by Marci Bolden
Carol couldn’t deny that assessment, but she did ignore it. She smiled widely when three girls came running from the house calling to her. Elijah’s daughters had been the light of her and Tobias’s eyes and they were growing up too fast. The oldest had recently turned thirteen but when she came bouncing toward Carol, she looked as much a little girl as her youngest sister did at eight. Tobias had spoiled those girls like mad. She hugged each one before the trio disappeared around the side of the RV. As per tradition, the first thing they wanted to do was rush inside and play.
She turned as Elijah, with his arm around John’s waist, walked around the RV. “There’s a wheelchair inside.”
“We got this,” Elijah said. “Right, Johnny?”
“Make sure you tip him, Caroline,” John said, sounding like his usual mischievous self.
She sighed and rolled her eyes toward the overcast sky. “I really wish I hadn’t told you that story.”
“Carol’s mother is crazy, man,” Elijah said, still grinning at John’s comment.
John agreed. “You don’t know the half of it. She cried every time she saw me for the first three years of our marriage.”
“That isn’t true,” Carol stated. “It was only two years.”
They all laughed as John and Elijah slowly moved toward the house.
“I made up both guest rooms,” Mary said as they followed behind. “I don’t want to hear any argument out of you. You’re staying here tonight and getting some real rest. I know you don’t sleep well in that camper.”
“He can’t make it upstairs.”
“Elijah is staying tonight to help out. He can get him wherever he needs to go.”
“How does Lara feel about that?”
Mary gripped Carol’s hand, slowing their stride. “About having the house to herself? She’s probably wondering why he doesn’t stay here more often.”
She watched Elijah helping John up the stairs one at a time. “So you told him the score with me and John?”
“You mean that you’ve lost your ever-loving mind? We already knew that.” She gestured toward the chairs on the porch. “Sit.”
Carol hesitated at the door where John and Elijah had disappeared.
“Sit. He’ll be fine.”
Easing into a rocker, Carol soaked in the sense of belonging she felt being back with her family. However, she couldn’t ignore the feeling of emptiness lingering in the back of her mind. Tobias was missing. He’d always be missing. However, this house, this porch, these people…this was home, and Carol really needed to be home right now. “I know it sounds crazy, but I had to make this trip with him.”
“I know you did. You’ve needed to for a long time. That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s the timing, Carol. It’s only been eight months since Tobias.”
“I know.” She swallowed hard at the reminder. “When John showed up at my office, I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. I wanted him gone. The next morning I got a call from the hospital. He’d had a seizure at the hotel and had been admitted. The doctor told me he might not even survive the trip. I really felt like Katie was telling me it was time. Now or never, you know? She sent him to me to face the past and I was not getting another chance. The last two weeks have been hard, but we’ve made progress. We said what we needed to say, no matter how harsh we were to each other sometimes, and we’re letting go of years of resentment. I needed that as much as he did.”
Mary patted Carol’s hand. “I worry about you.”
“I love you for it, too.”
“You look exhausted.”
“I am beyond exhausted. I am…tapped out.” A car slowly cruised by as the driver looked at the RV on the lawn. “I want to go to the cemetery in the morning. Would you mind if I leave John here?”
“Of course not.”
“I won’t be gone long.”
“You’ll be gone as long as you need. I’m a retired nurse. This guy can’t toss anything at me I haven’t dealt with before. Besides, Elijah is here to help. You need a break. I could hear it in your voice the other night, and I can see it on your face now. Let us ease your burden while you’re here.”
Squeezing Mary’s hand, Carol nodded. “Thank you.” She creased her brow when the girls emerged from the RV with arms full of laundry. “What are they doing?”
“What they were told. You don’t need to be taking care of that thing right now. Let the girls clean up and do your laundry. They’re old enough.”
She smiled as they stumbled up the stairs. “Thanks, girls.”
A round of “You’re welcome, Aunt Carol” rang out as they trudged inside. The door closed and a moment later Carol lifted her nose to the air, inhaling the scent lingering on the light breeze. “Do I smell ribs?”
