Need Me

by Shelley K. Wall

  She had to tell him. “Abby and I met over there. She was with her brother on a post-grad vacation. We instantly drew to each other, partly because we were Americans and, well, who wouldn’t? She’s great. I left Abby in Scotland because there was a bulletin on the newswire underground that a skirmish was beginning near Teslehad. They wanted coverage—anything they could get. I thought, here’s my big chance to show them I can be a real journalist. I could report important news as it occurred.”

  Roger focused on his spaghetti and forked a bite, rolled the pasta twice, then slipped it through his lips. After swallowing, he grabbed his wine glass and stared at the remaining liquid. “You don’t have to tell me anything, you know.”

  He lifted the glass and sipped. She followed his lead and took a drink. “I want to—no, I need to tell. It. Haunts me.”

  His silence served as an awkward acknowledgment to continue if she wished. She sucked in a breath of courage and let the words softly flow. “When I arrived, the town was already under siege. It was small and remote. Maybe a few hundred people if you counted the ones who spent most of their time playing soldier.”

  The gurgle of spaghetti spinning on his fork broke a moment of silence as she considered her next words. “I took a lot of pictures. Stills of the town. Shots of the people wandering around, a couple of teenage boys with guns slung over their shoulders, and a group of kids playing soccer in the street with a busted ball. It was like a National Geographic panoramic.”

  “But no skirmish?”

  She shook her head and chewed. Slinging a mouthful of wine back, she set down her glass and reached for the bottle. After pouring them the last of the wine, she spoke. “Not that I could see. But they watched me all the time so I was careful not to act suspicious. I cut my hair to blend in, I wore old clothes that I’d bought off a local, I only used my press ID when things became ... ”

  Ugly.

  “Caroline.” His voice was soft, like a cotton blanket after a hot shower. Was he urging her to stop? Or continue?

  “I wanted the story. I had no idea they were rounding the kids up for execution—I thought it was all a game. These little kids ran around kicking the ball, playing, completely unaware they were being drawn in as targets. More and more arrived, and it seemed like a nice little human interest story.”

  Roger cleared his throat with a guttural double-hitch. “Where were you when this went on? Were you playing with them?” Was there concern hidden in his words?

  She wagged her head again in denial. “I stood in a window on the corner of the street and snapped photos. I ... laughed. They were grinning and running. Right up until the gunshots rattled away.”

  Caroline shoved her fist against her mouth and pressed hard. She clenched her eyes. “They shot the older ones first. It was like they didn’t have the stomach for the little ones, or at least not at first. I will never forget. This one little boy curled around his sister, wrapping her up like he was a turtle shell. He ... tried to save her.”

  Roger had stopped eating. He ran a forefinger along the stem of his glass as he listened. She knew he wanted to ask about the boy, so she answered. “He failed.”

  Caroline lifted her eyes to Roger’s. Her eyelids burned. “They shot him seventeen times. His body was cut nearly in two; the last shots pierced her chest and skull. You know why they killed those little kids?” She lifted her chin.

  “Why?” Roger’s chair creaked as he turned to face her.

  Caroline’s shoulders shuddered as she pulled in another painful breath. She wasn’t sure if she could tell the next part. She’d never said it out loud.

  “Look at me.” His hands heated her cheeks as he palmed her face and pulled her gaze to meet his. “Tell me.”

  “They wanted me to see it, to report it. They wanted the attention. They’d watched me for days and knew who I was. All that time, I thought I’d kept a low profile. I hadn’t. They baited me. The man who killed those kids had spoken to me the day before. He could have easily done the same to—”

  “You.” The word reverberated in the silence between them. Roger thumbed her cheeks, whisking the water from her lower lids. It comforted her.

  She stared into the depths of his brown eyes. He must think her a coward for not stopping it. “I just watched them die. I took pictures of the entire thing.”

  The scent of Roger’s cologne filled her nose as he pulled her tight against his chest and nestled her forehead against his chin. “What else could you do, babe? That was your job. You did your job.”

