Bulls Island by Dorothea Benton Frank Page A

wrong with keeping so many secrets.”
    “I know, I know, but my tangled web was woven so long ago…”
    “Adrian still thinks his father died in an accident with your parents, doesn’t he?”
    “What am I supposed to do, Sela, say, ‘Oh, Adrian, by the way…remember that story I told you?’ Be serious. It’s better this way.”
    “Speaking of, did you call your father yet? To tell him you’re coming to Charleston?”
    “Ummm…”
    “Um, yourself. You know what, Betts McGee? One of these days, all this lying and procrastination is gonna put your fanny on a barbecue spit.”
    “Okay. I’ll call my father. Ah, crap. Can you imagine how that’s going to go?”
    “Probably a scream fest, but I’m just guessing here.”
    I was quiet for a moment, knowing that if I was to install Adrian in his dorm in two weeks and leave for Charleston in three, the moment had arrived, passed, and was long overdue to tell my father and sister I was coming back for a while.
    “Betts? One lie breeds another…”
    “And another. I know. I just keep remembering how crazy Daddy was when I told him I was leaving.”
    “Well, you didn’t have that many options.”
    “No, I didn’t.” Sela was the only one who could understand how complicated it was. “I could have had an abortion, which I never would have done…”
    “Because you’re Catholic…”
    “No, not really. Because my child was conceived in love and that one tiny fact changed everything, as far as I was concerned. And you know what, Sela? That baby was all I had then. I had lost everything. I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time. And to you, I’d like to remind you…”
    “True enough. Well, thank God I had an aunt Jennie to save you from life in the streets.”
    “Truly. Sela? In all my life, I still have never met a more generous woman than her.”
    “Yeah, she’s great. Thanks.”
    “No, she’s not great. Jennie Moore’s a freaking living saint. I mean, there I was on her doorstep with two suitcases and less than one hundred dollars. No job, nothing…”
    “Fifty bucks of that money was mine.”
    “I never sent you a check?”
    We had a good laugh over that.
    “Anyway, she was so good to me, never a single judgmental remark. She’s been like a grandmother to Adrian all his life. I just love her so much.”
    “Yeah; me, too. By the way, after all these years, I think we’re unofficially related now.”
    “We should be. I’ll claim you anyway.”
    “Me, too. Isn’t it amazing how much good people can do for each other when you give them the opportunity to help?”
    “Yes. That might be the needlepoint-pillow remark of the day, Miss Sela.”
    “No kidding. But think about it. You were just a few years older than Adrian when you went to New York.”
    “I was a certified genius, right? Incredible. A terrified, certified genius.”
    “You were a baby.”
    “That’s for sure. A baby having a baby. Stupid.”
    “Maybe, but you know what, Betts? You have a wonderful son, you’ve had one heck of an adventure in your career, and…”
    “And what?”
    “And now your son is going to college and it’s time for you to get a life for yourself.”
    “I have a life…”
    “No, I mean one that includes sex.”
    “Oh. That.”
    “Yeah, that.”
    “Right. Well, I’ll put that right on my to-do list.”
    Sela and I gabbed some more and then finally we hung up. The only time I’d returned to Charleston in all those years was when she married Ed O’Farrell. After all, she had asked me to be her maid of honor and I would have done anything to be there. I slipped into town like a stealth ninja, attended all the wedding festivities at Wild Dunes, and then slipped out again.
    I always felt a huge twinge of guilt that I had made no attempt to see my father or sister, but every time I’d tried to contact them, I got a dose of my sister’s wrath. Good grief, she had a temper! Daddy had to have known how Joanie carried on, but he never