“Damn straight you do. I couldn’t let you visit without having Tobias’s favorite dinner. You ready to eat?”
“I’m starving. Let me check on John first.” After pushing herself up, she kissed her mother-in-law’s head and walked inside. She found John standing in the living room, taking in the collage of photos that kept growing. Stepping beside him, she skimmed the images, letting the overlapping voices in the dining room fade to white noise.
“I’ve never seen you look that happy.” John touched a candid photo, taken while she and Tobias were laughing at a joke Elijah had told. A Christmas tree filled the background, creating a magical scene. “Look at that smile.”
“Those were good times.” She hadn’t meant her voice to sound sad.
“You found a good life here. I’m glad.” He pointed to another picture. “That’s our girl.”
Carol touched the frame that surrounded her daughter’s smiling face. “Mary wanted her on the family wall, too. She considers Katie to be her firstborn grandchild even though she never met her.”
“That’s nice. I’m glad they think of her.”
“Me too. Are you ready to eat?”
Patting his stomach, he said, “I am after smelling those ribs. Elijah said Mary’s ribs are award-winning.”
Widening her eyes, she tried to warn him against saying anything more. “Go ahead and ask if you want to hear the two-hour history of her family recipe and how she beat Myrtle Cummings—”
“That woman’s ribs are dry as sand,” Mary said, coming in behind them. “And taste as bad, too. Sit down and I’ll fix you a plate, John. This recipe came from my great-granddaddy.”
“Oh boy.” Carol chuckled as she took John’s arm to help him walk to the dining room table.
Who knew the smell of food could break someone’s heart? But that was exactly what happened when Carol walked down the stairs toward the church basement, where the preacher had directed the funeral attendees. She’d held herself together fairly well as she’d laid her husband to rest, but the moment the scent of Mary’s ribs hit her, Carol lost the minute amount of strength she’d retained, and her knees grew weak.
Every trip back to St. Louis—every single one—Tobias spent the last hundred miles telling her how much he was looking forward to his mama’s ribs. And every single time, Mary had a batch waiting for them.
“Man,” he’d say, “I can almost smell them.”
Elijah caught Carol before she stumbled down the steps and helped her the rest of the way down. A man stood, turning the chair he’d been sitting in her way. Between the two of them, they eased her down before she could faint.
“I can’t breathe,” she panted out. “I can’t breathe.”
“What happened?” Mary demanded, rushing toward the scene Carol had unwittingly caused.
Carol wanted to reassure her that she was okay, but the words wouldn’t form. The weight of her grief had suddenly fallen on her chest, crushing her. She squeezed her eyes shut, ground her teeth, and tried to focus on getting air into her lungs. The moment she inhaled, though, the scent hit her and whatever had remained of her composure crumbled.
“Come here, baby.” Mary wrapped her arms around Carol. “This has been a long time coming. You c
an’t keep the pain inside. It always finds a way out.”
Clinging to her mother-in-law, she let loose the sob she’d been choking back for days. When Katie had died, she’d accepted the doctor’s prescription to numb the pain. By the time she swallowed the last pill, she was able to fake the numbness she’d felt for weeks. When Tobias had died, she’d gone into autopilot, focusing on each and every little task to get through. There were no more little tasks. The funeral was over. He was in a box in the ground. The women of the church were in charge of the luncheon. They had stacks of disposable plates on hand. The napkins had been purchased in bulk long before a truck had robbed the world of Tobias’s light.
There were pitchers of lemonade and sweet tea ready to go. Mourners had filled the tables with food. There were no little details for Carol to obsess over here. Those details had been ironed out during the hundreds of funerals that had happened before her husband’s. The planning of Tobias’s funeral luncheon went off without a single snag because it was just like the ones that had come before it.
There was nothing for Carol to distract herself with here. There was only the pain and the scent of Mary’s ribs to remind her that Tobias wasn’t there to eat them.
