Still, knowing what Karan knew now about herself, she’d probably missed a thousand opportunities to help. Of course, Susanna had been so distracted with the way her life had been falling apart she probably hadn’t noticed.
Or, knowing Susanna, she’d noticed but had appreciated what Karan had offered.
“Sounds like you were a very good friend.” Rhonda smiled. “Do you think you’re any less a daughter?”
“That’s not such a simple answer.”
“Why not?”
“My mother can be…complicated.”
“Were you there for her when your father died?”
Karan shrugged. “As much as she’d let me be. Like I said, she’s complicated. I go with the flow to see what kind of mood she’s in and try to adapt. Doesn’t always work. Especially at night. I usually avoid nights.”
“What happens?”
Bracing herself, Karan was surprised by how difficult it was to get a few words out, as if sharing the truth was somehow a betrayal of something that should have remained unspoken. “She drinks.”
Rhonda steepled her hands in front of her, didn’t look at all surprised. “Alcohol can complicate things a lot. But it’s not really about your mother, Karan. From what you’re saying, it doesn’t sound as if she has a lot of strong coping skills in place. She might even be dealing with some narcissism issues.”
“Narcissism issues?”
Rhonda nodded. “Follow me here. You ran into trouble with the law. You were assigned to community service. You are here at New Hope, helping out, attending therapy, but your mother hasn’t asked how you are, or why you were careless with your drinking or how you’re holding up with your ex-husband. This whole situation is about how she looks like a bad mother, how she can’t go to a party without feeling as if she has to make excuses for you. See what I’m saying?”
“It’s all about her.”
“Bingo. But this isn’t about her. I’ve never evaluated her, so I can only speculate based on what you’ve said. Please be clear on that. We can’t fix her, and that’s okay. What we can do is to figure out how her behavior impacts you and give you tools to deal in a more effective way so your interactions aren’t so hurtful. We can help you learn to be realistic in your expectations and establish boundaries that can actually benefit both of you. Do you think that might help the situation?”
Karan considered that. “It’s always stressful not knowing what to expect whenever I walk in the door or answer the phone.”
“Do you think empowering yourself and being responsible for your actions instead of getting bounced around by hers might diminish the need to keep so much distance between yourself and your emotions?”
“Hadn’t considered that before.”
“Consider it then,” Rhonda encouraged her. “You mentioned all the distance you’re keeping in your life. The way it has impacted your marriages. I’m thinking not so much with Susanna.”
Because Karan trusted her best friend? Because she knew what to expect, knew that she didn’t have to protect herself from Susanna?
“No, not so much with Susanna. Because I trust her.”
“Or maybe you trust you with her? Think about this. You know you can be a good friend because you have been for so long. You never had enough time to develop that confidence in yourself in either of your marriages. And the one relationship you’ve had longer than any of them constantly leaves you guessing about whether or not you’re a good daughter. How do you think that might impact your self-worth?”
Karan was constantly guessing. That much was true. And something struck a deep chord as she tried to imagine what the impact of all that guessing might be.
She remembered her father. He never argued. Never. He stayed in the city working or he entertained himself on the lake or snowmobiling or skiing or attending sports events. He lived life. He enjoyed his relationship with Karan. He included her mother whenever she’d let herself be included and those were the rare times they’d functioned together as a family.
He’d realized he couldn’t please his wife, that nothing he did would ever be good enough. He understood that the problem wasn’t his, but hers.
You’re like a bottomless pit, Charles had said.
Had Karan been looking to Charles to reassure her that she was a good wife? But no matter what he did it never seemed to be enough. “How can anyone make me feel good about me?”
Rhonda pointed a finger at Karan and said, “That’s exactly the right question to ask. What’s the answer?”
“No one else can. No one but me.”
The smile stretched across her face. “Very good.”
And it made total sense.
“I should be taking notes,” she said. “I’ve got lightbulbs flashing on, and I don’t want to forget anything.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll remind you.” There was laughter in Rhonda’s voice.
“Okay, answer me this. What’s the point? I get that circumstances with my mother have impacted the way I feel about myself. But I can’t blame her for the way I behave.”
“I agree entirely.”
Karan couldn’t help but think about the young girl with the fairy princess mother, who’d taught her to entertain, to socialize, to dress, to groom… “My mother is smart and people savvy. Sometimes she even has great advice about things. That’s why I say it’s hit or miss with her.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Rhonda considered. “You’re a lovely, intelligent and gifted woman. That didn’t happen by accident. We all have circumstances we’re brought up in. None are perfect. This is simply your situation—the good and the bad. If your mother doesn’t possess the ability to step outside herself and perceive another person’s perspective, then she can love you all she wants and every situation will still wind up about her.
“It might help to think of her as a lighthouse. When the fog parts, she’s there, a shining beacon to lead you through uncharted waters. Then the fog rolls in again and it’s all about her. It’s not that she doesn’t care. It’s who she is for whatever the reason. Sounds like she sees everything as a reflection of herself. If that’s the case, then it really has nothing to do with you. Personal accountability. That’s the key. Who’s the only person who can make you feel good about you?”
