9. Ansley Silent Treatment
ansley: silent treatment
THE FIRST FULL NIGHT I ever spent with Jack was the summer I turned eighteen.
Ours was a head-over-heels summer love, the kind that leaves you breathless and wanting and thinking about the other person so much that you accidentally scoop mint chip instead of Rocky Road at your summer job at Peachtree Creamery.
Jack and I had had plenty of stolen hours and alone time—not to mention many, many heady nights out with our friends over on Starlite Island, drinking barely chilled Pabst Blue Ribbon and feeling free and alive and untouchable.
But this was the first time in two summers that we had an empty house and a plan.
My mother was the suspicious kind, so I knew we had to play this just right.
Which is why I made it seem last minute, on-the-fly when that Saturday night I burst through the front door and, casually, while walking up the steps to my room, yelled, “Mom! Sandra and Emily and I are going to the drive-in and then we’re spending the night at Sandra’s! ”
I knew what her next question was going to be, so I added, “Sandra’s mom has to make six dozen cookies for the church bazaar and we’re going to help her after,” I called, walking into my room.
I heard her footsteps and then her voice as she appeared in the doorway. I had answered her Will her parents be home? question. I had even thrown in a community service angle. How could she possibly say no now?
“You’re helping Connie make her cookies and not helping me make mine?”
I threw a few things into an overnight bag, again, casually, which belied the fact that this particular bag had been packed in the back of my closet for more than a week.
“We can all help you tomorrow after our sleepover,” I said, kissing her cheek, blowing past her before she could grill me any more.
“You girls have fun!” she replied. “Be safe!”
There was always the chance that my mom would call Sandra’s mom, but the three of us spending the night together was so common an occurrence, I doubted she would. Plus, spending an entire night with Jack was worth the risk. We’d never had this chance before. Who knew if we’d have the chance again?
I walked in the direction of Sandra’s just in case Mom was watching from the widow’s walk, and only changed course when I was two blocks away, my heart pounding in time to the thump of my feet against the pavement.
I was a good girl, a rule follower. My parents would kill me if they knew I was spending the night with a boy.
But Jack was my North Star; he had a magnetic pull on me that I could not resist. Nor did I want to.
I loved him. I loved who I was when I was with him.
Jack, in short, was a risk worth taking.
The night was wonderful, but it isn’t that night I remember.
It is the next morning, that sliver of consciousness between sleeping and waking with my head on his bare chest, when he kissed my forehead and verbalized exactly what I was thinking: “I never want to spend a single night away from you for the rest of my life.”
That wasn’t how life had turned out, of course.
I had married someone else. So had Jack.
But the fact remained that, in every instant of our here and now, in every breath, I wanted to fall asleep next to him, wake up with him.
The day we got married, the day we pledged—finally, after all these years—to be together forever, I knew in every cell of my body that I would follow this man anywhere.
I tried to conjure up that feeling, knew that it existed somewhere deep down.
I didn’t want to be away from Jack; I knew it was a second marriage, and second marriages were different sometimes.
They meant multiple family dynamics and time apart.
But this wasn’t only a second marriage. It was also a first love, a love so deep and true and all-consuming that it had survived decades.
I had lived without Jack for a long time.
I never wanted to do it again. He knew that.
Which is why it made me even madder that he was putting me in an impossible position.
And so, I had given Jack the silent treatment the entire flight home.
Or maybe it wasn’t so much that I had given him the silent treatment as it was that I had no idea what to say to him.
So I put my headphones on, closed my eyes, and pretended to be asleep, a deep ache taking hold inside me over the idea that our life, the life in Peachtree I loved so much, was about to change.
Jack knew better than anyone what a complicated relationship I had with my brother.
I loved him, obviously. He was my brother.
But when our grandmother had left the Peachtree Bluff house to me—the place that more than anywhere else in the world felt like home and family and all the goodness in life—he hadn’t spoken to me for years.
(I guess the silent treatment runs in our family.)
