by Marci Bolden
“Who’s going to take care of you?” Mary continued.
Carol had managed to stop counting the days she’d been without Tobias, but Mary was right. The year anniversary of his death was closing in, likely contributing to the raw nerves her mother was so easily grating. “We’ll see where I’m at.”
“I don’t want you to be alone on the road.”
Taking a cleansing breath, Carol let it out slowly. “I agree. That wouldn’t be good for me.”
“So come home, baby. I’ll get your room ready.”
Carol closed her eyes against the newest round of tears forming in her eyes. Her room used to be Tobias’s room. He’d grown up sleeping in that room, and when they went back to St. Louis to visit his mother, it had been their room. Now it was her room. The room where Mary had put the boxes of photos and keepsakes Carol couldn’t part with when she’d packed up the house.
Her room, which had felt so empty the last few times she’d slept there. Even so, that room was far more welcoming than where she’d slept the night before.
“I have to do my best to fix things here, Mary. If I leave without resolving the issues I have with my mother, I don’t think I’ll ever come back. I don’t want to resent her like this forever. I have to try.”
“Okay,” Mary whispered. “Okay. But if that woman drags you down any further than you are right now, I’m coming for you myself. You hear?”
A light laugh left Carol, mostly because she didn’t doubt for a moment that Mary would show up at the door, demanding she leave. “I hear. I love you so much, Mary.”
“I love you.”
“I am glad that I have you. You’ve gotten me through some really tough times. I wish…I wish I could have grown up with a mom like you. I wish I’d had you when I was younger. I wouldn’t be so screwed up.”
“You have me now, baby. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Carol knew that to be true. Mary always took care of her. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye-bye.”
She ended the call and wiped her face again. As she turned, intending to set her phone on the end table next to the couch, she froze. She hadn’t heard her mother enter her room, but the anger on Judith’s face implied she’d been standing there long enough to hear at least part of Carol’s exchange with Mary. She replayed the conversation in her mind, confirming that she had indeed wished she’d had a different mother growing up.
Judith had a mug in her hand. The scent of the hot drink drifted toward Carol. Coffee.
Judith didn’t drink coffee. She drank tea. However, Carol drank coffee by the gallon. Her mother had been bringing her hot coffee and, in turn, overheard her daughter wishing someone else had raised her.
Damn it.
“Mom—”
“I brought you…” Judith started. “I wanted to…” Instead of finishing, she turned and walked away, leaving Carol alone with even more guilt.
Carol was hoping this wedding would be different. She and Tobias weren’t rushing to the courthouse to get married before anyone realized she was pregnant. He’d proposed to her when they’d moved into an apartment together after graduation. He’d told her he wanted to plan for their future.
She’d spent months finding the perfect dress and the right ballroom for the reception. She had friends to be her bridesmaids. This was a real wedding. Yet, her parents still held the same lack of enthusiasm now as they had years ago when she’d married John. She supposed she should be happy they’d accepted the invitation this time. Neither had bothered to show up when she’d exchanged vows with John. They’d been too disappointed in her to offer the support she’d needed.
Though, the way her father rigidly stood next to her made Carol wonder if she’d have been better off without them at this wedding too. Looking down the aisle he was supposed to walk her down during the mock ceremony, she did her best to ignore his discontent. One more sigh from him, though, and she was going to come unglued. She had enough stress on her mind without her father doing that disapproving exhale of his.
“This won’t last much longer,” she said out of obligation.
“I don’t understand why you had to do this,” he said.
She jerked her face to his. “Get married?”
“Have this fiasco. You’ve been married before, Caroline. Carol,” he said, sounding even more frustrated. She’d started going by the shortened version of her name almost four years prior, but he still struggled to use it. “There’s no need for all this.”
Her heart ached. She hadn’t believed for a moment he was excited to be there, but this dismissal hurt. Weddings were celebrations of love and happiness. This was important. “This is what Tobias and I want, Dad.”
“You’ve been married before,” he stated again, as if her first marriage invalidated the life she’d built since leaving Dayton.
She forced her anger down. “Tobias hasn’t. This is for him and his family.”
That long exhale of his raked over her nerves again. Part of her wanted to tell him to leave. Take his frigid wife with him and go. Judith hadn’t been any more enthusiastic than he had. When she’d told her parents Tobias had proposed, a long pause filled the air before her mom clicked her tongue and asked if Carol thought that was a good idea.
Carol had been taken aback. She hadn’t been expecting that reaction. But then her mom went in for the kill.
“You didn’t do so great at your last marriage,” Judith had said. “Do you really think you should try again so soon?”
Carol jerked as if she’d been slapped by her mother’s words. “I’ve been divorced for almost four years.”
“That’s not so long, really.”
“Tobias isn’t like John.”
“Thank goodness,” Judith muttered. “What about school? You said you were going to finish your doctorate.”
“I plan to. So does Tobias.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten how quickly plans change when you have kids.”
Katie. She was taking this moment to remind Carol she’d dropped out of premed to have Katie.
“I haven’t forgotten anything. We haven’t talked about having kids. We both want to finish school.”
