“Nina. She doesn’t think I’ll come home tomorrow. She thinks I need to stay here.”
“She’s just overly protective. You know that.”
“But I feel fine,” Julietta insisted. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m not, and I need Dr. Sam’s help to work through it all so it doesn’t happen again, but I feel like…me.”
“Jules.” Johanna shifted closer, nudged her with her knee. “You were out of it for six days. It’s going to take a little longer than a few hours for everyone to feel safe.”
“I suppose.” She sighed. “I’m scared, Jo.”
“Of remembering?”
Julietta looked up. “No, not really. I mean, yeah, but that’s not it. I’m afraid nothing will ever be the same again.”
“Was it so great before?”
“Maybe not, but it was safe. It’s what I knew.”
Johanna heard her own thoughts, once again, from her youngest sister’s mouth. They could not be more different from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out…
“Is that why you won’t you speak to Efan?”
Julietta shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Honey, don’t be embarrassed. He’s been waiting since—”
“I mean it, Jo.”
“All right, Jules. Fine. Don’t get upset.”
“And don’t talk to me like I’m some wild dog about to bark itself mad.”
“Hey, what’s this about? I didn’t—”
“I want to rest.” Julietta leapt off the bed, went around to the other side. “See if you can catch Emma and Nina before they leave.”
“You kicking me out?”
“I just want to rest, Jo.” Julietta hit the nurse-call. “Please!”
Johanna gathered up the papers. The nurse came in as she left, folder clutched to her chest and uninterested in catching up with her sisters. They would only worry that Julietta was still too fragile to be released, and argue it come morning. The nurse’s hushed voice, her sister’s shrill but subdued one, barely reached her ears.
She had an hour and some to wait until Charlie got there. Johanna thought about calling him. Instead she bought a soda from the machine in the conference room and sat at the round table with the thrown-together folder of printouts.
She read again the lawyer’s letter, highlighting those events handled by the firm. For how much more information she had now that she never did before, Johanna’s brain bubbled with more questions than she ever thought to ask. Were her paternal grandparents still alive? Did they even live in America? She remembered her father having an accent. Perhaps he was the first to leave Norway. What college did Johan attend? Why did he drop out? What had he been studying? Question begat question, all of them about her father. For how much she now knew about him, Carolina remained a big mystery.
She pulled the lawyer’s letter from the pile, and read it again. Sunlight coming through the window showed writing on the other side they had not noticed earlier. Johanna turned it over, and found a handwritten endnote.
But for the final transfer of funds from the estate of Bruce Johnson in 1993, the records for this family end when Carolina was committed to Cully Mountain. I have done a rudimentary search but can find no such facility at this time. If this office is able to attain any more information on that matter, we will forward it on to you.
I remember this case well. It was one of my first. If I can be of any assistance, feel free to call my personal number…
A cell number. A name—Willa Germaine. Someone who had details Johanna was not certain she wanted. She set the paper down, pulled her cell from her pocket. Fingers poised. Breath held. Instead of dialing the number, she looked up Bruce Johnson. The number of hits was overwhelming. She narrowed the search. Danbury, 1983. Vehicular manslaughter. 4th and Valley View.
She found newspaper coverage of the accident, and a headline reading: Eccentric Computer Genius To Be Tried For Murder. Johanna was able to follow a trail, both forward and back, chronicling Bruce Johnson’s rise to fame in the early days of modern computers. Eccentric behavior once excused as genius became speculation about his mental health. And then all news of Bruce Johnson vanished along with the man, popping up again in 1983 when he appeared as the driver in an accident that killed a man.
Johanna skimmed through the news coverage more concerned with sensationalizing a computer-genius-millionaire-gone-mad than it was about her family tragedy. In the end, he’d been tried in criminal court, and again in a civil proceeding. Bruce Johnson died in a psychiatric correctional facility in 1992, and according to the obituary, “Though his contributions to computer science continue to impact the field, he left not a single living soul behind.”
Johanna set her phone down and slumped back in her chair. She pulled the locket out, clicked it open.
Carolina Valentine Coco.
Gram and Poppy had honored their Italian heritage when they named their only child, while keeping it American. It was Carolina, like the state, not Caroleena. Valentine, like the holiday, not Valenteena.
When had she started showing signs of mental illness? Was she once wild Carolina, like Johanna and her sisters had always been the wild Coco sisters? Was she involved in drugs? Was that why her parents first put her into a psychiatric facility? Her mother never lived in Bitterly. Gram and Pop bought the house when they suddenly had two little granddaughters to raise, but where had they lived before? Where was Carolina’s hometown? Did Gram and Pop buy the house on County Line Road because Bitterly was a nice small town? Or so their daughter’s daughters would not grow up in the shadow, with the stigma, of a girl gone wrong?
There was no one left to ask, and for the first time, Johanna was angry. Tracing her mother’s face when it was smiling and young and free of all things still to come, Johanna refused to cry. Not this time. No way. But she did anyway.
The nurse came out of Julietta’s room, gestured to Johanna that her sister was sleeping. Reaching for the box of tissues, Johanna nearly jumped out of her skin when one was handed to her.
