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herself a decorator.
    Well, la-di-da. All that money we spent to educate that girl at Columbia for her to wind up making some stranger’s curtains? My poor girl. If she had only listened to me.
    Ah, well, I know she thinks I’m old hat, that I don’t know anything about life outside of South Carolina. Well, guess what?
    Neither does she! She thinks she can just run off to New York and marry the first tomcat who comes prowling around? She thinks she’s in love? She doesn’t know the first thing about love.
    Or men! She should’ve asked me about men. Hell, I could write a book. She’s marrying that old man? She’s marrying her daddy, that’s what.
    I needed to talk to Millie. She had to stop this before it was too late. I’d make her put some of her fool voodoo on them or something. I waited until I thought Millie would be occupying herself messing through my things, and then I could go upstairs. Sure enough, by the time I fluffed my hair in the hall mirror and went up the stairs to my room, there she was with half my belongings spread out all over the bed.
    “Damnation! Millie? Do you mean to make me fire you after all these years?”
    Well, don’t you know the old biddy got that heat in her eyes and put her hands on her hips to me!

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    D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k
    “Miss Lavinia? It’s a good thing Mr. Nevil done gone to Glory,
    ’cause iffin he see the way you act, it’d kill him.”
    “Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Millie! You always say that!
    Think of a new line!”
    “Okay. Try this on, Mrs. Plantation Owner of the Whole World.
    You don’t want to go ’cause you’re scared yellow that Caroline grew up behind your back and nobody needs you anymore. How’s that?”
    I sat down on my dressing table bench and all my breath rushed from my chest. “You’ve cut me to the quick, Millie. How could you say such a thing? First my boy runs off and marries that vulgar trash after he knocks her up, and now my girl is marrying a foreigner. Where did I go wrong, Millie? Can you tell me that?” I felt sick in my heart. I truly did.
    “Miss L?”
    I didn’t answer her. I was checking my nerves to see if I could cry or not. Yes, I could, I decided, and I let the tears roll like a river, wailing like a baby. I did not do this to elicit sympathy from Millie, although it always helped.
    “Miss L?”
    I didn’t answer her again but got up from the bench and took to my bed, pushing the hangers of clothes to the other side and crawling under the spread. She knew it was time to leave me alone.
    She could pack my clothes later. She left the room, closing the door quietly. That’s right. I had decided to go to New York City. After all, how would it look if Millie went without me? And, I knew I couldn’t stop Caroline from marrying that man. She was a stubborn girl and I’d just have to let her make her mistakes.
    Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying I was going to New York just for appearances. I knew it was my duty to be there and I have never shirked my duty. Ever. Not once. Okay, maybe once—
    after Nevil died and I was pretty hard on the children. But I didn’t realize at the time that I was in such a deep state of mourning. I was. I probably should have been medicated. But who knew about those things?

    P l a n t a t i o n
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    Hell, now that we had a—what was he? a psychologist or a psychiatrist? Well, anyway, now that we had some kind of doctor coming into the family, we could probably get all the pills we wanted!
    Maybe that’s why Caroline had agreed to marry him in the first place. The son of a bitch had brainwashed and then drugged her!
    Oh, merciful God! My poor daughter. I decided to call her.
    The phone rang six times. No one home. An answering machine came on with Caroline’s voice just as cheery as could be.
    Hi! We’re sorry we missed your call. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back.Thanks . Why was she always apologizing? She had to stop that. It was a true sign of