1. Rhett #2
That was easier said than done, though, Royal had done it.
He'd walked away from his family and only continued to have contact because of his grandmother.
Once she passed, he'd stopped having anything to do with the Hilton Head Legeres.
But I couldn't do that. Family was important to me.
My parents, my sister, and everyone expected me to behave like a Vanderbilt, and I had no choice.
Since I wasn’t getting any sleep, I got out of bed and decided to go for an early run.
The air outside was heavy with the faint scent of azaleas and jasmine, the first signs of Savannah waking from winter.
The pale blush of dawn was just beginning to bleed into the dark sky, and the streets were still quiet, save for the occasional hum of a distant car or the rhythmic chirp of crickets that hadn’t yet surrendered to the coming day.
I lived in the historic district, in the kind of house that tourists liked to snap pictures of—the one that made you think of long-dead cotton barons and gala balls under gaslit chandeliers.
It was old-money Savannah through and through, with Greek Revival columns and wrought-iron railings that seemed too delicate to hold up under the weight of their age.
The house had been in my family for generations, and though I owned it now, it felt more like a museum I was tasked with maintaining than a home.
I grew up in this house, and when I was ready to find a place of my own, my father suggested I live here.
My parents had moved to live on an expansive estate in the countryside in Richmond Hill, where we went to celebrate the holidays, as we'd have a full house with aunts and uncles and cousins.
Their estate had an old plantation-style home and acres of land, including stables, a small lake, and even the remnants of old rice fields and outbuildings.
I fucking hated that place almost as much as I hated the house I lived in.
As I turned off my street and headed toward Forsyth Park, the cobblestones beneath my feet felt slick with dew.
The sprawling trees arched above me, their limbs heavy with foliage that swayed gently in the early morning breeze.
The park was quiet at this hour, save for the occasional dog walker or a vendor setting up to sell fresh-cut flowers from a cart.
I fell into an easy rhythm, the steady slap of my sneakers against the pavement merged with the soft murmur of a world slowly waking up. Running usually cleared my head, but not today. My thoughts kept looping back to Pearl as they always did after the dream. Or was it a nightmare?
I hadn’t meant to, but my route took me toward my Aunt Hattie’s property on the edge of town.
Harriet “Hattie” Odum’s home was sprawling, old plantation-style, and surrounded by acres of land she’d somehow managed to keep intact despite all the encroachments of modern development.
It felt a little frozen in time, like out of a Flannery O’Connor story.
Since Pearl returned to Savannah, she was staying in a small cottage just beyond the line of camellias that bordered the estate.
It was small, tucked back near the garden where Aunt Hattie’s roses would bloom in a riot of color later in the season.
It was embraced by a wraparound porch with a couple of wicker chairs, a swing, and pale blue shutters the color of the Savannah River on a bright, sunny day.
I didn’t slow down, but my eyes lingered, as did my thoughts.
I found it remarkable that she was closer to Aunt Hattie than I was, despite Pearl living in California for several years. Pearl left Savannah after high school and studied at Stanford.
No one blamed me for shaming her—everyone accused her of trying to fuck above her station, not societally, since the Beaumonts were as old and wealthy as the Vanderbilts—no, it was because of how she looked.
The plump, dull girl deserved to be used for a bet.
That had shamed me even more. Aunt Hattie hadn't been reticent in telling me what a terrible human being she thought I was.
But I'd been a young buck then and had not paid much attention to my crazy aunt.
However, what I did stained my life—and me.
I carried it with me like my own scarlet letter, carved into my soul.
Now, fifteen years had passed, and the guilt was steady, my need for redemption growing just as firmly.
And since Pearl was back in Savannah, I wanted nothing more than to make right the wrongs I'd done her.
I could only do that if she talked to me, which she didn't. I'd tried, and she'd given me a blank look, said nothing, and extricated herself from my presence. Pearl had always had a spine of steel, and I had nothing but regret for what I did while high on youth and arrogance. Unlike me, she wasn't going to submit to familial pressure. She’d once told me, when I'd been wooing her for that dumb bet, that she didn’t want any part of the Savannah society we’d grown up in. She’d said it with a fire in her eyes, a rare defiance that had fascinated me.
"All that legacy nonsense,” she’d said, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the dock at her family’s summer house by the river where we used to meet up, where ultimately she'd given me her virginity. “It’s not a legacy, Rhett—it’s just an excuse to cling to a rotten past. You can call it Southern tradition if you want, but that doesn’t make it any less dark. ”
I’d argued with her; of course, I did. At seventeen, I’d been so sure of myself, so convinced that it was our responsibility—our duty—to carry on what our families had built. “You can’t just turn your back on it, Pearl. It’s our history. It’s who we are.”
She’d laughed, low and bitter. “Are you sure? Our history is that of exploitation and slavery, of Jim Crow and the Klan.”
"That was years ago; you can't hold us responsible for the sins of our ancestors."
"You sure about that, Rhett? Look at how we live, look at our lives and those of the less fortunate. Have we really moved past the past?"
I thought I was protecting a legacy worth preserving, but maybe I’d only been hiding behind the weight of tradition.
The conversation had stuck with me, even after all these years, though I didn’t want to admit why.
Maybe it was because she’d been one of the few people brave enough to challenge me—or maybe because deep down, I’d known she was right.
It was because of Pearl that I now contributed heavily to the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, and several other non-profit organizations my family would be shocked to learn I even knew about.
As I ran past her little cottage, I wondered who she had grown into. What had the past fifteen years done for her and to her?
She looked different, that’s for sure. No one would dare call Pearl big now.
She was slender and elegant. Her auburn hair was cut in a sophisticated style and made her look like the finance executive she was.
She wore skirt suits to work—I’d noticed that when I saw her at Savannah Lace.
She worked there, and I’d been to the office a few times to meet with the CEO, who had contracted Vanderbilt Finance for a project.
She elevated her five-foot-five body with high heels.
She had an air of insouciance about her.
I hadn't seen her at any of the society events since she'd moved back three months ago—her brother, Cash, who I occasionally met at the country club, had told me how disappointed he, his wife, and his mother were that Pearl continued to shun society and embarrass them.
"How on earth is she doing that?" I demanded.
"She refuses to behave like a Beaumont," Cash lamented. "Caroline has tried to get her to meet some women to socialize with, but she refuses, and hangs out with that Nina Davenport suffragette gang."
Nina Davenport was the CEO of Savannah Lace, an all-woman design and architecture firm where Pearl was the director of finance.
"Suffrage was a long time ago, Cash, since women have been voting since the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.
Nina is a brilliant CEO, and Savanah Lace is involved with some of the biggest projects we've seen in this city," I remarked, annoyed with Cash.
I had tremendous respect for Nina. My Aunt Hattie and she were close friends, and I would not have anyone tarnish their names.
"Oh, please, don't tell me you, too, believe in that nonsense."
"It's not nonsense, Cash, it's called progress."
I had learned from my aunt that Pearl was close to Cash's teenage daughters, which pissed off his wife, Caroline, as much as it did Cash. They worried that their daughters would become like their aunt. They should be so lucky.
When I saw a light flicker on in Pearl's cottage, I felt like a creepy lecher, so I picked up my pace, not wanting to be caught gawking at her home.
The cool morning air stung my lungs as I pushed harder, like I could outrun the memory of her or the feeling in my chest that told me I still hadn’t figured out how to be the kind of man who was worthy of her forgiveness.