  “I killed them, Roger.” Her voice flat-lined, barely registering the sweet nickname. She’d said it for the first time. She’d admitted her part.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The pasta sat like lead in Roger’s stomach. He strummed his fingers over the soft wisps of Caroline’s hair. His shirt was damp where her tear-stained cheeks had soaked the fabric, but he didn’t care. It was time for a wash anyway.

  His problems were trivial compared to the burdens Caroline dragged around inside. Financial woes meant nothing. His sisters’ drama, his mother’s whining, his father’s pending child—they were miniscule in comparison. How could she possibly believe their deaths were her fault?

  “You’re kidding, right?” He tried to keep his voice as deadpan, but anger sizzled somewhere deep inside him. It threatened to boil over.

  Caroline cleared her throat with a gurgled cough. Her eyes flashed. “Of course I’m not kidding. Why the hell would I joke about people dying?”

  He realized his poor choice of words and let out a nervous laugh. Leaning back to focus on her watery pupils, he softened his voice. “Hey, hey. I didn’t mean the story wasn’t true. But surely you don’t believe you’re responsible for what happened? Caro, there’s no explanation for that kind of brutality, and had you not been there, someone else would have. It still would have happened. Nothing would have changed—it just wouldn’t have been you.”

  She thudded her head against his collarbone, breathing in his scent. “Forgive me, but I think I could live with that.”

  “You’re a hero.”

  Caroline dropped her feet to the floor and shoved away. Grabbing her plate, she carried it to the sink and flipped on the faucet. The hiss of water stirred the room. “That’s ridiculous. There’s nothing heroic about what happened over there. I didn’t do anything. I lived. They died. Those little kids are the heroes.”

  She was wrong about that. They were victims—or scapegoats. He supposed in some sick way that was heroic. “Reporting what happened is heroic.”

  Her hands shook the tiniest bit as she swirled a scrubber over her dish then placed it in the washer. “That’s just it—I didn’t report anything. I wrote the story, and then I was scared shitless and told them to shelve it. I was afraid. Then my mother got sick, which gave me an excuse to come home and leave it all behind. To pretend it never happened.”

  Wouldn’t it have been nice had it not happened? Where would they be now had she stayed? “But it did. You can’t change your past, kiddo. Your future’s wide open, but not the past. The sooner you find a way to deal with it, the sooner you’ll get on with the good stuff.”

  “I don’t even know what the good stuff is, Rog. I’m not like you—I thought I had a gift. I thought I was meant to be a journalist. I haven’t a clue what to do with myself now. I’m a ... mess.”

  He wished he could take all of those memories out of her head and burn them into oblivion. Erase them somehow. “Not a mess. Just human like the rest of us.”

  She tossed her gaze skyward before giving him one of her don’t-shit-me looks. “Human like the rest of us? I don’t see you still trying to figure out who you are. Nope. You have all the answers—like always.”

  She really thought that? “Right. I’m the answer man. Ask me anything. I can tell fortunes. I can plan your future and make everything perfect.” His voice was laced with sarcasm. He waved a hand at their surroundings. “That’s why I have all these riches and am constantly
surrounded by adoring fans. Come on, Caroline. No one, and I mean no one, has a perfect life. We’re always searching for something. Or someone. And guess what? We all have shit to deal with. Some of us more than others. Sometimes it’s big like yours, sometimes not so much. All of us wish for more than we possess and strive to be better than we are. To find ourselves.”

  Caroline stared at him and blinked. She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. Instead she lifted her head and arched her neck until it popped, then lowered back to meet his gaze. “Yeah, well, find your ass over here at the sink with a towel will you? I need someone to help me clean up this mess. And by the way, you have spaghetti sauce on you.”

  Drama over—just like that. Thank God. Only he knew it wasn’t really over. It would never be. He couldn’t care less about the sauce. “You don’t have to do that.”

  She gave him that look again, stuffed to the seams with disbelief. “My mother had one very strict rule about the kitchen, and I’ve stuck with it faithfully: the cook never cleans. If someone is gracious enough to feed me, the least I can do is clean for them.” She ran her gaze over the mass of sauce-spattered pans. “Of course, Mom had never seen a mess like this when she made that rule.”