“My apologies.” Efan scooted onto the chair beside her. “I thought you saw me enter. Are you all right, Johanna?”
“Thank you.” She blew her nose. “I’m just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. And Julietta kicked me out.”
“You too? Why?”
“I tried to get her to see reason about you.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you.”
“She’ll come around, Efan. Give her time.”
He moved some of the papers on the table without reading them, his eyes unfocused and his mouth chewing on words he was not speaking.
“My name isn’t Efan,” he said at last. It took a moment for his gaze to shift from the papers. “I should say, it is, but it’s pronounced more like Ivan, not Evan. Ee-van.”
“It is?” Johanna sat up straighter. “But Julietta made it a point to correct us when we called you Evan. Efan, she said.”
“It’s what everyone calls me here in the States. I never correct them. You see, I was instantly smitten with your sister.” His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I was introduced to her as Efan and by the time I noticed, I didn’t have it in me to correct her. It used to bother me, no one getting it right. Outside of Wales, people call me Efan and believe they’ve done me the honor of pronouncing it correctly. I do appreciate the effort, truly, and life has been so transitory since I left home. What did it matter the name I was called by people I would only know for a little while and never again? But with Julietta, with you and your sisters, it matters to me, Johanna. Very much.”
Johanna. Like he did the tt in Julietta, Efan enunciated the h in Johanna the way only those in Bitterly did. Customers and acquaintances in New Jersey mostly called her Joanna. She never corrected them, like Efan never did, and only now did she understand—Cape May was a place she never meant to stay.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t relent.”
/> Johanna blinked.
Efan, head in hands, disheveled as the papers on the table. Adorable.
She leaned forward to rub circles between his shoulder blades.
“She will.”
“I have never loved anyone before, Johanna.” His voice was thick and catching in his throat. “And I truly mean never. I believed I would be one of those infamous bachelor scholars Great Britain seems so fond of producing. Perhaps I’d marry when I was an old man too afraid of dying alone to put it off any longer. I actually looked forward to it. No wife. No children to take me from my pursuit of knowledge. But then I met Julietta.”
He sat up straight, wiped his eyes and sniffed loudly and took the tissue Johanna handed him.
“I was hers, whether she wanted me or not, from the moment I saw her in the school library, knocking books off the desk and nearly toppling a shelf more trying to help the librarian pick them up. She struck me so dumb I didn’t even realize I had no way of contacting her. The day I got your note? I nearly burst. I did. Ask young Steven, who handed it to me.”
“What would you have done if I didn’t get to you first?” she asked.
“I have no idea, Johanna. None. But I would have found her. Somehow.” He blew his nose. “I cannot live without her. I know it sounds trite and dramatic, but it is true. She is perfect and precious and has cast all the things I ever thought I wanted so far away I can barely remember what they were. She is all I want. Julietta, and however many children she would consent to give me.”
“What if I don’t want children?”
Both Efan and Johanna spun in their chairs to see Julietta standing in the doorway of her hospital room. Arms wrapped tight around her middle, hair spilling from her braid, cheeks pink and eyes wide, she was more fairy than woman in that moment, and Johanna’s love for her sister seeped out of her heart. Gripping the arms of her chair so she would not fly across the room, she stayed back so Efan could instead. Julietta pressed her hands to his chest, but did not push him away.
“Then I will spend my life worshipping only you.”
“Did you mean all that?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, Julietta. To everything.”
“Even after—”
“If your troubles could scare me away, I would not be worthy of you to begin with. I beg of you, cariad, never ask me again.”
Julietta lifted her gaze. “I’m never going to be normal.”
“Normal doesn’t exist, cariad. It is simply the middle point between two extremes. You are Julietta, and that is far more extraordinary.”
Long moments passed while Julietta studied Efan’s face, while he waited patiently, while Johanna held her breath.
“I love you, Ee-van.”
He gathered her close and kissed her tenderly. “Marry me,” Johanna thought he said, her hope confirmed by Julietta’s eager nod. Her sister backed through the door to her hospital room, taking Efan with her. The door closed. The lock clicked. Johanna glanced at the clock and hoped they had enough time to…celebrate…before Dr. Sam arrived.
* * * *
The short drive from Bitterly to Great Barrington did not give Charlie the time necessary to gather all his thoughts. Johanna’s manner towards him had definitely changed since New Year’s Eve, though he could not pinpoint exactly how. They talked. They saw one another—less and less, but they did.
Charlie was no fool, and he did what a considerate man should and gave her the space she needed to deal with her sister’s episode. In the days between then and now, he began to fear he’d backed too far off, given her time to rethink what was happening between them, given her anxiety room to spread and grow. By the time he reached the hospital, not only did his thoughts remain ungathered, Charlie had added to them.
He parked in the lot, grabbed the flowers he bought for Julietta and got out of the car. He tried to tell himself, as he had since finding her nearly frozen in the cemetery, that whatever happened, happened. He and Johanna would finally make it, or they wouldn’t. One way or another, he would survive. He had five great kids, and a good life he existed in for many years before she blew back into it.
Charlie stopped short at the hospital door sliding open at his approach.
