by Marci Bolden
She’d been with him when he lost a patient, not long after he started at the hospital. He’d damn near broken down. Not all doctors did that, not all doctors let themselves feel the loss of patients. Simon had felt the loss deeply, and that had moved her. She felt connected to him in a way she’d never felt connected to John. That connection was pulling her in. That connection seemed to be the only good thing in her life some days—besides Katie, of course. Katie would always be the light in her life.
But Simon… Simon was a beacon in her storm, offering her warmth and comfort. Something she desperately needed.
The internal battled ended, and she started the car and steered it toward an apartment complex a few blocks from the hospital.
Caroline was walking down the hospital corridor when someone rushed behind her, gently gripping her hips and steering her toward the stairwell. She instantly smiled and complied with the unspoken directive. Simon reached around her, opened the door, and nudged her through. She turned and caught his mouth with hers before the door had even closed. He hugged her close as she parted her lips, letting him deepen the kiss.
He backed her to the wall as his lips broke from hers. “Hi.”
“You’re going to get us caught.” She intended for her warning to sound dire, but she was winded from his kiss, making her voice sound as husky as it did when he was making love to her.
“I don’t care.” He leaned in, tilting his head as he moved toward her neck.
She put her hand to his chest to stop him. “Easy for you to say. It’s the nurse who always gets fired, Dr. Miller.”
“What would they do if we were both doctors?”
“What?”
He held up a key ring, dangling it between them.
Her smile faded to confusion. She watched light dance off the flat edges before looking back at him. “I already have a key to your apartment.”
“Yes, and I’m going to need that back. This is a key to our new place.”
She didn’t point out that he’d given her partial ownership of his new living space. “I didn’t know you were moving.”
“I didn’t want to say anything until it was a done deal. I bought a house. For us, Caroline. For you and me and Katie.”
Her heart dropped. “What?”
“I’m tired of talking about the future we could have. I want it. I want everything we’ve dreamed about. You should be a doctor, like you’ve always wanted. Katie should have a stable home. I’m moving in this weekend. You and Katie can move in whenever you’re ready.” He put the key in her palm and wrapped her fingers around it. Bringing her hand to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles. “The address is on the key ring. Stop on your way home to take a look around. You’re going to love it.”
He disappeared, and she stood staring at the key as if she hadn’t a clue what to do with it. Countless mornings, after their shifts ended, they’d sit in a coffee shop or head for his apartment and talk about what the future held. Countless mornings, they made plans that seemed like faraway dreams that she’d never see come true.
Now she had a key to their house. Their future. And she was terrified.
She did as he suggested and took a detour on her way home. The neighborhood was peaceful with meticulously cared-for lawns. The houses weren’t huge but were significantly larger than the one she and John had purchased—and were on the verge of losing thanks to their never-ending battle of the budget. She’d left Married…With Children territory and gone straight into an episode of Growing Pains. That felt damn good. That felt right.
This was a neighborhood she could see Katie growing up in. Pulling into the driveway next to a SOLD sign, she laughed. The white-and-gray brick ranch had a two-car garage that was far too nice for her scratch-and-dent silver-and-black ’78 Challenger. Big red bows adorned two rocking chairs that beckoned her to sit as soon as she stepped foot on the porch. She had no doubt Simon had put them there for her.
How many times had they sat on his balcony looking directly into the building across the street as she told him how someday she’d have a nice front porch with a rocking chair where she could watch Katie ride her bike?
Using the key Simon had handed her, Caroline unlocked the front door and stepped into the tiled entryway. Clean, plush carpet surrounded the space where she stopped and slipped her shoes off so she didn’t dirty the carpet. The living room spread into a dining area that was adjacent to a countertop separating the rest of the room from the kitchen.
She would be able to cook dinner and see Katie no matter where she was in the living area. Off to one side were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom. On the other side of the house sat a large master suite with sliding glass doors out to a patio and a bathroom that was about the size of Caroline’s current bedroom.
The house was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Simon couldn’t have found a house more fitting for the image Caroline had always had.
Returning to the kitchen, she ran her hand over the white tiled countertop, stopping when she found a stack of papers. Simon had scribbled a note in his terrible handwriting, but she’d become accustomed to reading doctors’ chicken scratch.
Classes start soon! Better get on it, Dr. Caroline.
Beneath his note was an application to Wright State University.
She swallowed hard. This was it. This was the life she was meant to have. The life she’d given up the moment she’d found out she was pregnant. She always knew she’d get back on track and find her way to medical school somehow, but she’d never calculated Simon into the equation.
Accepting what Simon was offering meant leaving John. Leaving John meant tearing Katie’s world apart. Though Caroline had always known she and John wouldn’t last forever, she’d somehow convinced herself she could stay long enough for Katie to grow up.
Only recently, she’d started to realize she couldn’t. If she stayed, she was going to lose her job. She was never going to go to medical school. She’d always be stuck in a financial rut. She’d always be fighting John to survive.