“Well,” Judith said. “At least this one has plans for his future.”
A dig at John for being a lowly policeman. Carol had been foolish enough to think her mother had gotten over all that mess. She should have known better, and she should have known then she would be better off not inviting her parents to her wedding. They wouldn’t have even had to know she’d had this big ceremony. Other than her aunt Ellen, no other members of Carol’s family had been present. Her side of the church would be filled with the friends she’d accumulated since moving to St. Louis.
“Bring in the bride,” someone called.
Dennis frowned and took his spot next to Carol. She put her hand on his arm and did her best to focus on the happy faces, the faces excited to be there practicing for the ceremony.
She thought she’d hidden her hurt well, but as soon as the rehearsal broke up and Mary started directing everyone to the basement for the reception dinner that had been organized, Tobias pulled her aside.
“What’s going on?” he pressed.
She smiled and shrugged as if she hadn’t a clue what he meant. “Nothing. The stress and—”
“Carol?” Furrowing his brow, he dipped his head enough to stare into her eyes. He did that when he knew there was more to what she was saying. When she was trying to hide her feelings or slip inside her mind. He knew the signs, and he never let her get away with them.
She loved that about him. Sometimes his persistence drove her crazy, but overall, she needed him to push her to open up. She’d spent so much of her life closed off from everyone else, feeling the need to protect herself from the constant disappointments she caused those around her—particularly her parents. Tobias’s gentle nudges were required, more times than not, to prevent Carol from shriveling in on herself.
She looked ove
r her shoulder to where her father was waiting for her mother to get her things. “My parents don’t want to be here. Did you see them? Neither has smiled once.”
“Maybe they’re tired from traveling.”
“My dad reminded me that I’ve already been married. I didn’t need this fiasco, as he called it.”
The concerned crease between Tobias’s brows grew deeper. “You don’t need it, but you deserve it. We both do. This isn’t about them, Carol.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Tobias rested his hands on her hips and pulled her closer, smiling enough to ease the worry on his face. He lowered his voice. “Do you really?”
Carol smiled too. “Yes.”
He put his lips to her forehead. She loved when he kissed her there. Forehead kisses made her feel so cherished. She didn’t know why, but whenever he did that, her heart seemed to swell. Sinking into his arms, she rested her head on his shoulder as he hugged her against his broad chest.
“This isn’t their wedding,” he said. “It’s ours. This is about what we want. Don’t let them take that away from you.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?” Tobias asked.
“Yeah.”
Draping his arm around her shoulder, he turned her toward the basement. “Good. Now let’s get downstairs before Elijah eats everything.”
Though the heaviness of her parents’ negativity hung in the air, Carol did her best to pretend she didn’t know they hated every minute of their time at the dinner. She pretended they were laughing and enjoying themselves like everyone else.
As she made her way to the table reserved for the bridal party, she noticed her aunt whispering to her mother. If she had to guess, she’d say Ellen was reminding Judith to act human, but Carol wasn’t going to press or try to please her parents. Tobias was right. This was their evening, their wedding. She couldn’t let someone else ruin it.
After dinner, Carol was gathering plates when Tobias’s mother pulled her aside.
“I know it’s supposed to be something borrowed, something blue,” Mary said, holding out a box, “but I think this wedding calls for something pink.”
Caroline opened the gift and found a silver chain with a little pink heart pendent perched against the satin lining.
“For Katie,” Mary said with so much love that Carol almost forgot the woman had never met her daughter. “So she can be here with you tomorrow.”
Tears sprang to Carol’s eyes at the reminder that she was loved and supported. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick from emotion. She wrapped her arms around her soon-to-be mother-in-law and embraced her for a long time. When she pulled back, she sniffed and touched the little heart. “Thank you for always thinking of her.”
Mary put her hand to her heart. “I didn’t know her, but I’m her grandmother as much as I am your mother. Forever.”
The wide smile on Carol’s face froze when she noticed her mom standing a few feet away, watching the exchange. “Hey.” She lifted the box, ready to show her mother the gift.
“Your father and I are leaving. We’re tired,” Judith said, her voice clipped.
Rejection. A feeling Carol was used to from her parents but, for reasons she couldn’t understand, still had the ability to sting. She felt her smile begin to sag before forcing it back into place. “Okay.”
“What time should we be here in the morning?”
“No later than ten, please.”
Judith nodded, turned, and walked away.
Determined not to let her mother’s cold shoulder ruin the moment, Carol returned her attention to Mary and asked for her help putting on the necklace.
As Carol entered the living room, Judith straightened her spine and jutted her chin out. The move was subtle but said so much about where she and Carol stood with each other. They both tended to put up their defenses before the other even spoke. Seeing her mother stiffen her posture, readying for attack, nearly brought tears to Carol’s eyes.
“I’m sorry for what I said.”
Judith shook her head, as if to dismiss Carol’s apology. “You and Mary have always been closer than you and I could ever be. I know that.”
