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was too young! He said it didn’t matter to him. I was terrified.
    I cannot leave my family! I do not want to go to Connecticut! My daddy would die if I left the plantation! What? Unhand me! You brute! If this is what Yankees are like…I will throw myself in the river! I swear it!
    I felt someone shaking my arm and looked up into Rebecca’s face.
    “Miss Olivia? Are you all right?”
    The gallery was nearly empty. I had slept through the entire party.
    “Of course! Of course!” I straightened myself and smoothed my hair, which had become a little tangled and was no doubt in disarray. “It’s time for me to go home.”
    “Huey is very happy,” she said.
    “And why is that?”
    “Well, he sold several of my paintings and almost all of Sallie Anne’s.”
    She helped me to my feet and I ran my hands over the skirt of my dress, thinking I must have been some sight. Suddenly, I remembered what Rebecca had told me earlier. Then along came Abigail and Huey. Abigail so sophisticated in all black and Huey so angelic in all white. It made me choke up a little to think they would probably never marry. They were a study in opposites, which is probably why they so enjoyed each other’s company. People were always drawn to that which they did not possess.
    “Miss Olivia? Let me take you to the car,” Abigail said. “We are closing up now.”
    All at once I became quite provoked with my son.
    “Huey! Huey! How could you let me sleep like that? In front of all those people?”
    “Mother? You were so comfortable and even smiling in your sleep! And besides, I didn’t know you didn’t want to rest!”
    Sometimes Huey tried my patience, I can tell you that.
    I took Abigail’s arm and turned back to Rebecca.
    “Rebecca? I like you, sweetheart and I think your husband has done a terrible thing. A heinous thing! We simply cannot let him get away with this! I think I might have to cut a switch and go down to Charleston and tan his hide!”
    Abigail, who didn’t know a thing but soon would, looked at Rebecca and said, “Honey? You don’t know Miss Olivia and I have no idea what’s she’s talking about, but when she starts talking about cutting a switch, you may as well head for high ground! Looks like we’re in for the storm of the century.”

T HREE
REBECCA IN THE MORNING
    N AT was gone long before we separated. The happiness in his eyes flickered, faded and went blank. It just went blank. My perfect family began to fall apart.
    Do you know how there are conversations, disagreements and even verbal slights that wound you so badly you remember everything about them? The mere thought of them evokes a sweat. You recall the heaviness of the blue denim shirt you were wearing, or you can still smell the chicken you were roasting. You can envision the dirty dishes in the sink and feel what the temperature was. You relive those kinds of memories in a physical power surge, and all the knots you felt when they happened are suddenly alive and in your present.
    In the days Nat loved me, he would glide through the door in the evenings, happy to be home. How was your day? Where are the kids? What’s for dinner? Oh! Wait till I tell you what happened! No! I’ll save that for later! Anything in the mail? How are you? Let me give my wife a kiss…
    For years, we spoke the same words, asked the same questions that filled the air of a thousand homes in Charleston. Dusk would settle in, covering us in its delicious glow of contentment. Another day of work was ending and we were all safe and with each other. We would have supper, clean the kitchen together as a family. Then Nat and I would put the children to bed. Most nights we would watch a movie or read together, turning in before midnight, sleeping like spoons.
    One day, without warning, the pot-stirring hag slipped through the walls and began to skulk in our shadows. Nat began to miss dinner all the time, claiming business reasons. He went to every Clemson football and basketball game