"You should really let that go, Les. Sure, it was embarrassing sometimes, but she had chutzpah!"

"Well, you know perfectly well Wesley wouldn't allow me to work! He wouldn't even hear of it! My chutzpah would make him look bad, like he wasn't man enough to support his wife and family. You know he was always very old school. I had to stay home with the children-which didn't go so well now that I look at them. I really was a terrible failure at motherhood."

"Don't say that!"

"The truth cannot be denied. I wasn't cut out for motherhood. And by the time they were in college, I was already in my forties! Who hires a woman in her forties who didn't even finish undergraduate school? If Wes ever heard about Momma and Willie, he'd flat lie down and die."

"Maybe you should tell him. Then the entire enchilada would be yours."

"Harlan? You are a devil! But how we kept all that from him and his Bible-beating parents is still a miracle. I thought then that it was probably because they lived in rural Pennsylvania and didn't ever travel."

"Maybe that's true, but it's also true that sometimes perfectly reasonable parents just give birth to knuckleheads. Look, I'd be the last person on this planet to criticize you or your choices. That said, I have to say that I think living with Wes must be the most frustrating and unsatisfying arrangement I can imagine. I'd kill myself."

"Unsatisfying? Whoo-hoo! That's a good one! Who thinks about that?"

"Wait a minute. Are you going to tell me you don't think you're entitled to some kind of satisfaction in your marriage? Emotional or otherwise?"

"Harlan, maybe it's just that I know there is no water in that well. So why bother? I could pump Wes for satisfaction until I'm blue in the face, but you can't make someone into something they're not. So I take my satisfaction where I can find it."

"Like where?"

"Well, there's my granddaughter . . ."

"Oh, please. She's barely out of diapers." I scowled at him and he said, "Look, I know you adore Holly. I adore the pictures of her and just the sound of her voice . . . well, it sounds like music, doesn't it? Maybe someday I'll get to meet her. But, shugah, I want more for my sister than that. Momma would too! And you haven't been happy for so long. You don't even know it! I can't bear it."

"Oh, Harlan. You and I know each other too well, and it's pretty obvious that you're running a campaign for me to dump Wesley."

"Not really. I just want you to be happy."

"Thanks, sweetheart. Look, I meant it when I said I don't want to spend every weekend for the rest of my life with a bunch of home-wrecking whores disguised as nice young women who make me feel like an old frump. I want to have fun and be happy!"

"Well, thank goodness for that!"

"And what happened in Edinburgh was terrible, but it wasn't really grounds for a divorce, either. I guess I have a lot of thinking to do. It's not like Wesley has given me a concrete reason to divorce him."

"And it's not like he's given you one to stay, either, has he?"

"Except that it might have been nice to know we had twenty-two million dollars to our name."

"Again, you didn't know it because he didn't want you to know it. You need to think about that. How many other secrets does he have?"

"Other than that? I think he's pretty transparent. Maybe he's hiding new golf clubs or something, but he's not a womanizer-at least not in the past ten years. Well, not that I know of."

Except maybe for a possible escapade in Atlantic City, but I kept that to myself. This fire didn't need any more fat.

"I rest my case," he said. I looked up at him and he added, "Temporarily. Now there's one other matter of business we have not discussed."

"Which is?"

"Did you love seeing Jonathan Ray ogle you to death last night?"

"Oh, come on. You know it's always wonderful to discover an old friend again, isn't it?"

"Don't be coy with me, honey bunny. I saw you two eyeballing each other. Hmmmm?"

"He's just an old dear friend, Harlan, who said he'd be happy to take care of my arm for me while I'm here."

"I'll bet he wants what's attached to that arm as well!"

"Harlan! What a scandalous thing to say!"

"You know what, Leslie? Maybe a good scandal is exactly what you need! And a pair of diamond stud earrings. Why don't you take yourself over to Croghan's Jewel Box and get a big old sparkly pair? Let Wes see that on the Visa card. That might wake him up."