No, she couldn’t stay. Not any longer. She was ready. She was ready to give herself and Katie the future they should have. She should do it now, while Katie was still young enough to recover from her parents’ divorce. While Caroline was still young enough to go to school and start a career and maybe, if Simon wanted, have a few more children that she and John would never be able to afford to have.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, she was ready. Taking a pen out of her pocket, she scribbled on the note that she couldn’t wait to start their life together.
She took the long way home. Playing over in her mind how she was going to tell John. What she was going to tell John. Not that she really needed an excuse to leave him. He had given her plenty of those. She hated giving up. She’d never been good at knowing when to let go. Honestly, she should have walked out on John when he’d abandoned her on their wedding night. Or when he’d failed to show up the day after Katie was born. Or a thousand times after that. She’d never had the courage, but knowing Simon was going to be there to help her land on her feet made all the difference in the world.
She wouldn’t have to ask her parents for help. She wouldn’t have to listen to the “we told you so” lecture they were dying to give her. She could pretend she didn’t see their disapproving looks, as long as she didn’t have to ask them for help. She wouldn’t. Simon would take care of her.
After settling the fear in her stomach, she drove home. She walked in, ready for the fight, ready to tell him she was done with their sham of a marriage. She stepped inside and her decision was cemented when she was met by the sound of retching from the back of the house.
“Goddamn it.” She’d seen this play out far too many times. He’d stayed up drinking all night, had probably put Katie to bed and had friends over for a poker game that he had no business hosting while his daughter was sleeping in the next room.
Caroline stuck her head into Katie’s room, but the bed was empty. John retched again, drawing Caroline’s atten
tion. Moving to the bathroom, she found him with his head in the toilet while Katie stood next to him in her nightgown and the bright red boots that had replaced her security blanket, running her little hand over his back as tears ran down her cheeks.
“It’s okay, Daddy. It’s okay.”
“Hey,” Caroline called, disrupting Katie’s mantra.
Katie looked up and the relief in her eyes was like a wave crashing on the shore. “Daddy’s sick, Mama.”
Rage flashed through Caroline. That son of a bitch had sunk so low his five-year-old was nursing him through his hangover. Then John rolled his head to her, and Caroline realized he wasn’t sick from liquor. A stomach bug had been going around and apparently had struck the Bowman household while Caroline was at work…or dreaming of a new life without her husband. Putting her hand to his head, she checked his temperature. He was hot as hell.
She pulled Katie from the bathroom and squatted down to look at her face to face. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
She sniffled. “I gave him water and a wet washrag like you do when I get sick.”
“Good job, big girl. How are you feeling? Feeling bad in the tummy?”
“No.”
“Throat hurt?”
“Uh-uh.”
“How’s your head?”
“Okay.”
“Good. I want you to do me a big favor and go take a shower. Wash your hands and face real good, the way I taught you, okay?”
Katie nodded and rushed off toward her bathroom. Moving back to where John was leaning against the tub, Caroline frowned, but he looked up at her as if she were an angel.
He reached for her and she closed the distance between them, ready to help him to his feet, but he wrapped his arm around her leg and leaned his sweaty forehead to her thigh. “Jesus, I’m sick. I thought you’d never get home.”
She ruffled his hair. “It’s okay. I’m here now. You’re going to be all right.” She’d take care of him. She’d done that a hundred times before, but usually the smell of bile and beer filled the room instead of the sick stench that was in the air now.
She helped him stand, got him to bed, and went in search of a thermometer. She slipped it into his mouth and ran her hand over his head. He closed his eyes and visibly calmed at the feel of her touch. He always seemed to be soothed by her touch, as if knowing she was with him was all he needed in the world.
Caroline sighed. She couldn’t very well tell him she was leaving him when he was this sick. That’d be mean. What was she supposed to do, pack her bag in between his bouts of vomiting?
No. It’d keep. She’d get him healthy, and then she’d leave him. She actually heard Simon’s voice ringing in her mind as she put her fingers to John’s wrist to check his pulse.
“You always have an excuse to stay,” he’d told her over and over. He was right. She always had a reason to stay. This was different. John was sick. She couldn’t walk out on him when he was ill.
Taking the beeping thermometer from John’s mouth, she frowned at the number on the screen. This wasn’t an excuse. This was real. She’d leave him when he got better. Offering him a weak smile when he whispered her name, she put her hand to his chest to soothe him as she always did.
Less than four months later, Caroline stared at Katie’s urn. She hadn’t slept in weeks. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Katie’s limp body lying in a hospital bed.
John had gone to bed though. He wanted to be well rested for the trip he intended to take. Katie’s list was still on the fridge. Caroline hadn’t had the heart to take it down after her daughter’s death. Sometimes John read it over and over for what seemed to be hours on end. When she finally asked why, he insisted they were going. They were taking that trip. They were going to leave little bits of Katie behind at every stop.
“She wanted to go to all these places, and we’re taking her,” he said. “I promised her we would.”
John and his goddamned promises.
