by Marci Bolden
He shook his head. “We both made mistakes back then. We both did things we didn’t think through. We’re older now. Definitely wiser.”
“God, I hope so,” she muttered with a slight grin.
“We’re smart enough to recognize that we’re each having to figure out our futures on our own. But I don’t think helping each other along the way would hurt. Do you?”
She considered his question for a moment. “Actually, I think that’d be nice. I think that’d be very nice.”
He picked up his silverware and turned his attention to his dinner. “Which leads me back to this retirement business. I’m going to need your help writing a letter that makes me sound brilliant and humble.”
“Brilliant and humble,” she repeated as she also shifted her attention to her plate. “At the same time?”
“Preferably,” he said. “Like sixty percent brilliant, forty percent humble.”
She laughed as she cut into her steak, once again thankful that he knew how far to go before veering in a different direction.
Seven
Carol sat on Mary’s front porch with a cup of coffee cradled in one hand and her worry stone in the other. Brushing her thumb over the engraving, she wondered what Harold would tell her if he were sitting here watching the steady rain with her. She’d been restless the night before. Simon hadn’t intended to point out something Carol had been missing, but he had.
Spending that time with Simon had reminded her of how they used to be, and there was a hint of what they could be again. Friends. Good friends. Friends who talked about problems with the intent of solving them, not simply complaining or venting. They had a common goal of easing the other’s distress by offering logical advice and asking questions to peel back the layers and see what really lay beneath the surface.
No matter how many times they tried, two subjects had dominated their dinner conversation: Simon’s discontent with his job and Carol’s grieving process.
After lingering at the table much longer than dinner and dessert took to eat, they’d shifted their visit to the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They’d stood under the bright lights for another hour, despite the damp chill in the air. They probably would have stayed longer, but Mary had called to check in on Carol. That was the prompt needed to break up her reunion with Simon.
Even then, they’d stood for several minutes before hugging each other tightly. When she’d left the restaurant, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
Which nagged at her until it became something for her to pick apart until she couldn’t sleep.
She was continuing her obsessive overanalysis when Elijah parked on the curb. She narrowed her eyes to peer through the rain, confirming he was alone in the car. Rarely did he visit Mary without his three daughters in tow. However, they were getting older, and being Grandma’s girls wasn’t quite as exciting as when they were younger. Even rushing up to hug Aunt Carol was losing its sparkle. After the first few times they saw her during this Thanksgiving visit, they were fairly casual about spending time with her. She didn’t blame them. Adolescence wasn’t meant to be spent hanging out with adults.
Even so, not seeing her nieces in the car gave Carol a sense of dread. She’d dealt with Mary’s concerns and Lara’s fears, but she’d yet to have to listen to what Elijah had to say about her being on the road long-term. She suspected she was about to find out.
He strolled toward the house as if the falling rain didn’t bother him. He was tall like Tobias had been, but Elijah had a lean figure where Tobias had maintained the muscular physique he’d had when she’d fallen in love with him so long ago. Even with the differences in build, there was no denying they were brothers. They looked, walked, and acted the same.
“Hey, sis,” Elijah said as he climbed the stairs.
“Where’s your entourage?”
“They didn’t want to come out in the rain.” He sat next to her and wiped a hand over his head. “What are you doing out here?”
“Counting raindrops,” Carol said. “There’s fresh coffee.”
“I had to cut back.” He put his hand to his stomach. “It was tearing me up.”
“You know, you can buy a brand with less acid.”
He snickered. “If a cup of coffee doesn’t peel the paint off a car, Lara won’t drink it.”
Carol grinned as her brother-in-law stretched his legs out and settled in beside her. She waited. And waited. Finally, she looked over. “What’s up?”
Elijah shrugged. “Just hanging out.”
“Right,” she said. Nobody in this family was as innocent as they tried to pretend. She knew what was up. He was just biding his time until he found the right way to approach her dinner with Simon. “Go ahead. Ask.”
“Ask what?”
The similarities between him and Tobias used to tug at her heart. Now she could appreciate how much the brothers were alike. Tobias and Elijah had been closer than any two siblings Carol had ever met. Their father had left when they were young. Though Mary’s brother, Jerry, had been around to help out, Tobias had taken on the role of keeping Elijah out of trouble. He’d pushed his younger brother to aim higher than anyone could have ever expected them to reach.
“I had a good time last night,” she said instead of playing games. “Catching up with Simon was nice. Because he’s a friend. And having dinner with a friend is fun.” She sipped her coffee, waiting for his reaction.
“I’m glad. You deserve to have a nice evening out.”
She waited for more, but he silently stared out at the street. Though Carol couldn’t possibly know Elijah as well as she knew Tobias, they both had the same pensive look when trying to find the right words to say.
“I’m not interested in dating him,” she stated, sparing Elijah from his struggle. “So don’t even suggest that.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Because the thought didn’t cross your mind, or because Lara warned you against it ahead of time?”
His lip curved up into a mischievous smile. “She said you ripped her a little bit.”