It was really so simple. “Me.”
She nodded. “When we look to others to make us feel good about ourselves, we’re at the mercy of a lot of factors we don’t have control over, that may or may not have anything to do with us. Our self-worth gets bounced around like a cork in the ocean. Once we accept responsibility and realize we have the control, then we can get to a more solid place, a better place.
“That’s exactly what you did with Frankie. You couldn’t change the past, but you could change the present. You had no idea how she would respond to your efforts, but it didn’t matter, did it?”
Karan shook her head.
“Why?”
“Because I knew I was doing the right thing.”
“Exactly. You assumed control of your actions and made the best choice you could in that moment. Personal accountability. You controlled what you could and trusted yourself to handle the rest. Frankie’s response wasn’t yours to control. It was hers. But no matter how she responded you could go home and look yourself in the mirror.”
The example set everything in place. Karan understood exactly what Rhonda was saying with such clarity it nearly took her breath away. Even better, she saw how it applied to her marriage—to Charles. With Patrick she’d delineated the boundaries so carefully, placed so much distance between them that she’d never had to worry about feeling anything at all. Except comfortable.
She couldn’t help but chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Rhonda asked.
“I have to tell you I only started therapy because I had to. I enjoyed chatting with you, but I really didn’t get the point. I wasn’t convinced anything was wrong.”
“Now?”
“Now everything feels…r
ight.”
She met Rhonda’s gaze and realized that right meant empowered, clear, able to handle what came up, in control.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Rhonda said. “Your question this week is—what about you makes you feel good about yourself?”
“Got it.” Karan glanced at her watch. “And we are seriously over my time. I hope I didn’t make you miss anything important.”
“You didn’t make me do a thing. Personal accountability, remember? And I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” Rhonda’s smile assured that she meant exactly what she said. “This is the very best part of my job. Seriously.”
Karan laughed and said goodbye. She waved at Deputy Doug, who was on the phone, as she headed to the back door. Then she hopped in her car, tossed her purse in the passenger seat and turned over the engine. She’d only arrived a few hours ago, but the late-day heat had cooked the interior. Lowering the windows, she blasted the air-conditioning, chasing out the stifling heat.
Pausing at the gatehouse, she waited while the electronic gate opened. Then she depressed the accelerator and drove through, still feeling a crazy sense of hope about nothing in particular but everything in general, her head filled with winding thoughts that made sense with such sudden and amazing clarity.
Coasting to the end of the drive, she braked at the stop sign, for the first time noticing a car parked in the grass.
Suddenly, a violence of motion erupted in her periphery. She was slow to react, distracted by her thoughts. In an instant the sun vanished as if someone had stepped in front of it, a rough hand thrust through the open window and caught her hair in a fist. Hard fingers dug to the roots of her scalp and snapped her head back painfully.
“Put the car in Park.”
She heard only the words, the thick accent, but hadn’t made sense of what was happening before feeling the chill, startling pressure of a knife blade against her throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHARLES LEFT THE SURGICAL UNIT for the first time all day and arrived on the floor to make rounds. He found a group of people clustered around the open doorway to a break room.
Hospital staff gathered anywhere and not doing their duties was never a good sign.
Stopping at the back of the crowd, he asked, “What’s going on?”
There was a small TV blaring from within, but he didn’t catch what was happening because someone said, “Some crazy took a hostage not too far from here.”
“Break it up, people,” a voice said. “We’ll find out what’s going on when the ambulance shows up.”
Charles knew his arrival had brought an end to the party. Attending physicians liked to see staff busy taking care of the patients. He was no exception, particularly as he had five patients in this ward.
The crowd thinned, and he had a clear shot of the TV. An orderly was about to turn it off when Charles caught sight of a familiar and unexpected scene.
“Wait,” he said.
The orderly shrugged and stepped back.
A breaking news banner was fixed in the upper corner of the television screen. A news anchor spoke into a microphone, emergency vehicles parked haphazardly behind her.
“Hostage negotiators have arrived at the scene…”
There was no mention of New Hope. The reporter kept referring to the event unfolding at a local business. But Charles recognized the gatehouse.
And the Jag in front of it.
For one blind moment he stared, every shred of his reason rebelling against what he saw and the facts in his head.
Karan? A hostage?
And suddenly, his very next breath depended on knowing that she was okay.
KARAN COULD HEAR SOUNDS OF activity, couldn’t see anything but the security gate directly in front of her windshield. Her whole world had narrowed to the raspy intakes of her captor’s breaths in her ear, and the thickly muscled forearm around her neck. The smell of clammy skin and fear almost choked her with every thin breath she managed to take, his grip was so tight her vision grew dark around the edges.
Every time a siren shrieked, he startled and dug the knife blade deeper. Not intentionally. But he would saw through her carotid artery if this kept up.
