Full of Grace (Continued)

I inhaled the facts of life deeply and exhaled the reality that you really couldn't have it both ways. Balance was everything. If I wanted to be with Michael, it was best to keep things as they were. And how things were was pretty fantastic most days. Besides, I wasn't certain that I really wanted children. Let's be honest here. From the practical side, it would have meant giving up my career because I traveled all the time. Or I would have been forced to change industries and start all over again.

I wasn't willing to gamble the salary cut that might come with an industry switch. And even if the mortgage was covered by my father, I still had bills to pay: groceries, utilities, clothes, cell phone, whatever . . . Besides, I wasn't bohemian enough to have children out of wed lock or brave enough to face the possibility that I might wind up raising them myself. Alone. Me, alone with a kid? And truly, illegitimate children would have put my parents in their grave. For sure.

I envisioned calling Connie and Big Al and telling them they had a new precious bastard grandchild. My father would have cut out his own heart and FedExed it to me. My mother would have swallowed every sleeping pill in CVS, washing them down with Pellegrino—-wait! No! Not Pellegrino—-she never would have wasted the money on something so frivolous. Tap water. She would've used tap water. And she definitely would have left behind a soggy, smeared epistle, drenched in her tears, apologizing for not teaching me better morals. And Nonna? My grandmother? The queen of Naples, Italy? Don't ask. No. Rock stars acquired children in that unseemly manner, naming them after food groups, not the Russos of Bloomfield, New Jersey, whose great-grandfather played bocce with Mussolini when he visited Naples. And now that my parents were nicely settled in the posh environs of Hilton Head, with nice friends and a membership to two golf clubs, a book club and a bridge club? Nope. Not happening.

"Oh, fine," I said aloud, and changed the radio station.

As I passed each stretch of forest that thumped with the ghostly heartbeats of soldiers long gone to glory, honestly, I could feel my chest constrict. The minute I got there they would start asking questions, implying I was wasting my life, telling me how shallow I was. But in a nice way, of course.

Look, some of the details in my bio might help you understand my case. As you know, I'm Italian Catholic, now a ripened thirty-two and, as you know, God help us, the only daughter and unmarried. If that wasn't enough, Michael, the one true and only love of my entire life, is unfortunately Irish. He insisted his red hair was actually more blond and that his freckled nose was merely sunkissed, but for my family's money, he was as Irish as Paddy's pig, even though they had never laid eyes on him. Worse, as my parents would say, he fell away from the One True Church. He's basically an agnostic.

I mean, he had never come right out and declared himself to be an agnostic or an atheist, but I knew Michael inside and out. He doesn't want to support the Vatican machine and he thought science would eventually explain everything. He might be right. He might just be right. Or not.

All I know is this. From the first moment I met Michael Higgins I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. Okay, I didn't really know that. But I knew there was a high probability that my sheets were in his future and that I would work every last trick in my female toolbox to get some kind of serious relationship going. On sight, it was that intense.

My boss invited me to his annual Labor Day outdoor barbecue, right? I remember that I really didn't want to go because it was hot in a totally surreal way. Boiling oil. Mosquitoes the size of small birds. Flying jaws. Hurricanes looming off the coast. But we're talking Charleston in August, so what else was new? Think handsome men with golf tans, drinking gin and tonics, wearing long trousers printed with little whales and no socks. Women in pink floral sundresses, Lilly or Liberty, sipping frosted stems of Prosecco, toned arms and bony décolleté glistening in their marinade of perfume and glow. All the while an ancient man in a starched linen jacket refilled drinks at a makeshift bar in the brick courtyard and his companion moved in the background in a waltz of service, through the throng, offering pickled shrimp speared with little toothpicks. At the other end of the garden, on an oversize grill, skewers of pork, chicken, onions and pineapple sizzled, filling the air with glorious, mouthwatering fragrances. They would be served from the buffet over steamed rice, with salad and rolls. It was Lowcountry civility and propriety in tandem and completely irresistible.