“A little bit. She was being a little pushy.”
Chuckling, Elijah continued watching the raindrops falling onto the street. “She also said you got pissed when she suggested you move in with us.”
“Not pissed,” Carol countered. “I’m simply not interested.”
“That was my idea,” he said as he glanced at Carol. “So don’t be mad at her.”
“I just said I wasn’t pissed. But I’m not moving in with you guys.” She looked out at the street when a car went by far too fast for a residential street. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got my own life. As pathetic as it may be.”
He was quiet for a few moments before he said, “The last thing I told my brother was that I was going to take care of you. I don’t know if he heard me or not, but I promised him. And I’m not going to let him down.”
Her heart twisted in her chest at the way his voice strained. The emotional shift was subtle, but she heard his underlying pain. An image filled her mind—Elijah leaning over Tobias’s bandaged body, whispering a promise in his ear moments before they turned the respirator off and let him go. Blinking rapidly, she forced the vision away.
“You’re not letting him down,” she told Elijah.
“I’m not trying to, but your ass ain’t making this easy, Carol,” he stated.
She chuckled, embracing the lighter comment he’d added. “Well, I’m sure Tobias told you more than once that I rarely do make things easy.”
Elijah grinned. “He might have said something about that.”
Putting her hand on his arm, she squeezed. “You are taking care of me, Elijah.”
His smile faded as he shook his head. “No, I’m not. I can’t take care of you when you’re on the road.”
“You have been there every time I’ve needed you,” she reminded him. “You came to Houston when I needed you. You arranged his funeral because I couldn’t. My God, you even helped me
take care of my terminally ill ex-husband when we came through town. I think you’ve lived up to your promise.”
Elijah considered her words before shaking his head. “You’re struggling without Tobias here. We can all see that.”
“Don’t you think things were a bit more concerning when I wasn’t?” She lifted a brow when he stared at her. “I spent the first year after losing him not feeling anything. That should have been far more worrisome to you guys, Elijah.”
“I guess. Maybe pretending you were okay was easier when you were going about life as usual.”
She frowned and turned her attention back out at the road as another car passed, sending a spray of water over Elijah’s car. “I wasn’t in a good place when John found me over the summer. I was in that scary robotic mode I get into when I can’t handle things. I might be struggling now, but at least I’m not pretending that everything is okay. Nothing is okay.” She swallowed before emotion could form a lump in her chest. “Things will never be like they were before, but I’m figuring out how to keep going. I’m doing the best I can. I actually had a really big revelation last night.”
He looked at her expectantly but didn’t push.
“Simon made a comment about how much he’d missed our conversations. We used to really delve into topics and pick them apart. I realized, that’s the void. That’s the emptiness I couldn’t put a name on. You remember how Tobias would get.”
“That man could overanalyze a menu,” Elijah muttered. “That’s why you were such a good fit. You do the same thing.”
Carol shrugged. “That’s why I’ve been having such a hard time figuring out what the next step should be. I’ve picked my life apart a dozen times, but without Tobias there to help me examine the pieces, I haven’t been able to make sense of them. I have to figure it out on my own now. Until last night, I didn’t realize that was why I’ve been unable to pinpoint the issue. Now that I have, maybe I can start putting the pieces together again.”
“Maybe Simon could help.”
She lifted a brow at Elijah, tempted to warn him about trying to push her toward something she wasn’t ready for, but then she conceded. “Maybe. Someday. But I was very clear with him and with Lara, and now I’ll make this clear to you: I’m not going to start something when I don’t even know who I am right now. I’m still grieving, but I’ll be okay. I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“I’m going to worry about you anyway.”
“Well,” she said and then frowned, “maybe you could try to not worry so much.”
Sitting forward, he rested his elbows on his knees. “Just promise me you’ll come to us if you need us. Don’t act like we aren’t your family anymore.”
Carol’s heart tightened. She hadn’t considered that maybe her family had the same underlying fear that she’d had. That somehow, they wouldn’t be family anymore once she let Tobias go. She wasn’t going to let that happen. No matter what the future held. “You’re always going to be my family, Elijah. Always.”
“In that case—” he gestured out at the street as a little yellow car drove by “—slug bug.”
“Don’t you dare!” The warning had barely left her mouth before he playfully punched her in the thigh.
Elijah jumped up and rushed toward the front door before Carol could retaliate the way that Tobias would have—with a harder blow.
“I’m telling your mom,” Carol threatened.
However, as the door closed behind him, she chuckled. If Tobias had been here, they would have hit each other so hard they both would have had bruises. Then, they would have laughed about the inevitable bruising. Carol pushed herself up and carried her mug into the house, excited to hear the lecture Mary was going to give Elijah for “carrying on with such foolishness.” She hadn’t heard Mary give one of those speeches in a long time.