Carol didn’t know how long she sat there with her face buried in Mary’s stomach, hanging on to her and crying, but when she could catch her breath, she was exhausted. Mary tilted Carol’s face back and wiped her eyes and nose as if she were a child before putting a kiss to her head.
“Take her home,” Mary told Elijah. “Put her to bed.”
“No,” Carol croaked. “I should be here.”
“This is all for show,” Mary said. “Anybody says a word about you not being here, I’ll tell them where to go. You’ve been through enough today.”
“Mama, you shouldn’t be here alone,” Elijah said.
“I’m not alone. I’m never alone. I’ve got Tobias with me everywhere I go.” She put her hand to her heart and smiled at Carol. “You know that feeling all too well. Now go home. Get some sleep. You’ve been through enough for today,” she said again, and nodded as if to confirm her assessment.
“I’ll take her,” Lara said. “I think the girls should get some rest, too.”
Carol looked beyond Mary and saw her three nieces huddled together, watching the scene play out. “I’m okay,” she mouthed to them, and offered them a smile.
“You stay with Mary,” Lara said to her husband, and kissed him lightly.
Elijah helped Carol stand. She hugged Mary tight, whispered that she loved her, then let Lara take her out to Elijah’s car. The girls settled in the back, quiet as mice.
Carol turned to look at them. “I’m sorry, girls.”
“It’s okay,” they said, in almost robotic unison.
She wanted to reassure them, but she couldn’t find the words or the energy to lie. She sat silently as Lara drove the few miles to Mary’s house. Once they arrived, Carol said, “You don’t have to stay with me. You should be there with Mary and Elijah.”
“You shouldn’t be on your own.”
“Actually, I think I’d like to be on my own.”
“Mary would slap me silly if I left you alone right now.”
Wiping her eyes, she sighed. “Tell her I beat you up.” She cleared her throat when her voice cracked.
“Like that could happen.” Rolling her head back against the headrest, Lara frowned. “I should be here. I want to take care of you. Tobias would want me to take care of you. He wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
“But I want to be alone, Lara. Please. Take the girls home and let them get some sleep. I promise, I’ll be okay. I need to do this alone for a while.”
She exhaled before nodding. “Okay. Okay. But if Mary kicks my ass, I’m kicking yours.”
“Deal.”
Carol used Mary’s spare key to let herself in. The house was quiet. Too quiet. She walked into the living room and stopped at the wall of photos that chronicled the evolution of the Denman family. The framed images continued to accumulate. In a few years, there wouldn’t be any wall space left.
She started on the left side, when Tobias and Elijah were babies. Mary’s husband had walked out when Elijah was a toddler. Tobias had almost always been the man of the house. His sense of responsibility had shown even when he was pre-teen. He’d taken care of his brother from the tender age of four and had never stopped. They were closer than any two siblings Carol had ever met. They were a team and were fierce about protecting their mother.
That strong sense of family and loyalty was what had drawn Carol to Tobias. When he’d stood up for her in their chem class, he might as well have shot Cupid’s arrow through her heart. She’d been smitten from that moment on. Her admiration had never wavered. Not once in twenty years.
He had started working as a paperboy as soon as he was able to bring in money to help ease his mother’s burden. Carol smiled at the photo of him beaming as he held up his first paycheck. He might have been a child in that photo, but she had seen that smile on his face when he had graduated college. He was so proud of his accomplishment.
As the pictures progressed, the boys grew, as did their triumphs—Tobias in his football uniform, holding the MVP trophy, and Elijah standing on the baseball field. Both boys at their high school graduations. Then on to college. The photo that made the tears in her eyes fall was of their wedding day. A photo of Katie hung next to one of Carol and Tobias on their honeymoon in the Ozarks, which was all they could afford at the time. Elijah’s graduation and wedding came a few years, and photos, later, soon followed by picture after picture of his daughters.