Existed in.
The words echoed ear to ear. He took a deep breath, let the notion settle. Existing was not living. He existed with Gina, for children who would grow up and leave him wondering what, exactly, he’d do without them to fill his days. Everything he did was for them. What did he do for himself? Until Johanna arrived in Bitterly, the answer had been nothing. He’d been sleepwalking through his own life for years. Now he was awake and he wasn’t going back to sleep again.
“Could you step through, sir?” the receptionist called from her desk. “That’s a lot of January coming in.”
“Oh, sorry.” Charlie strode forward, each step more determined than the last. Johanna might be afraid. She could well choose to go back to Cape May and her anonymous life there, but this time, he would fight for her. For them.
“Can you tell me how I reach Julietta Coco’s room?” he asked the receptionist.
“Are you a family member?”
“I’m Charlie McCallan,” he said. “Her sister’s…husband. She’s waiting for me to pick her up.”
* * * *
The elevator door slid open to reveal Johanna sitting at a table, squinting at a pile of papers there and sipping at a can of soda. The ding of the doors lifted her head and she was smiling, rising to greet him. Charlie tried to measure his steps and failed. Lifting her playfully off the ground, he kissed her and set her back onto her feet.
“How’s Julietta?”
“Aside from kicking me out earlier, her old self. Are those for her?”
“I thought it would be a nice gesture,” he said. “Where is she?”
Johanna grinned evilly. “In there.” She pointed. “With Efan.”
“Eevan?”
“Long story short, we’ve all been calling him by the wrong name. Efan is actually Eevan and he just asked my baby sister to marry him.”
Charlie’s jaw dropped. “No way.”
“And she said yes. But don’t tell my sisters. Let Jules.”
“It’s so…soon.”
“Not everyone takes twenty years to figure things out.” Johanna laughed and pulled out of his arms. “I’ll leave those with the nurse’s station, and then we can go.”
“Oh, the flowers. Yes.” Charlie handed them to her. “Want me to gather these papers up for you?”
“Sure, thanks. I’ll be right back.”
Charlie gathered the printouts. Johanna hadn’t kissed him the way he hoped she would, but she didn’t pull away from his embrace either. The nebulous grasp he had on whatever was going on between them slipped but he grabbed it back again. Slow and steady wins the race. He focused on the file of hospital records and legal proceedings, and pictures he quickly covered as Johanna approached. He closed the folder, tucking it under his arm so he could help her on with her coat.
“So, what is all this?” he asked as they walked. “Anything useful?”
“Yes and no,” she answered. “There’s a whole lot of information, but most of it raises more questions. There’s so much more to tell you, Charlie, like my mother didn’t die in the accident, but ended up in a psychiatric facility in New Hampshire that no longer exists.”
“That’s big.”
“I know, and there’s more. Gram and Poppy got a huge settlement from the man who caused the accident that killed my father.”
“How huge?”
“$1.5 million. And there’s more.”
“More?”
“So much more. I’ll tell you about it on the way home. Actually…” Johanna looked up at him, a little of the mischief that had been turning him to mush since they were kids flashed in her eyes. “What do you have planned for the rest of the day?”
“Nothing. Well, eating at some
point. I’m all yours.”
“How do you feel about doing some detective work?”
“Sounds like more fun than watching a movie.”
“Good. Because I’m pretty sure there are a few answers hiding in the house, and I want to start with finding a checkbook Julietta mentioned. You can help me.”
“I live to serve.”
Charlie offered her his hand. Johanna looked at it a moment, then took it, her fingers meshing with his like puzzle pieces fitting.
* * * *
Johanna picked up the note from the table.
I had to go back to New York. Please tell Jules I’m sorry. Bring her her computer, books, and some cards or something over to her tonight. If you need me, call. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a day or two. Love you, Nina.
Johanna put the note back onto the table and finished shucking off her coat. When she asked Charlie to come home with her, she thought Nina would be there too. Being alone with him was dangerous. When she saw him at the hospital, the instant joy overwhelmed her—until he lifted her in his arms and kissed her the way she’d been longing for since midnight on the rooftop in Great Barrington. The instant saturation of lust and love made caution a notion too ridiculous to contemplate, but one she forced to see reason. Once she gave into it, there was no going back, and Johanna needed the option kept open.
Charlie ducked into the bathroom while she hung their coats up. Glad as she was that Emma’s coat wasn’t there too, Johanna couldn’t help selfishly wishing her sister would show up unannounced and save her from succumbing to an empty house, the man she loved, and a whole night of both. Would it be so bad to pull her away from her husband? Her boys? To ask for help searching for clues? She dug her phone from her pocket.
“Damn,” she whispered when the message kicked on. The bathroom door opened. Her heart banged with it. Who would save her now?
“Hey, Emma,” she said. “It’s Johanna. Call me when you get this message.”
“The boys have a soccer club meeting today,” Charlie told her as she hung up. “I got Charlotte to take Tony for me.”
“Oh, Charlotte’s home?” Johanna busied herself putting the kettle on. “When did she get back from New Paltz?”
Seeking Carolina (Bitterly Suite Book 1) Page 19
