by Marci Bolden
Katie sat at the kitchen table with an oversized crayon in her hand and all her books about national parks spread before her. Too short to reach the floor, she swung her feet, causing a rhythmic thump-thump each time the heel of one of her bright red rain boots hit the support beam of the table. John’s mother had bought them when Katie suddenly became scared of storms. They were supposed to be a reminder that with the thunder came rain, and rain made big puddles to jump in. However, Katie loved the boots so much, she refused to wear anything else, including her tennis shoes. Caroline had told her the boots were for outside, but as usual, John contradicted her and gave Katie permission to wear them indoors. Now Katie refused to take them off other than to bathe and sleep.
“Daddy says we can go to Mount Hushmore, too.”
“Rushmore,” Caroline corrected. She stifled the urge to rein in Katie’s plans. There was no way they could afford this trip. When John and Katie had started talking about exploring, she’d agreed it would be fun. But every day the list of places John promised to take Katie grew. He didn’t seem to understand that meant the budget for the trip would grow, too.
Once again, he was filling Katie’s head with promises they couldn’t possibly keep. He was always doing that, and then Caroline had to be the bad guy and tell their daughter no.
Sliding a cheese sandwich and half an apple on the table for Katie, she sat next to her little girl and read the list. She tugged a curl before rubbing her hand up and down Katie’s back. “That’s quite a trip you have planned there.”
Katie set her crayon down and wrapped her tiny fingers around the sandwich. “Daddy says we can go wherever I want. How far is the ocean?”
“Too far, kitty cat.”
She stopped kicking her feet and looked up at Caroline, disappointment making her mouth sag. “But Daddy said—”
“I know what Daddy said.” She leaned over and kissed Katie’s head, burying her nose to smell her hair. “We’ll do our best to see everything, but maybe we can save some things to see next summer, hmm?”
Voices from outside drew her attention. Her smile faded as she peered out the sliding glass door. John and his father were sweating in the late May afternoon. Katie’s birthday was still a few weeks away, but the moment she’d told his parents she wanted a swimming pool this summer, they’d run out and bought one.
She frowned when John yelled for his dad to turn the hose on. The frame was built—because his parents couldn’t simply buy a kiddie pool; they had to buy Katie a full-sized monster that took up most of the backyard.
She swallowed hard and ran her hand over Katie’s hair again. “We have to have rules for the pool, kitty cat.”
“I know. Grandma told me.” She had put the sandwich back down and was now misspelling ocean. O-s-h-u-n. “No swimming without a grown-up.”
“Katie, look at me, please.”
Bright blue eyes focused on Caroline.
“Just like you can’t go to the park by yourself or ride your bike down the street by yourself, you can’t go into the pool by yourself.”
“I know, Mommy. Grandma told me.”
Katie returned her attention to the list of places she wanted to see, and Caroline returned hers to the activity in the backyard.
“Mommy,” Katie called.
Caroline lifted her brows in question.
“How do you spell Grand Canyon?”
She put her hand on Katie’s head. “Oh, sweetheart.” Instead of dashing her baby’s happiness with a dose of reality, she spelled the words.
The smile on Katie’s face got even wider. She bounced out of her chair, threw her arms around Caroline’s neck, and hugged her tight. “This is going to be the best trip ever, Mommy.”
She kissed Katie’s head. “Sure is, kiddo.”
“Oh, kitty cat,” Carol whispered as she brushed her fingers over the words etched in Katie’s urn. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Unfortunately, she was practiced at getting through situations she didn’t know how to. Putting herself into autopilot mode, she pushed herself up and dragged her fingers under her eyes to dry her tears.
She was good at autopilot. Autopilot had gotten her through losing Katie, leaving John, and burying Tobias. Autopilot had gotten her through the past eight months. Tonight, it got her to the tiny grocery store that only sold local foods, to the hospital parking lot, and all the way to John’s room. She knocked on his door as she pushed it open, allowing herself to reconnect with her actions because autopilot only went so far before someone noticed. When people noticed, they grew concerned. That was another thing Carol had learned a long time ago.
John looked up and froze, obviously surprised to see her. His smile was slow to spread, but he was clearly pleased she’d come back.
“Did you eat?” she asked.
“A little.”
“I usually do this alone, but…” She reached into the bag she’d brought and pulled out a small cake. “Since you’re here, I think we should celebrate her birthday together, don’t you?”
“Yeah. We should.”
She pried the top off the container, then handed him a plastic fork. Sitting on the edge of his bed, she stared at the little round cake covered in white icing and pink fondant roses, but didn’t dig in. Neither did he.
“What?” she asked when he continued to stare at her.
“I…I didn’t expect to see you again.”
She gnawed at the inside for her lip, debating what to say to him. “I feel like she’s telling me something,” Carol whispered. “Like she brought you here to force me to face her loss. Maybe you’re right. It’s been twenty-four years, John. It’s time to let go.”
“Will you go with me?”
“Do you have any idea how much it hurts me to see you?”
“Because of Katie.”
“Because of everything. I’m sorry you’re sick. I’m sorry. But I’m not going to fall into your trap again.”
