Everyone laughed, and I looked over at my friend, her five-months-pregnant belly roughly the same size as her husband Joe's. Stacey was, without a doubt, the most beautiful pregnant woman I had ever seen. She was the woman that "pregnant glow" was named for. Maybe it was all the yoga and green juice, but she was most in her element, most alive when she was pregnant. I shrugged. "Now that Anna bought the store, I do have a little more time on my hands."

Graham winked at me, and Scott interrupted. "Since this is a day of grand celebration, we have a little news of our own."

Clive and Scott smiled at one another and Clive said, pointing to Scott, "One of us is going to be a stay-at-home dad in a few weeks!"

I gasped, feeling, I'll admit to you, a little panicked. Scott had picked out everything I'd worn for the past decade. But, of course, I was thrilled for them. "Details!"

Scott smiled. "Clive was going on and on about a documentary about Ethiopian orphanages he saw, and I looked into it. Very, very long, convoluted, emotional story short, there's a little girl there waiting for us to pick her up."

Stacey, with her hand on her belly, said, "I'll warn you, when you get there and see all those children, you'll want to bring about a dozen more home with you."

"Please, God, don't bring one to us," Graham said, and everyone laughed.

But then he turned to me and raised his eyebrows. I shrugged. We'd played around with the idea of adopting again.

Jodi's friend Marlene appeared at my side and whispered, "Thanks so much for the donation."

I smiled, even though it irritated me that she was always trying to steal my husband. Not that I felt threatened in the least, but still. It was the principle. I might not have been on board with Marlene, but what I was on board with was her new job at the pregnancy crisis management center. She wasn't too good at selling tangibles, but, after she convinced your birth mother to have you, Marlene realized that she'd finally found her calling. I put my arm around her-she was harmless, after all-and said, "Those girls are lucky to have you." And I meant it.

Jodi appeared through the back door and said, "Well, guys, I hate to leave the party, but I think I better get going."

She had driven back and forth to Greenville for her first few classes that semester so she could tie up some loose ends on the farm before she moved. Secretly, I hoped that she would be content with commuting and would change her mind about leaving us. But no such luck.

We had packed all of Jodi's things from her room upstairs into the old camp trunks Mother still had in her attic. That room that had been so full of Jodi's warmth and love felt so cold and empty now. And she'd sold that trailer-and its bad memories-to one of Graham's farmhands to help cover the last of her tuition. That little patch of land that had been her home for a short while was back to just a patch-but that row of red flowers would still come up every spring, waving in the breeze, an unlikely memorial. That square of land, the one Graham couldn't get a thing to grow on had, in the end, grown the most important thing of all: you.

I could feel the tears springing to my eyes yet again, realizing that I wasn't going to see Jodi every morning at the breakfast table in her pajamas and socks. I wanted to say so many things, but, to avoid looking like a total spaz at my child's birthday party, all I said was, "Are you sure you don't want us to drive you?"

Jodi shaded her eyes and said, "Buddy will get me all moved in just fine."

I tried to imagine Jodi, so wise and unnecessarily seasoned, moving into a dorm room with some spoiled eighteen-year-old who had no idea how the real world worked. When Jodi kissed you good-bye, I swear it was like the day she told us we could adopt you all over again. It damn near ripped my heart out to watch her walk away. I gave her a hard hug and kiss standing outside the running truck. "Come on now, Khaki," Buddy said. "Don't get yourself all worked up. She's only a half hour away."

"I know," I said, wiping my eyes. "I just love her, is all."

Jodi squeezed me again, looked deep into my eyes, and said, "I'm gonna say this real quick so it all comes out without too much carrying on." She smiled. "I know you're barely older than me, but I swear you've been the momma I never had."

I could feel the tears running down my cheeks because I was so happy that Jodi was finally getting a chance that she deserved. I was a little like a proud momma. She put her hands on my shoulders and said, "I don't know how you do what you do, but I hope and pray that one day I can be half the woman you are."