Carol stared, saddened by the way her mother tried to be indifferent, as if her daughter having a stronger maternal connection with someone else was normal. There was underlying hurt in that casual brush-off, and for the first time, Carol considered her relationship with Mary might be painful for her mother. Judith had never seemed to have time for her daughter, but putting herself in her mother’s shoes, Carol imagined how heartbroken she would be if Katie had wanted someone else to be her mother.
The knife she’d unintentionally shoved into her mother’s heart must have felt more like a machete.
“Mary is very important to me,” Carol said. “So are you, Mom.”
Judith lowered her eyes. “I can understand why you’d rather have her as your mother, Carol. We can’t ever seem to see eye-to-eye for more than a minute, can we?”
Carol watched her mother continue to stare at her hands.
This was the part where she had to take the extra steps. “I don’t want to keep doing this,” she said gently. “I love you. We’ve never had much patience for each other, but I do love you.”
Judith hesitated before saying, “I love you, too.”
Carol crossed the room and sat on the other end of the couch. “We don’t have to keep going around and around like this. We can break this cycle. But we both have to try. We both have to want this to work.”
Judith looked up. Her eyes were as sad as Carol had ever seen them. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to reach you. I never did.”
“I feel the same way. Our entire relationship has been two steps forward, five steps back. I want us to find another way. After losing Tobias and watching John die… Mom, I’ve lost too many people.”
“I know you have.” Judith’s bottom lip trembled. “I don’t know how you’ve been so strong.”
“I’m not.” The tears she’d been struggling with since waking burned her eyes again. “I’m so broken inside, and I don’t know if I will ever feel whole again. Sometimes I wake up, and the first thing I think about is how I should have been with him. I should have been there beside him. The feeling hits so hard, I can’t breathe.”
“That feeling isn’t because you weren’t with him,” Judith said. “I was with your father, you know. I wake up feeling the same way sometimes. Wondering how I’m supposed to go on.”
“Still?” Carol whispered.
Judith nodded. “Did missing Katie ever go away?”
“No.”
“This won’t either, but missing him will get easier. Some days dinnertime comes around before I remember. But I always remember.”
“I should have been here for you, Mom. I didn’t know how.”
“I haven’t made it easy for you. I’m aware of that.”
Rather than acknowledge her mother’s failing, Carol offered her a weak smile. “I am doing everything I can to heal, but I could really use my mother right now.”
“I…I don’t know how to be there for you either, Carol. I never did, did I?”
Moving closer, Carol leaned over and rested her head on Judith’s lap. She couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, she’d done that. When she was overcome with nausea during her pregnancy with Katie, Frannie would ease her down and stroke her hair until her stomach settled. She’d suffered two miscarriages after marrying Tobias. When she’d cried, Mary would cradle Carol’s head on her lap and speak soft, soothing words.
But Carol couldn’t remember ever sitting like that with her mother. Judith seemed surprised, hesitating for a few moments before putting her hand to Carol’s hair.
Instead of hiding her feelings, as she tended to do in front of her mom, Carol let them go. She let the pain that had been building in her chest rip free as she gripped her mother’s robe, crying like a child.
Like the child she’d never been allowed to be.
“I don’t know how to stop hurting,” she said after some time. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“Oh, Carol.” Judith lightly brushed her hand over Carol’s hair. “You can’t fix this. You have to learn to live with it. You know that. You’ve been living with Katie’s loss for all these years. You know this pain will never heal, not completely. There will always be something that comes along and reopens that old wound. You have to stop hiding. You’ve spent so much of your life hiding from everything and everyone. Sometimes you have to face what is.”
“I can’t keep hurting like this. It’s about to consume me.”
“And you think driving around the country with two urns is going to make it better?”
Carol fought the surge of frustration she felt at how far Judith had to go to connect those particular dots. “Mom. This isn’t about that. This is about how I miss Tobias so much I can’t think sometimes.” Turning enough that she could look up at her mom’s face, she swallowed hard. “I would normally run with him, but I didn’t want to get out of bed that morning. I couldn’t sleep the night before, so I told him to go without me. I should have been there.”
“What would be different if you’d been there?” Judith asked.
Tears slid from the corners of Carol’s eyes. “I used to be a nurse. Maybe I could have saved him.”
“Maybe. But the likelihood is you would have been killed too. Have you considered that?”
Carol nodded. She had. She’d considered it a million times. Because that seemed like a better alternative than the reality she was living. “I would have rather I’d been killed than go on like this without him.”
A choked sound came from Judith’s lips. Part gasp, part hiccup. “No. That would have devastated me, Ellen, Mary. Imagine what it would have done to Mary to lose both of you. I saw her at the funeral, Carol. Taking care of you was the thing that kept her going.”
Carol put her hand to her face as she started to cry again. The image her mother conjured broke her heart. Mostly because Judith was right. Mary had become focused on getting Carol dressed, fed, rested, hydrated…and anything else she could think of. Carol had appreciated the help but hadn’t realized her need for Mary’s care had been helping Mary as well. In fact, she’d spent these last months embarrassed that she’d leaned on her mother-in-law so much, knowing how hard it was to lose a child. She’d considered her actions selfish, but perhaps the need had been mutual.
