As we drove to the courthouse, where Amelia and I would become husband and wife, so we’d share a name with our babies on the day they were born, I wondered why things happened the way they did. Wouldn’t it have been easier if Amelia and I had fallen in love the summer after college and never looked back? But when I thought about erasing that entire chapter of my life, the one where Greer was the center of my world, when I thought about not having these babies that were half-her and half-me, I changed my mind.

I thought about a few minutes earlier when I’d put all her words, all her feelings, all her secrets, on a shelf in her babies’ room. And then I put my hand on Amelia’s belly.

The best part of Greer and of me was right beside me, living inside the woman I loved. They were real and would be here any day. I didn’t need my old memories, because now, finally, I was ready to make some new ones. I had spent years worrying about preserving Greer’s legacy. Now I was ready to create my own.

Amelia UNDER THE SOUTHERN SKY

THE DAY MY BROTHER RAN into the makeshift Southern Coast office in what had once been the ballroom of Dogwood but that now held our staff of twelve—who had, in my humble opinion, made magic of a dying magazine—and handed me two newspapers, something extraordinary happened. My past and my future merged, became a seamless, undeniably right present.

The front page of the Cape Carolina Chronicle boasted, “Saxton Wins Mayor in Landslide Victory.”

The Life Styles section of the New York Times proclaimed, “Modern Motherhood with Amelia Saxton Thaysden.”

I smiled up at my brother. “Banner day for the Saxtons, huh?”

It wasn’t lost on me that giving birth to two beautiful babies had made the gap I had worried would form between my brother and me—after my mother told me the truth about Tilley being his biological mother—nonexistent. I understood now that it wasn’t my truth to tell. It was my mother’s and Tilley’s.

“I think it was you standing out there with one baby on your front and one on your back all day and handing out rulers to voters that put me over the edge.” He winked at me.

Yeah. My brother had received 1,274 of the total 1,709 votes because of me in an overstressed BabyBjörn with two cranky infants. But whatever. It wasn’t November if I wasn’t standing in front of Cape Carolina High’s gymnasium, our town’s polling place.

I hadn’t let Parker read the column before it had gone to print. I said I wanted it to be a surprise, but really, I didn’t want his input. I loved and cherished him, but this was my side of the story. I couldn’t think about it through his eyes. I needed part of this journey to be mine and mine alone. Almost two years after I walked into that fertility clinic for the very first time, I had finally managed to write the story I had started that day. Only, when it came time to put it on paper, it felt like a different story. Yes, I’ll use those facts one day. The interviews, too. But, for now, a column seemed like the way to go. A Modern Love column, in fact.