She cleared her throat and pointed back up at the house. "You and Graham, you coulda just took Carolina and walked away. But you didn't. You made me a part of a real family. And, even better, you did that for Carolina. And there ain't nothing that will ever in my whole life mean more than that." She gave me a real quick, hard hug, and, the tears finally escaping from her eyes, said, "And that's why it's so dern hard to leave."

Needless to say, I was a mess at that point. So I blew her a kiss, slammed the door, and did my sobbing on the way back up to Charlie's. She met me at the door with a hug and said, "I don't want to be around when one of your kids goes off to college."

I shook my head. "They aren't going. They're going to live with me forever."

"Oh, okay," she said. Then she added, "Khak, this house is absolutely resplendent."

I took a moment to admire the massive silver orb in the entrance hall. The few modern touches in the classic home-the contemporary lighting, the abstract art, an unexpected accessory here and there-were what transformed it from Graham's momma to Charlie and Greg. It was my greatest decorating masterpiece to date. But then again, I say that about all my projects. And thank goodness. Who would want to work at anything if they didn't keep getting better as they went along?

"Frances," a shrill Bunny shouted through the entrance hall. "Now that I've been here, I don't think you really applied yourself on my penthouse. I think we need to remodel."

I sighed and flopped dramatically into a reproduction spindle chair that could take the sudden thud. I thought about the hours upon hours upon hours I had spent not a year ago finishing Bunny's new town house. "You asked for glamour and mirrors and chandeliers," I said. "This place has more of a hunty, farmy, rustic air to it."

Bunny crossed her arms. "So what you're saying is that we need a country house?"

I put my finger up. "No, I . . ." But before I could say anything she was off, yelling, "Honey!"

I shook my head. "He's going to be thrilled with me."

Graham came in and handed you to me, saying, "She's doing something with her hands, but I don't know what."

You were signing almost violently for strawberries. "She just wants strawberries," I said to your daddy like he was dense.

He nodded. "Honey, I think it's great for you to teach the kids sign language. But if you don't teach it to me too, it doesn't do a lot of good." Then he added, "I guess it's a good thing Jodi talked me into that hothouse. No way I could keep you girls in fruit all year round without it."

Charlie and your daddy left to rustle up some strawberries for the birthday girl, and you leaned your head on my chest snuggling up so close I could smell the icing on your breath. I took a mental Polaroid, savoring each second of this sweet, unlikely time alone like it was a long-awaited apology from a slow-to-concede friend.

You sat up, gave me your biggest, goofiest grin, and signed "I love you," laying your head back down on my chest.

I kissed the sweet top of that head and said, "Oh baby girl, I love you too." I rested my cheek on yours and said, "You can't even imagine.

It was so easy and so right that I couldn't conceive of what I had ever done without it. I think it was that moment that gave me the strength to let go. To let go of Alex's biological daddy. To let go of the life I had with him. To let go of New York. And I think it's the most shocked I've ever seen your daddy when he walked out of the kitchen with that plate of strawberries, and I said, "Let's sell the New York apartment."

It struck me, the synchronicity of that moment, Jodi leaving Kinston for the first time, and me, after years of feeling torn in half, living a life in two different worlds, finally feeling like it was right to say that I wanted to come back home.

Graham licked the strawberry juice from his finger, squatted down in front of us in the chair, and said, "Are you sure about this, babydoll? You love New York."

I smiled and shook my head. "No. I love my children. I love you." I shrugged. "Besides, we can still visit all the time. It looks like Bunny's getting a country house, so there will be plenty of room for all of us."

Graham smiled and squeezed my shoulder. "So you know you'll have at least one more New York design project. And, for what we were spending on that apartment, we can travel there in high style whenever you want."

I nodded. "I think all of this other stuff-the store, the books, the magazine articles, the rushing and pushing to be better and bigger-has gotten in the way of the pure love of the designing." I thought about that open field and Graham and the kids again and shrugged. "I just want to get back to being that girl with her sketchbook and her swatches. Back to basics."

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.

Jodi

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.

Khaki.

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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