  “Masterpieces sometimes get messy.” Not that he’d call his spaghetti a masterpiece.

  Caroline’s cheek bulged as she tucked her tongue into the hollow. Was she stifling a laugh? “Um, it was good, but unless you have more recipes in your repertoire, don’t quit your day job anytime soon.”

  “Come on now. It might not smell like a store full of flowers, but who can’t get into garlic?”

  She didn’t stifle her laugh this time. She held up her hands, palms up, and seesawed them. It was repressed emotion but who cared? “Hmm, garlic or flowers. Let me think about that—tough decision.”

  He smiled, a puzzled half-lift of lips. Her face flashed color and warmed. She’d shoved her baggage into the closet of her mind and come back to him. Thank God.

  Wait.

  Came back to him? Had he wanted her to come back? As much as he liked being with her like this again, something inside him clicked. He knew he had to help her. Worse, the only way to help was something he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do.

  He had to make her go back and finish what she’d started.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A door slammed and footsteps plodded across the carpet. The heavy clip of a person on a mission. “Hey, you here? It smells like heaven. Did you order Italian?” Roger’s sister Rebecca rounded the corner and stopped at the entry to his kitchen. “Oh, hi.” Rebecca glanced at the soapsuds on Caroline’s elbows. She grabbed a towel from the counter and tossed it to her.

  Before his sister said anything further, he’d better clear up the confusion. “I cooked spaghetti. There’s a little left.” He pointed toward the bowl. Thankfully, she chose not to make a snarky comment about how rarely he cooked. Instead, she yanked open the silverware drawer and pulled out a fork.

  Rebecca rounded the counter and plopped down on Roger’s stool before jamming her fork into the small pile of pasta. “Wow, not bad. You really can cook. Who knew?” There she went. So much for holding back.

  Roger sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for a family night at the moment. “What are you doing here?”

  Rebecca nodded at Caroline and spoke between mouthfuls. “Need your help. My calculus class is kicking my ass. I was fine until a couple of weeks ago, then bam—he threw a curveball at us.” She turned toward Caroline and waved. “Hi!”

  You’re kidding me. “Now? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Caroline wiped her hands on her back pockets and introduced herself. She held out a hand, and the two shook. “It’s fine,” Caroline said. “I was pretty good at calc at one point. What are you working on now?”

  “You’re the decorator? I thought you were—” Roger knew what was coming next. Blonde. He had to stop her.

  “Caroline and I knew each other in college. She’s a partner in the new florist business downtown.”

  Recognition flitted across Rebecca’s features, an almost unseen quirk to her eyes. Roger hoped Caroline hadn’t noticed her confusion. “Oh, cool. Here. Look at this, then.” Rebecca slid a paper in front of her then twisted in her chair and winked. “I have a question, brother.”

  Uh-oh. What next?

  “You have a butcher knife in your hand, and she,” Rebecca pointed at Caroline, “has red goo all over her shirt. I didn’t show up for some kind of slasher scene, did I?”

  Roger stared at the knife, which he’d intended to toss into the washer. A cackle came from the table; he shifted his gaze toward the two women and blinked. The cackle turned into a howl, and Caroline wiped her eyes. From tears to hysterics in thirty seconds flat. “What’s so funny?”

  Caroline pointed—at his crotch. He looked down to see a blob of spaghetti sauce that was now permanently embedded over his privates.

  Rebecca chortled. “Just asking: Are you still able to have kids at some point in the future? I just want to make sure our wonderful lineage doesn’t end with you. That would be a crime.”

  Roger put the knife in the dishwasher, wet a towel, and attempted to clean himself. The end result was worse. He now had a huge soaking-wet spot surrounding the red stain. Great. “Don’t worry. Dad took care of that for us. Seems our new addition is a boy.”

  Rebecca gasped. “What? So the baby’s okay? I thought—I—oh, shit. Don’t tell Dad, but I sort of thought she’d lost it. Why did I jump to conclusions? That’s awful.”