Carol hated the ball of nerves that formed in her stomach as Tobias drove them toward his mother’s house. She was too damn old to feel this nervous meeting her boyfriend’s family. She wasn’t a teenager, and she definitely wasn’t the same weak little girl who needed everyone’s approval. That was Caroline, and she’d left Caroline far behind her.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Tobias said. “I can hear your brain cranking away over there.”
“What if your mom doesn’t like me?” Carol blurted out.
“She’s going to love you.”
“How do you know?”
Tobias gave her the smooth smile that made her melt. “Because I love you.”
She stared, unmoving, as her brain processed his words. He’d never said that to her before. They’d been together for months, but he’d never said he’d loved her. Until this moment. The words caused her heart to flip over in her chest.
He chuckled. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, baby, I love you too. You’re everything to me. I couldn’t live without you because you’re so handsome and perfect and have a huge—’”
“Oh my God!”
He laughed. “Heart. I was going to say I have a huge heart. What were you thinking?”
“Stop it,” she said as heat settled over her cheeks. “I’m about to meet your mother. I don’t need to be thinking about your big…heart.”
Tobias chuckled, but his smile faded as he took her hand. Keeping his eyes on the road, he kissed her knuckles and then pulled her hand to his chest. “I was being real. I love you, Carol.” This time, his declaration was sweet. Sincere.
“I love you too,” she whispered. And she meant it. She was terrified by how much she meant loved him. There was so much he didn’t know about her. Her broken marriage. Her daughter. She had an entire life that she hadn’t shared with him. She hadn’t been brave enough yet. Looking out the window as he turned into a neighborhood with small brick houses, she tried to make the words form.
John. Katie.
Those were names she hadn’t said in so long that they were foreign to her now. She thought of her little girl every day, but Carol couldn’t remember the last time she’d said Katie’s name out loud. Few people in her new life knew that her daughter had ever existed. Talking about the past was too difficult.
“There you go again,” Tobias said, “thinking so hard your brain is about to malfunction.”
She blinked several times before facing him, trying to find the words to tell him that there was an entire side of her that he didn’t know about. She’d been a wife and a mother. She’d lived a life before ever meeting him.
Why the hell couldn’t she tell him? What was she so damn scared of?
Tobias tightened his hold on her hand. “Hey, if you aren’t ready to meet my family—”
“I am.” She smiled. “Are you kidding me? You’ve told me so much about them, I feel like I know them already.”
“Mama said the same thing. She said if I didn’t bring you by soon, she was going to track you down herself.” He kissed Carol’s knuckles again. “But if you need more time, that’s okay.”
“I don’t.” Shaking her head, she forced thoughts of her past away. “I want them to like me. That’s all.”
“They will. But if they don’t,” he said, “that’s okay, because what we have isn’t about them or anyone else. What we have is good and right. That’s all that matters.”
She wished she could believe that, but she’d been married to a man her parents had loathed. She knew the toll that would take on them eventually. If his family didn’t approve of her for whatever reason, Carol would walk away. She wouldn’t put Tobias through the constant strain that had existed between her parents and her ex-husband. Bringing discontent to his family was the last thing she wanted.
“Does your mom know I’m older than you?”
Tobias chuckled like he did whenever their age difference came up. “How many times do I have to tell you that doesn’t matter? Five years, Carol. You have five years on me. Mama will probably appreciate that. She’ll say at least one of us is grown.”
Carol smiled, though the idea of what beyond five
years had taught her made her heart feel heavy.
Moments later, Tobias parked in front of a small house and grinned at Carol. Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her close and kissed her sweetly. “Mama’s gonna love you as much as I do. I promise.”
The knot in Carol’s stomach didn’t ease until they walked into the house. She had just shrugged out of her coat when Tobias’s mother rushed into the living room, wiping her hands on a towel. Mary’s eyes widened, and a smile broke across her lips. Opening her arms, she made her way toward Carol and Tobias.
“Mama,” he said, “this is—”
“The woman who makes my baby so happy.” Mary wrapped her arms around Carol and hugged her like they’d known each other forever. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”
“—Carol,” Tobias finished flatly.
Carol’s fears seemed foolish as she leaned back and smiled down at the woman who’d embraced her. When Mary looked at Carol, there was nothing but affection in her eyes.
“Tobias has been talking about you for so long,” Mary said, taking Carol’s hand and leading her farther into the house. “I told him if he didn’t bring you over soon, I was going to track you down myself.”
Carol peeked over her shoulder at Tobias, who simply shrugged as if his point had been made. His point had been made, and she was happy to let him be right. By the time Mary sat down on the sofa, pulling Carol with her, Carol’s fears had abated. She was welcomed here. She was embraced. Just like Tobias had told her she would, she immediately felt like family.
Carol set flowers against the headstone as she traced the engraving of her husband’s name. The last time she was at his grave, she’d sprinkled a bit of Katie’s ashes to leave with Tobias. She’d told him so many times over the years how much Katie would have loved him, and she believed that. She could almost picture how Katie would have clung to him as she talked his ear off. Standing there now, Carol felt as if she was visiting both of them. She let out a long sigh as the familiar sadness pulled at her heart.