"You're a devil, sweet brother." It wasn't a bad idea.

"Hmmm. Maybe sometimes, but I'm gonna tell you something."

"What?"

"You only have one life, Leslie. I think you've sacrificed too much for too little in return. Charleston is our birthplace, our heritage. As they like to say around here, it's the blood-soaked land of our ancestors, people who gave everything they had for freedom. There's a lot to be learned from it, especially when things don't seem so clear."

"Oh, Harlan, I know you mean well but . . ."

"Hush, Sister, and let me finish. Why don't you take some time and just look at the women who have gone before you in this town? The Pinckney girls, for example-Eliza Lucas Pinckney, for sure, but Miss Josephine Pinckney most especially. You're walking the same floors she walked, for heaven's sake. You know?"

"Okay. I'll do that."

"Promise? They both faced worse horrors than Wesley."

"Such as?"

"Redcoats! Yankees! Seriously, Eliza Lucas practically put the indigo crop on the map. She was an absolutely amazing woman. Really. Read her letters. She ran three plantations simultaneously." He stepped out to the sitting room and took a volume from his shelves, handing it to me with a flourish. "This is a treasure."

"I will treat it like one," I said. "Thanks. I need a diversion."

Then we laughed in some kind of relief, and I hugged him with all my might. Maybe he was right. Maybe I needed a deeper understanding of my real feelings so I could make better decisions about my future. At that moment I couldn't even imagine a future. And I didn't have emotions that incited me to real anger or raging grief-just something that felt like utter frustration. Maybe the Pinckney girls could shed a little light. Coming to Harlan was the smartest thing I could've done. Ever since we were kids we went to each other over every problem we had. He was my rock.

"But Josephine is still a mystery to me," he said.

"Why's that?"

"Well, her novel Three O'Clock Dinner sold almost a million copies. Maybe more. I mean, that was a huge number in the 1940s! Think about it-no Barnes & Noble, no Books-A-Million, no e-readers. Did you ever read it?"

I shook my head.

"To be honest, Harlan, you've been throwing her name around for years, but I've never even heard a single thing about her. I mean, I hate to sound like a dimwit. I know we've got Pinckney this and Pinckney that all over Charleston, but I've never heard a peep about Josephine. Besides your dog, that is."

"That's my point exactly! She sold millions of books. She got the highest advance ever paid back in the day for a book-to-film deal. MGM gave her something like a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. And we're all saying Josephine who? How does a woman with this drop-dead historic pedigree and platinum resume just vanish into obscurity?"

"Good question."

"Well, sweetie, we don't want it to happen to us, either. She should've written a book about a Gullah-speaking vampire dog that's into erotica. There'd be a statue of her in Marion Square right next to John C. Calhoun!"

We laughed at the thought of it. Would Charleston really tolerate one of its aristocrats writing such a thing? Well, it sort of had! Josephine Pinckney allegedly had courage in spades.

"What's this world coming to?"

"I don't know, but somewhere in her papers is the answer to her obscurity. Maybe you can figure it out with women's intuition, because I sure couldn't."

A challenge. All our lives we had challenged each other on various things: Who starred in what movie? (Harlan always knew the answers.) Who made the best lasagna? (Me. Hands down.) Gumbo? (Harlan-his was divine.) Who had the prettiest garden? (Well, it depended on the season.) An outsider might have accused us of sibling rivalry, but we viewed these contests as legitimate competition with winners and losers and then we laughed about it for ages. And truly, who cared? If Harlan made his famous gumbo and I got to eat it, how did I lose?

Harlan left for Rome with his group from the college on June eleventh. I stayed on in Charleston. We agreed it would be good for me. I still had not spoken to Wes. He knew where I was and didn't care as long as I wasn't dead.

Harlan called me on the house phone when he arrived and got settled.

"Hey! How was your trip?"

"Too perfect for words," he said. "Everything okay?"