  Roger frowned. “Nice of you. No, she’s fine, just a little anemic—and very pregnant with your baby brother.”

  “That’s half-brother, and don’t forget he’s yours, too. Kinda makes you feel young again doesn’t it?”

  That wasn’t what it made him feel at all, but he’d keep the conversation PG. “Watch your tongue, young lady. Oh, and by the way, Dad doesn’t know it’s a boy—they wanted to be surprised. I told him you were thrilled and couldn’t wait to babysit for them.”

  Rebecca stuck out her tongue and pointed both eyes at her nose. “Creep.”

  Caroline cleared her throat. “Okay, so I think I remember what all this is about—on your paper, I mean. Let me show you.”

  The two girls buried their heads in calculus as Roger finished the dishes. He enjoyed listening to their voices; it reminded him of when the whole family lived under one roof and his father was still ... his father. Those days were gone, just like the days of seeing his mother happy.

  The clincher was that things would need to get a lot worse before they got better. While the two women gelled over equations, Roger plotted in his mind how he’d deal with his new discovery. How could he help Caroline while still managing the family finances? It would be a hell of a lot easier to simply take his dad’s route and leave.

  But he wasn’t a quitter.

  • • •

  Opening up for the first time felt like pulling the plug from a bathtub full of water. Was this similar to what an AA meeting feels like for an addict? Tides of emotion rushed over Caroline, pulling her to tell more, to learn more. Once she had exposed her darker side to Roger, she felt a need to confront her father. He’d tried to talk to her about it once, but she’d dissed him. She still had a lot of anger to overcome.

  An open box of flowers waiting to be removed and displayed sat beside her as she stared at the computer screen. She had no idea where to begin, so she just ... typed.

  Daisies, Dads, and Do-Overs

  I sit here staring at a box of flowers that want, no, need to be placed on display for our customers. They’re my favorite and quite beautiful in the most simplistic way: daisies. DAISIES. Only three colors—yellow, green, and white—but they complement each other perfectly and smile at the world with an internal scrappiness that only comes from a plant devoid of delicacy. Devoid of delicacy, you ask? Yes, that’s right. Daisies were originally (and still are) weeds to a farmer. They take over fields and crop
s so that soon you have nothing but a field full of flowers. They’re stronger than a brick fortress and can grow and thrive in virtually any habitat. I’ve always thought of myself as having the strength of a daisy, but a few years ago that strength was tested and now I’m selling ... daisies. I’ll circle back to that story in a minute.

  One major source of strength in my life has been the impact my mother had on my youth. She passed away after an illness a few years ago. Until then, she’d been my primary caregiver because my father was gone. Not gone as in deceased, just ... absent. I wasn’t sure why or when it all started, but he was a journalist and on assignment during my teen years and later. My mother never explained it to me and talked as if he’d return any day. Yet he didn’t. I stopped expecting him when I left for college.

  Recently, though, he reentered my life. And with my mother gone, it’s been—interesting. Memorial Day is coming soon, and I wanted to mention him because he won a well-known literary award a few years ago for an article about Korean War veterans. It exposed the deficits in our public health system’s ability to care for disabled vets. He was obsessed with the story for years. Now, after reading that story and my father’s subsequent book ... I hate them both. They were the mistress. The other woman. The replacement for me and my mother. Yes, I realize I shouldn’t air my dirt publicly, but ... come on, Dad. You could have at least cared enough to take us along on your dream quest, couldn’t you?

  So, people, I ask you: is there anything in your life you wish you could DO OVER? For me, there are several, but the two that stare me in the mirror every day are these:

  Could I go back and make him love me enough to take me, too?

  I let a mass of children die while trying to please him by following in his footsteps.

  I can explain this one. It’s the most important part of this message because ...

  She stopped typing and read over the words two or three times, knowing she hadn’t the guts to publish such a bombshell. Regardless, it felt good to put the words to paper and voice a miniscule piece of her discontent. She was sure debating whether to continue when the door to the stockroom flung open.