The photo that drew Carol back, though, was the one taken a couple of Christmases before. She sat next to Tobias, leaning into him as they both laughed at Elijah. Lara had caught the moment that perfectly reflected their lives as a family. Happiness. That was the only word she could think of to describe what it was like to be in this house with her family.
Happiness.
Happiness that had been easily ripped away from her. She hadn’t felt pain like this since Katie had died. No. She’d never felt pain like this because she’d never let herself really feel Katie’s loss. She’d numbed the pain with drugs and then buried her head and her heart and her hurt. All that was coming for her now. She could feel the monster closing in on her.
Grief was pulling her down, threatening to overtake her, and all of a sudden, the last twenty-plus years of swallowing the pain weren’t working. She no longer had Tobias there to be her rock. He wasn’t there for her to look to as a reminder that she could move on, that she could live another day…one more minute.
He was gone. All that was left was searing-hot pain, ripping her apart.
Pressing her hands to her mouth, she tried to stifle the scream building in her chest, but just like when the doctor had told her Katie was dead, the sorrow ripped free, burning her throat as it did. Just like when Katie had died, the agony brought her to her knees.
Only this time when she fell, there was no one there to catch her.
Like so many nights in the last two weeks, Carol jolted from her sleep, then lay frozen as she listened.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Shit.” She tossed the covers aside. Jerking the bedroom door open, she rushed across the hall into the room that had two twin beds for the girls when they stayed with Mary. Elijah leaned over John’s seizing body, looking panicked.
Dropping to her knees, Carol put her hand to John’s chest. “John. I’m right here. I’m right here. You’re okay.”
“This is bad,” Elijah said. “I’m going to get Mama.”
“Let her sleep,” Carol said. “There’s nothing she can do.”
Mary shuffled into the room, pulling her long white terrycloth robe closed. “Like I could sleep through this noise. Did he fall off the bed or did you pull him down?”
“I pulled him down.”
“Good boy.”
John’s seizure seemed to last forever before he started
to relax under Carol’s hand. The soothing words she offered did little to help, but she couldn’t stop them from pouring out. Eventually he quit shaking and twitching and stared up at the ceiling, blinking lazily. She held his hand and rubbed her other over his chest, his arm, occasionally brushing over his hair as his mind slowly started connecting with his body again.
When he looked at her and she could tell he really saw her, she smiled. “There he is.”
He mumbled, but she didn’t even bother trying to make out what he said.
“We’re going to get you up, John.” She nodded to her brother-in-law.
Elijah bent over John and lifted him as if he were filled with crumpled paper before easing him to sit on the bed. John swayed, and Elijah kept his hands on his shoulders but stepped to the side while Carol looked into John’s eyes.
He muttered again as a towel appeared over Carol’s shoulder. She thanked Mary without looking at her and wiped John’s face clean, drying the drool off his chin and the tears from his cheeks. He took a few long, deep breaths before reaching up.
His fingers trembled as if his hand weighed a thousand pounds as he touched Carol’s hair and frowned. “You look better as a brunette.”
“And he’s back.” She stood upright and put her hands on her hips.
“Praise the Lord,” Mary said flatly, clearly not impressed with John’s post-seizure observation.
“I’d like to blame his illness, but he’s always that uncouth.”
Mary shook her head at John before running her hand over Carol’s arm. “Let us take care of this. You get yourself back to bed.”
“I can’t—”
“Carol Elizabeth Denman, that was not a request.”
Elijah physically winced at Mary’s maternal tone. “Ooh, Mama used your middle name. You better run, sis.”
Carol lifted her hands. “I’ll never sleep now. I’m going to fix some tea. Anybody want anything?”
“Bourbon,” John slurred.
Carol simply lifted a brow at him before leaving him in the care of her in-laws. She did hear Mary chastise him, though. A gentle but firm warning that he had better start being nicer to Carol or she’d kick his ass. Carol didn’t stop to hear John’s response, but imagined he told them her name was Caroline. Car-o-line. Not Carol.
