They heard the front door slam right after that, and Daisy ran back to her room, in case it was her mother. They didn’t want to get caught together. Savannah heard Luisa’s bedroom door close right after that, so she was glad that Daisy had left. Luisa would have had a total fit if she knew they were so friendly and sleeping in Savannah’s room at night.

Alexa called Savannah shortly after that and asked her how school was, and Savannah told her all about it. She said she had made a friend, more or less. And just out of habit, her mother asked her what her name was, and Savannah told her. There was a silence at the other end as Alexa digested what her daughter had said.

“That’s strange,” she finally said, and sitting at her desk in New York, she had an odd look on her face. Savannah could hear it in her voice.

“What’s strange?”

“There must be a thousand kids in that school, and you found the daughter of the woman who was my best friend for all the years I was in Charleston. She did the same thing, she sought me out as soon as I moved there, helped me with everything, showed me the ropes. She was like my sister.” Alexa’s voice drifted off as Savannah listened. She could tell there was more to the story. She knew her mother.

“And? So?”

“She claimed undying loyalty when your father told me he was divorcing me, and we’d be friends forever. I never heard from her again when I left. She stopped writing to me. She didn’t return my calls. And last I heard, she and Luisa were best friends. Very southern. Watch out you don’t get your heart broken there too. It’s all a lot of phony bullshit.”

“Don’t be like that, Mom.” Savannah scolded her. “There are people like that in New York too. People are friendly down here, some of them.” She was thinking about Luisa then, who was anything but friendly and certainly hadn’t shown any southern hospitality to Savannah. “There are real people and fake people everywhere. That’s not southern or northern.” She was right, but Alexa didn’t want to hear it.

“Not one of those people stuck by me when I came back to New York. I never heard from them again, after seven years of thinking they were my best friends. I don’t have anything to show for those years, except you.” Alexa smiled sadly. “And I miss you so goddamn much. You’ve been gone for two days, and I can hardly stand it.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too. It feels like it’s going to be forever. When are you coming?”

“Not this weekend. The next one. It’s the best I can do. This case is a killer.” She was exhausted and Savannah could hear it. “How were your classes?”

“Boring. I’ll get through it,” she tried to reassure her. Her mother sounded stressed. And she knew that her mother was dreading coming to Charleston, but she would have gone to hell and back for her daughter. Savannah was thrilled she was coming.

Julianne called her on her cell phone before dinner, and had discovered the same thing Savannah had, that their mothers had been best friends when they were little. “My mama said to send yours her love, bless her heart,” Julianne said, and Savannah had to fight to keep from laughing. She wanted to say she knew that meant Julianne’s mother hated hers. But Alexa would have said the same thing if it were one of her idioms. Being from New York, she was more direct and had called Julianne’s mother a traitor.

The two girls talked for a few minutes and promised to meet up at school the next day. Savannah started her homework, and had just finished history when it was time for dinner.

Without Travis and Scarlette for distraction, conversation was slim that night. Luisa spoke to her daughter, but ignored both Savannah and her husband. Tom spoke to all of them, Daisy only to her parents, and Savannah didn’t dare speak at all-she thought it was safer not to.

Her father came to see her in her room afterward. She had her books spread out and was working on her computer, and sending e-mails to her friends in New York, telling them about Charleston. She hadn’t explained to anyone why she went away. Her mother had told her not to. She just said she’d be back soon and missed them, and was visiting her father in Charleston. She didn’t tell them she’d changed schools. And she was relieved she’d be back with them for graduation. At least she could say goodbye to them all then, before they left for college. For her, her New York school days were already over, but her friends didn’t know it.

“How’s the homework coming?” Tom asked her as he wandered into the room.

“I’m almost finished.” She’d had an idea that afternoon and wanted to ask him about it, but hadn’t wanted to bring it up at dinner. She didn’t want to say anything in front of Luisa, bless her heart. She smiled as she thought it to herself. “I was wondering if sometime I should go and visit my grandmother.”

“Do you want to?” He looked surprised.

“I thought it might be nice.” He nodded. Savannah had arrived in Charleston so suddenly that it hadn’t occurred to him so far, but it was a gracious thought. She was a good girl, and he was touched.

“I’ll talk to her about it.” His mother and Luisa were extremely tight, and he was concerned that taking Savannah to visit her might set off another explosion, maybe even a worse one. “She’s pretty frail.”

“Is she sick?” Savannah looked sympathetic. “No, just old. She’s eighty-nine now.” She had been forty-four when he was born, and he had been a big surprise. His parents had never been able to have children in twenty-two years of marriage, and then he arrived. His mother still talked about what a miracle it had been. She had called him her little miracle as a child, and he had hated it. She still did.

“If she wants to see me, I’d like to,” Savannah said. She hardly remembered her at all. She was extremely close to her New York grandmother, but her Charleston grandmother had totally removed herself from Savannah’s life, out of loyalty to Luisa. And because Alexa wasn’t southern, and an outsider, when they left, she closed the door on them and never opened it again. Savannah knew her mother was bitter about that too, and she wasn’t sure how her mother would feel about her visiting Grandmother Beaumont, but it was something she wanted to do, as long as she was here. She was tasting every aspect of Charleston life. This was her family too, not just her father’s. It was half of her, although saying that to her mother would make her sound like a traitor, and she felt a little guilty about it.

Tom stopped in to see his mother the next day. He had some free time, and drove back to Mt. Pleasant to pay her a visit. Eugenie de Beauregard Beaumont lived about ten minutes away from his house, on thirty somewhat run-down acres, in a colonial mansion surrounded by oak trees with extensive slave quarters still standing at the back of the property, though empty. She had two ancient servants living in the house with her, both of them women, and a man who came in the afternoons to do heavy work. They were nearly as old as she was, and they had neither the strength nor enough manpower to keep her enormous house clean. It was the house where Tom had grown up, and his father before him.

Tom had tried several times to get her to sell it, but she wouldn’t. It had been her pride and joy for nearly seventy years.

She was sitting on the back porch, reading, wearing a heavy wool shawl, when he arrived. A cup of mint tea was sitting next to her, and her gnarled hands were holding a book. She was frail, and walked with a cane, but she was in good health, and she wore her white hair, as she always had, in a bun. She was the president general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She bore the title of general because her grandfather had been one, and an illustrious one. And several of her other ancestors had been as well. She liked to say that her family had been the pride of the South. She had been appalled when Tom had married a Yankee. Alexa had been extremely kind to her when they were married, but she was still a northern girl, and second best, or worse, to his mother. She had been thrilled when Luisa came back, and had done everything in her power to convince her son to marry her again. The decision had been made when Luisa very cleverly got pregnant, which Tom knew now had been no accident, but a careful plan, at his mother’s suggestion, and it had worked.