“What trap, Caroline?” He closed his eyes. “Carol. I’m not setting a trap.”
“You are. My God, you show up out of nowhere. The day before her birthday. Don’t tell me you didn’t choose right now, this moment, because you knew I’d be off balance.”
He pointed to his head. “I didn’t choose the timing.”
“You couldn’t wait a few more days?”
He set his fork down. “I deserve to see her on her birthday.”
“A phone call would have been nice. A little warning to allow me time to brace myself.”
He cut his gaze to her, his stare full of accusation. “Would you have let me see her?”
She didn’t know. She couldn’t answer that honestly. She’d like to think that she would have been a big enough person to grant his wish. Maybe she wouldn’t have been there, but she would have made arrangements for someone to be at her home to let John in. She probably wouldn’t have wanted to see him, but she was certain she would have allowed him to see Katie if he’d asked. She shrugged in response. “I guess we’ll never know because, like always, you did whatever you wanted without taking anyone else into consideration.”
He looked away. “I’ve changed.”
“No, John, you haven’t. You’re still just as manipulative as you’ve always been.”
He returned his glare to her. “I’m going to be dead in a few months. Have some compassion, huh?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Really?” Cocking his brow at her, he smirked in that way he always did before throwing a few cruel words her direction. “Because I’m pretty sure if I touched you right now, I’d get frostbite.”
She tilted her head and stuck her bottom lip out at him, taunting him with her exaggerated pout. “Oh, nothing breaks my heart more than my asshole of an ex-husband thinking I’m frigid.” She transitioned her mocking face to a stone-cold glare in the blink of an eye. “You want to know why I was so damned cold to you, John?” Leaning closer, she held his gaze to get her point across. “Becaus
e I learned a long time ago that you see warmth and kindness as weakness, and when you see weakness, you go straight for the kill.”
He snorted a half-laugh as he rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Caroline. You still know how to be dramatic.”
“And you still know how to be a conniving bastard.” She put the cake on the tray hovering over his bed and stood. Walking to the window, she stared out at the city lights. “I hate this. I hate how you make me feel. How you’ve always made me feel.”
“And how’s that?” he asked flatly.
She spun on her heel, arms crossed defensively over her chest, to face him. “Not once, not in twenty years, did I ever question Tobias’s motives. Not once did I question how I should react or respond to something he said, wondering what he was trying to get out of me. I have always had to analyze every word that comes out of your mouth. Our relationship has always been a high-stakes chess game. One wrong move and I’m cornered by your lies and deceit with no way out.”
“I’m different now!”
“Are you? Are you really?”
“Yes! That was the alcohol, Caroline. That was me being young and stupid and inexperienced. And scared.” He turned his head a touch and once again displayed his sad eyes for her. “I was always scared of losing you. You were so much better than me. You deserved more than I could ever give you.”
“There.” She pointed at him accusingly. “Right there it is. Feel sorry for me, Caroline. I’m broken, Caroline. Only you can fix me, Caroline. That’s it, John. That’s the move right there.”
“It’s the truth. You were better than me.”
“Oh, boo-hoo. You chose to be less than you could be.”
“Because I chose to be a cop?”
“Because you chose to be a drunk.” She stared him down, waiting for him to deny the allegation. He didn’t. She relaxed a bit. “I never begrudged your career choice, John. I begrudged how you used it as an excuse to be a shitty husband and father.”
He focused on the hands he’d clenched in his lap. The muscles in his jaw worked, but she wasn’t sure if he was clenching his jaw to bite back the words he wanted to say or if he was trying not to swallow the dose of reality she’d dumped on him.
She pressed on since he was no longer fighting back. “And you can save your song and dance about how you have nobody else to help you through this but me. One word, John, and there’d be a hundred cops across the country lined up to make sure you got to make this trip. You don’t need me, and you know it.”
He let his shoulders sag, as if all the strength had left him. “I’m not saying goodbye to Katie with strangers. You’re her mother. My wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
He met her gaze again. He didn’t look angry and defensive now. He looked sad but determined. “We’re a family, Caroline. That means something to me.”
That used to mean something to her, too. That was how she justified staying with him longer than any sane person would have. They were family. Family didn’t give up. Family didn’t leave. But she should have left. She should have left long before he had a chance to cost Katie her life.
Carol inhaled a long, slow breath as she mentally steeled herself against his assault on her defenses. “You’re using our daughter to twist me around.”
“I’m not,” he said, lowering his voice, as if intentionally keeping any edge from his words that could possibly set her off again. “I want…” He blinked as his eyes dampened. “Christ, Caroline. I lost everything, too. I lost my daughter and my wife. Now I’m standing at death’s door looking back on my life, and I hate what I see. I hate the man I was and everything I put you through. I want to make peace with myself before I die, but I can’t do that without making peace with you first. That’s all I’m asking.”
She stared him down, gauging how much honesty she could find in his words. She couldn’t even begin to count how many times she’d let him convince her to do his bidding. He was too good at playing her emotions. She was the guitar, he was the player. And play her he did. Over and over again. “I don’t trust you,” she whispered.