She had no idea how long they’d been sitting here, although there was a clock on her dash. She would have had to move her head to see it.
Her captor had taken advantage of her surprise and clambered inside the car. If she’d only had her doors locked. She hadn’t been driving fast enough to engage the automatic locks, so he’d invited himself in. He’d made her conduct a three-point turn and head back to the gate.
She had no clue what his plan had been. Maybe he’d thought the gate would be opened when he threatened to kill her. Now that the adrenaline was subsiding, Karan was pushing past the fear, trying to understand what was happening. She understood why the guard had refused to comply.
None of this would have been a problem if she had hit the gas and run this man over.
The thought only occurred to her now.
Deputy Doug had tried to negotiate via a bullhorn. He’d only managed to keep her captor talking long enough for police cruisers to crowd into the drive behind them.
Now they were trapped inside her car, and she sincerely hoped the police had a plan. A good one because if this man decided to slit her throat, she’d be dead in her front seat before the police could even react.
They kept trying to talk to him. His cell phone rang and rang and rang, but he wouldn’t pick up.
He said he wanted his family. He’d told the security guard he would release Karan in exchange for his wife and kids.
Marisol, Raphael, Esme and Everleigh.
His grip never slackened. Another siren. The blade dug deeper. Karan squeezed her eyes shut tight against the pain, didn’t dare breathe, didn’t want to wind up bleeding out before someone came up with a plan. Someone would come up with a plan, wouldn’t they?
Otherwise, how long would they sit here before someone snapped? Her captor reminded her of Al, the man who owned the landscaping company that cared for her yard and her mother’s. A normal man.
But this man, no matter how normal he may have been, had been pushed to the edge, distraught. A man who could stand on a dock and look down at the depths and see peace.
She didn’t know what his issues were or what he’d done to send Marisol fleeing with their children, but Karan couldn’t get past the thought that at some point Marisol had loved this man enough to reproduce with him. Three beautiful children. This man had had it all.
CHARLES KEPT TRYING EVERY number he had on his speed dial as he drove toward New Hope. The place was on lockdown. Rhonda’s line rolled straight to voice mail. The switchboard kept replaying the recorded message. The substation went to the sheriff’s main number.
And the damned booties he wore over his sneakers kept catching on the clutch every time he moved to brake. He hadn’t changed out of his scrubs, had flown out of the hospital immediately, intent on one thing—finding out whether Karan was alive.
He hadn’t tried the crisis line yet. But that line was staffed with counselors who weren’t on site and likely would have no more idea about what was going on than he did.
Throwing the phone onto the passenger seat, he slammed a palm against the steering wheel when he caught the light at busy County Road 42 and Millstream. This was downtown Bluestone Mountain, for God’s sake. Where did this traffic even come from?
Charles didn’t slow until he was about to turn the final corner. The police had the street barricaded. He could see the drive in the distance, blocked by emergency vehicles. BMPD cruisers. Paramedics. He jumped a curb on the opposite side of the street and parked the Jeep on the sidewalk.
“Excuse me. Let me through,” he demanded of the onlookers.
Through a gap in the activity, he could see an older-model sedan parked in the grass on the side of the drive. And the taillights of Karan’s Jag farther up by the gate.
Was she still inside?
Hostage.
“Away from the perimeter, sir,” an officer warned.
“I’m a director of this facility.” Charles flashed his hospital ID without thinking, urgency fueling him.
That got a nominally better response. The officer reached for his radio and stepped away from the barricade to converse.
Whomever he spoke with must have confirmed Charles’s identity because the officer turned around and warned the onlookers to back away as he moved the wooden barricade so Charles could get through.
“Wait with the paramedics,” he said curtly. “The chief will talk with you when he can.”
Jack was here. Charles wished that made a difference.
Of course, the media would notice the whole exchange, and the news anchor didn’t miss a beat. She rushed along the outside of the barricade until she could reach him, waving her microphone, the cameraman bumping into people to keep up while hauling the bulky equipment.
“Sir, you’re affiliated with this business? What is this place? Would you make a statement?”
“No comment.” Charles turned his back on the woman and made his way to the front of the ambulance.
The officer stopped him again. “Wait over there.”
“The woman inside the car.” Karan. “Is she alive?”
The officer only leveled a steely gaze.
“I’m a director of this facility,” Charles persisted. “I want to know what’s going on. There’s a hostage being held at knifepoint. I want to know what you’re doing to recover her.”
“Let the negotiators do their jobs.” The officer turned away and resumed glaring at the crowd.
Charles stood there, for a moment so dumbfounded that he didn’t have any answers. He had no clue what was happening fifty feet away, no way to help Karan and no idea what the police were doing to protect her. No idea if she’d been hurt. He was separated from the rest of the onlookers by one wooden barricade. But he wasn’t just any onlooker, and that hostage wasn’t just any woman.
The Husband Lesson Page 21
