'm scarcely old enough to be your big sister." She winked.

Graham, he told me one time that it didn't make no difference that Khaki had moved to New York and married somebody else. He knew sure as rain makes the grass grow that they'd be together.

"Khaki has been mothering since she could talk," he said. "I knew we'd need at least five bedrooms because Khaki having a bunch of babies is just like one of those hogs down at her daddy's having them. It's only natural."

Khaki had to go to a meeting, so Graham and me, we took you and Alex to get some "barbecue." Now, listen here, New York may know fashion designers and art, but they don't know pork. I whispered over to Graham, "Is it just me or do our gas stations serve better barbecue than this?"

He laughed. "Maybe we should face facts that when we're in Manhattan, it's wiser to eat as the Manhattanites do."

I didn't have a dern clue what Manhattanites ate, but I knew damn well it weren't this.

We were quiet for a second, and he said, "So, Jodi, do you really want to do this cookbook or is my wife pushing you into it?"

I shrugged. "Thinkin' 'bout my name being on a bookshelf gives me butterflies. But I'm gonna walk in that big-city office, and they'll see right quick I'm some trailer-park hick from nowhere, North Carolina, and tell me to leave."

Graham wiped his mouth and laughed.

"What?"

"Just the idea of someone trying to tell Khaki to leave anywhere. I can envision two guards, one holding her arms, and one holding her feet, her kicking those fancy shoes she wears, you following behind trying to calm her down."

I laughed too.

He said, "I want you to realize that you're smart and you're young and you can do anything you want to do, whether this is it or not."

"I think I might actually like to do the cookbook." I smiled. "Seems like a real nice way to remember Grandma, don't it?"

A real fine mist gathered in Graham's eyes. "It really does. But just so you know, cookbook or no, she would be so proud of you she wouldn't know what to do."

It made me feel so good I weren't even real nervous walking into Patrick Zimmerman's office.

Patrick, he smiled at me real cute, all dimples and teeth under his gray hair. It made him look right young. Then he said, "So, I hear you're the canning queen of the South."

I couldn't believe how brave and normal it sounded when I answered him right back like it weren't nothing. "Don't forget picklin' and jammin' too."

He laughed, looked at Khaki and said, "Look out, world; there're two of them."

I ain't never thought of myself like Khaki before, all strong and brave. But hearing him say that, it was near like when Daddy used to tell me I was his best girl. And, for the first time since giving you up, it made me feel like I was worth something again.

Khaki

ANY ATTENTION.

Every now and then, I'll just be hanging around at home, and it will hit me that I completely despise the room I'm sitting in. Of course, I've designed every room in my life. But it goes without saying that tastes change. Sometimes, no matter how perfect something once seemed, it's time to reassess.

Being pregnant with my third child was the stimulus for completely reevaluating not only my house but also my entire life. I stopped by my antiques store the first day we were in the city to chat with Daniel, who had turned into the full-time coordinator of everything furniture. He kissed me, examined my burgeoning bump, and said, "Oh, darling, you look fab-u-lous."

He was lying. All those women I grew up with who said, "Girls steal your beauty and boys let you keep it," were right on. Grace was a criminal caught red-handed before her little eyelids were even formed.

We walked around the store, where I casually wiped a spot of dust here, switched an accessory there, but, all in all, it was somewhat devastating how well Daniel did without me. We communicated via FaceTime daily so that I could see what was going on, but, when you got right down to it, it was his store now, not mine.

"We are in desperate need of several chests-on-chests, headboards, and secretaries," Daniel said, clicking through a list on his iPhone. "I think we're okay on dining tables and chairs, but if you see anything amazing when you're buying, we do have a tad bit of extra space in the warehouse."

That was when I realized it: If I was going to have another baby, I was going to have to let some things go. "When you're buying," I said.

Daniel stopped, ran his hand through his thick hair, crossed his arms, and said, "Come again?"

I smiled. "When you're buying."