Chapter 1: Legacies and Second Chances

I was First Lady for three years, and a respected matriarch for twenty.

People whispered my name with reverence at the grocery store, and I could still hear my laugh echo at every Little League game. For a stretch that long, I could trace the shape of my legacy by the faces around the Thanksgiving table—the smell of green bean casserole and pumpkin pie always mingling with laughter—and the way my name came up in PTA meetings and neighborhood bake-offs. Even after my funeral—when my children, grandchildren, and even the city council members sat shoulder to shoulder in the old Methodist church, sniffling into Kleenexes—the feeling lingered that I'd shaped something enduring.

By all accounts, a life like mine should have been free of regrets.

Yet, given a second chance, when Grandma Carol asked whom I wished to marry, I did not choose the governor’s son. Instead, I chose Captain Andrew, who served on the northern border.

From then on, whether in Minnesota or Georgia, I wanted only to be with you—never to see the governor’s son again.