Caroline hadn’t argued, mostly because she didn’t have an ounce of fight left in her. When the box had arrived, John had opened it. She couldn’t see through her tears as he carefully unwrapped the urn. She only knew it was silver with a pink teddy bear engraved in one side and Katie’s name and dates of birth and death on the other.
Kathryn Elizabeth Bowman
Born June 5, 1989
Died June 22, 1995
Caroline had sat and sobbed. John had run his fingertips back and forth across Katie’s name.
“We should pack now,” he said, breaking the silence. “We’ll leave in the morning. I have it all mapped out.”
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. He set Katie’s ashes on the table and went to their bedroom. Half an hour later, he came out with two suitcases.
“I packed your bag. Get some sleep, Caroline.”
She sat, playing the morning of Katie’s death on repeat until she knew what she had to do. She couldn’t let John leave Katie alone in all those places. She couldn’t leave her daughter scattered in the wind. She’d failed Katie when she was alive—she wouldn’t fail her now.
Grabbing the urn and her purse, she took the suitcase John had packed for her and a few of Katie’s favorite things. She stared at Katie’s favorite red boots. Katie had worn those every day. She’d loved those boots. Caroline started to reach for them, but stopped and grabbed Katie’s teddy bear instead. Then she left. Without a word to him. Without a plan. With nowhere to go. She just took Katie and left.
Which was what she should have done years ago.
The campground in Missoula was probably one of the nicest they’d stopped at. Carol left John sleeping in the RV and went to the community building to take her stress out on the treadmill. She hadn’t run nearly as much in the last ten days as she should have. She was tired and beat down, not only from taking care of John but from spending so much time behind the steering wheel.
She and Tobias had always shared driving duty, allowing the other to stretch and rest. Being the sole captain of this ship was taking a toll on her. The never-ending stroll down memory lane wasn’t helping either. Her emotions were drained. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a breakdown from being forced to relive all her past mistakes. Mistakes that had cost her far too much.
She hadn’t thought of Simon in years, but as her feet pounded on the belt that went round and round as she ran, she could practically hear his voice in her mind. How many times had that man begged her to leave John? How many times had he said she didn’t have to worry about finances? How many times had he promised to take good care of her and Katie? He’d given her the perfect out, and she’d turned her back on it.
Why?
Why hadn’t she packed her and Katie’s bags and walked out of that shithole house she and John had lived in and right into the beautiful home Simon had offered?
Because she’d loved John. Despite his drinking. Despite his immaturity. Despite all his many faults, she’d loved him more than he ever deserved. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel like she was the most amazing thing in the world. He had a way of making Katie smile that made Carol’s heart swell with so much love she thought it might explode.
When the Bowmans had good times, they were so good Carol could forget the all-too-frequent bad times.
And while Simon had been a wonderful man, and his intense gaze stirred a longing deep inside of her, he’d never once made her feel like she was everything to him. John could do that with nothing more than a glance. The lust she had for Simon, the longing she had for the life he offered her, wasn’t strong enough to tear her from whatever hold John had over her.
What a goddamned fool she’d been.
That was exactly what Simon had told her when she’d explained she couldn’t leave John.
“You’re going to regret this, Caroline,” Simon had told her.
Boy, had she. When she’d gone to the hospital to tell them she was quitting, that she couldn’t stay in Dayton now that Katie was
gone, he’d pulled her into a room. She expected him to tell her that if she’d left when he wanted her to, Katie would still be alive. God knew she’d told herself that a hundred times over the last few weeks.
But he hadn’t. Simon was better than that. He was kinder than that. He’d taken her hands and kissed her forehead and asked what he could do for her. She’d fallen against his chest and cried. She had no idea how long he’d held her, but when he eventually eased his hold on her, she told him she was running away. She didn’t have a plan beyond getting on the highway and driving.
He told her that his house in St. Louis was still for sale. He offered to call the real estate agent and request they take it off the market and give Caroline the keys. He even offered to call the hospital where he had worked and see if there were any open positions.
He’d taken care of her, like he’d promised he would. He’d given her the fresh start he’d told her he was going to give her while they were lovers. Unfortunately, she’d waited too long to accept his offer; her fresh start was with nothing but memories and ashes.
When she arrived in St. Louis, she had a home and a job and a new life.
In the end, she’d repaid him by mailing him his key and a thank-you note when she and Tobias moved in together. She might have deserved more than John, but Simon definitely deserved more than her. He’d given her the means to get back on her feet. All she’d ever done for him was a few months of passionate sex and empty dreams of a future she never had the courage to pursue.
Hopping off the treadmill, she used a towel to wipe the sweat from her forehead and caught her strained reflection in the mirror. She never did deserve Simon. Or Tobias. Hell, maybe she’d been wrong all along. Maybe she did deserve John.
She hadn’t exactly been as compassionate to him as she could have been. Then or now. No matter their past, no matter how jaded she felt, the father of her child was slipping away right in front of her. He needed her now as much as he had then, and she’d spent so much time over the last ten days sitting in judgment of him for mistakes that were decades old. As if she were innocent.