"Everything is just fine. How's Rome?"

"Ah, R-r-r-oma!" he said, rolling his R. "The Eternal City! So gorgeous! Every time I come here I just want to throw on a toga and rush to the Colosseum! All I can think about is Tony Curtis in Spartacus. How wild is that?"

"Very. Please don't pull the sheets and make a toga. Better to call room service for a plate of pasta."

"I'm sure you're right but the temptation is fierce."

He promised to call every few days.

Yep, so back in Charleston there was just me, my lurking dilemma I was trying to ignore, and Harlan's pup. She really was a darling little thing, but spoiled rotten didn't begin to describe her personality. When late afternoon rolled around and the sky began to turn red at the horizon, she positioned herself in front of the large window on the second floor in Harlan's study from where you could see the sunset. As soon as the day faded into darkness, she'd run from the window and bark at her wardrobe closet. She didn't stop barking until I brought down her pearl pink quilted satin dressing gown with the marabou trim and fixed it on her little twelve-pound body. She even stood on her hind legs to make it easy to put her front legs through the armholes. When she was satisfied that she was appropriately dressed for the evening, she'd hop up into her Marie Antoinettestyle bed and curl up into a ball. This was only good for as long as she didn't need to be given a moment in the moonlight with nature, which was usually just before my bedtime when she barked to remind me to open the door. There was little doubt as to who was really in charge. Maybe I needed a dog. But then did I really need another thing to boss me around?

I had only been in Charleston for a few days, and let me tell you, they were the longest days of my life. All my routines were broken and I was on the lam, sort of. But what was I doing? Had I really left Wesley? At that moment I didn't want a divorce, but I also didn't want to go back. I just couldn't see myself in that life anymore. And for the life of me, I surely could not see Wesley changing the smallest detail of his habits or his personality. Wesley's truth was the only truth that mattered. If he thought he was fine, he was fine.

And here's a terrible thing to consider. Even if he decided to give up golf, would I really, truly, and honestly want to spend an entire Saturday or Sunday with him? What would we do? Play Scrabble? Chitchat? On top of my growing pile of complaints, now that I knew the truth about our financial situation, everything was changed. I was furious with him in a way I didn't know I could be furious with anyone. What a colossal liar he was. How could I ever trust him again?

I finally turned my cell phone back on, and the first person's call I returned was Charlotte's.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

"I'm perfectly fine," I said. "How are you? How's Holly?"

"We're all fine, Mom. So? What's going on?"

"I'm watching your uncle Harlan's house for him while he's away."

"Oh. So when are you coming home?" I could hear the veiled annoyance in her voice.

"I'm not sure. Why?"

"Well, I need you, Mom. Dad needs you."

"Oh, I'm sure y'all are managing just fine without me."

There was a long silence.

"Mom? Did you and Dad have like a terrible fight or something?"

"Not at all."

"Well, it's just so weird for you to pick up and go to Charleston without telling anybody."

"I wanted some time off."

"From what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Cleaning the house with my arm in a sling?"

"Oh. Wait. Don't you have what's her name? Martha?"

"Twice a month."

"Well, Mom, that's ridiculous. If you need her more, just call her."

"It requires an act of Congress to adjust the budget. You should know that."

"Yeah, Dad's pretty tight."

"It's easier to be here for now."

"Yeah, I'll bet it is. Charleston's gorgeous. Can I come and visit?"

"Of course you can. Just let me know when you might like to come so that I don't make other plans, okay?"

"Plans? With who?"

"Honey, you seem to forget that I still have a few friends in Charleston."

"Oh, I'm sure you do."

"So how's the world of real estate going?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to work when I don't have child care."

"Ah," I said, and let it go with that.

"And the housing market is in the tank, you know. Everyone wants like the Taj Mahal with a media room for under two hundred thousand. Ain't happening. People are so unrealistic."

"That's true," I said, hoping that I might strike a chord with her conscience, which I may have done.