Even when Carter died, leaving me broke and alone with three children to raise, he hadn’t reached out in more than a cursory way. And if there was ever, ever a time I needed my big brother, it was then. He had been in a position to help me, and he hadn’t.
He’d come crying to me when his wife left him, and, like the bigger person I was, I was there for him.
Sure, he’d shown up for me a few times since.
But there was a big gap between having Thanksgiving together and going into business together.
Not that I was the one going into business with him.
But Jack and I were married. So what he did, I did.
Ipso facto, I was going into business with my brother John.
The chaos of deplaning and getting our luggage didn’t allow for more than small talk, but once we were in the car, Jack tapped my shoulder like a stranger with a question. “Are you going to pretend you’re asleep on the car ride home too?”
He was smiling, but I didn’t feel smiley.
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.” That, of course, was a lie.
I was mad at him for something he couldn’t have really even understood.
I was mad at him because he was thinking about going into business with my brother even though, for weeks, I had gone on and on about how happy I was for John’s new venture and how proud I was of him.
And I was. I was proud of him. I was happy for him.
I just didn’t trust him. And I really, really did not want to move to Chicago.
“Well, forgive me for misjudging your feelings. It’s just that I have known one Ms. Ansley Murphy for roughly forty years, and I am pretty good at reading when she’s mad at me.”
I sighed, putting on my seat belt. “I’m mad at you for not being able to read my mind.”
He shifted the car into gear and, before he spoke again, pulled up to the window and handed the parking attendant cash.
“Thank you,” he said. Then to me, “Right. I understand that, Ansley. And, believe me, no one wishes I could read your mind more than I do. I would love to have that power.” I looked over at him.
“Then I’d never have to ask where you wanted to go to dinner. ”
I knew he was only trying to lighten the mood, but it still annoyed me.
“I don’t trust John,” I said. “That’s the long and short of it.
I don’t trust him, and you should know that by now.
He hurt me very badly, and now it hurts me that you would even think about going into business with him without consulting me. ”
Jack was looking straight ahead, driving. “Okay, well, let me tell you something I haven’t told you yet.”
I eyed him warily. I hated secrets. Surprises. All of it.
“I miss work. I miss having a purpose and something to think about and move forward with. I spent most of my life growing an empire and then I sold it. And now what?”
Jack had started a hot-dog shop that had taken off. Then he had replicated it in hundreds of college towns all over the United States. When he sold out to private equity, he had become a very, very wealthy man. But I knew he didn’t care about the money. That wasn’t it at all.
“What about Peachtree Provisions?” I asked dumbly.
I knew already that was definitely not the same thing.
The little store and deli was fine, but it didn’t challenge him.
It didn’t make his pulse race. And I understood that because, while I loved my shop, what made me tick was my design projects, being able to have a place for my mind to wander—that excited me.
“I don’t think I really need to answer that.”
“But I thought you were happy. I thought you retired because you wanted more time to yourself. I thought you were set for life and that was what you wanted.”
“I thought so too. But, as it turns out, work makes me happy. I like the challenge. And, come on, Ans, I’m not even actual retirement age yet.
I feel like I could have this one last opportunity to really grow something great.
Food and bev is what I know. I’ve done it once.
I could do it again. And who will inherit the empire? ”
I crossed my arms. “My children,” I said, annoyance lacing my voice. John didn’t have children, so my girls were his heirs. Presuming he didn’t remarry, which seemed unlikely.
“It’s family. A real, true family business. John is great at making beer, but he doesn’t know how to get it in grocery stores all over the country. He doesn’t have the contacts to get it in taps in bars all over the world. I do. I can do that. I can make that happen. And I’d like to try.”
Jack was still driving, his headlights shining on the dark pavement.
I suddenly felt very, very tired. I didn’t want to fight.
I just wanted to get in my bed. In fact, as soon as we got home, I was going to run a nice hot bath and relax all by myself.
Maybe this would make more sense to me. Maybe I would get some perspective.
“But why would you go into business with someone you know can’t be trusted?”