“You have no reason to. But I have no reason to lie to you now.” He held his hands up, gesturing to the hospital room. “What could I possibly be trying to get from you, Caroline?”
Exhaling slowly, she broke down his request in her mind and couldn’t find an ulterior motive. Accepting that John Bowman didn’t have a hidden agenda seemed to be asking for a target to be put on her head. Even so, she nodded. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ll go with you. We’ll say goodbye to her like we planned. Then I’ll take you home where someone, I don’t care who, will be waiting to take care of you. You will not try to manipulate me into giving you more than that. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Thank you, Caroline.” He held his hand out. She hesitated before taking it. Just like when he’d introduced himself years ago, the moment he squeezed her hand and smiled, she felt like she’d sealed her fate.
The following morning found Carol standing much as she had the night before—in front of the hospital window with her arms crossed. This morning, however, Dr. Collins was standing next to her with a look of pure distress on his face.
“I have to say again how much I disagree with what you’re doing,” he said. “John? Are you listening?”
John sat on the edge of his hospital bed buttoning his shirt. His fingers trembled, but he was able to function well enough that Carol could stamp down the urge to help.
“Of course he’s not listening,” she said with an unintentional irritation in her tone. “He never does.”
John finished dressing and then looked at her, an excited smile curling his lips. She wondered if he’d been given more than the necessary dose of painkiller. “I still have the list of all the places we were gonna go.” He slid off the bed and held on to the edge as he swayed slightly. “The list. The one Katie made.” He dug in his pocket as he crossed the small hospital room.
She didn’t need to see the list. She’d memorized it in the days they’d spent waiting for Katie’s ashes to be returned to them. The paper with oversized messy handwriting in red crayon, most of the places misspelled, had still been hanging on the fridge when Carol had sneaked out of the house she could no longer breathe in. The sense of Katie’s death was suffocating in that house. If she didn’t escape, she would have died, too.
She held up her hand like a cop directing traffic, determined to stop him before he got any closer. “I don’t want to see it.”
He pulled the yellowed paper out and unfolded the list, showing it to her anyway. She turned away before she had to face another bit of the past she wasn’t ready to. Even so, her mind filled with a flash of Katie eating a sandwich and kicking her red boots against the table over and over.
“Look at this, Dr. Collins. Look at all the places she wanted to go. She was young, but she wanted to do so much. She wanted to be an explorer, didn’t she, Caroline?” He looked at the list when no one else seemed interested. Running his fingers over the paper, he smiled. “She was going to be an explorer.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Dr. Collins asked her as John refolded the paper.
No, she didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to commit herself to John for the next few weeks. She didn’t want to spread Katie’s ashes. She sure as hell didn’t want to watch one more person die. She didn’t say that. Instead, she sighed. “Did someone call in his prescriptions to the pharmacy I requested?”
“Yes.” Turning the clipboard in his hands to lay it flat against his stomach, he seemed to concede and apparently no longer felt the need to fidget. “I don’t know that he’ll survive this trip.”
“Well, I guess we’ll get as far as we can and deal with his health when we have to.”
Sympathy filled his eyes. “This is going to take a huge toll on you, too. Do you understand that? He can get around now, but that could change with one seizure. In a matter of minutes, his health and mobility could change.”
She didn
’t need his help understanding what a risk she was taking, and she certainly didn’t appreciate him pointing out what a disaster this was going to be. Even if John was healthy enough to make it to the end of their journey, the emotional impact of this trip was going to hit her hard. She was about to do what she’d managed to avoid for twenty-four years; she was about to face Katie’s death and let her go. Tobias had tried to force this issue for two decades. Leave it to John to throw her in head first. He’d always had a way, good or bad, of making her face things she somehow managed to ignore.
Goddamn him anyway.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she stifled the exasperation threatening to surface. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before, trying to figure out why the hell she’d agreed to this stupid trip. Guilt? Shame? Or because maybe she’d needed someone—John—to put a foot in her ass and make her take this step all along. She’d never be ready to put her daughter to rest, but John was right when he said saying goodbye to her with strangers wasn’t right. Tobias never knew Katie, had never held her or loved her like John had. He could have been there, helping Carol through the process, but he wouldn’t have been going through the process himself, and somehow that hadn’t felt right.
Maybe Carol had been waiting for John to find her all this time, so she could do this as well.
Dropping her hand, she met Dr. Collins’s concerned gaze with one of her own. “I know that. I do. We never mourned as parents. I left him before we had a chance. He seems to need that to make peace with her death. No matter how badly things ended between us, he deserves some peace, don’t you think? Honestly, maybe I need that, too.”
He put his hand to her arm and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “If it gets to be too much, you really must find a hospital and have him admitted. Whether he wants it or not. There’s only so much you can do for him.”
“Yeah,” she said, looking at her ex-husband again. “I know.”
“I thought you’d be sleeping,” John said from the doorway of Carol’s home office.
She glanced at the corner of her laptop screen to check the time. Almost midnight. “I’m headed that way soon. Why are you still up? Feeling okay?”
