by Marci Bolden
She laughed slightly. “They’re bossy.”
“So say they’re bossy, smarty pants.”
The way he smiled made her believe he’d known all along what she was saying. He was trying to make her feel better. In that moment, she knew what she had already suspected: she was head over heels in love with this man, and nothing her parents did could change that.
“Mom,” Carol said, keeping her voice soft and steady so her mother didn’t feel attacked, “lunch is ready. Would you join us, please?” She was met with silence and had to remind herself not to play into the passive-aggressive behavior. They were too early into this visit to start hurling grenades at each other. “I would like for you to join us. Please.”
Several more seconds passed before Judith turned her face up, acknowledging Carol’s presence. “I tried to make you see that he was no good. I tried to protect you from him.” Her voice was a mix of accusation and hurt, as if it pained her to bring up the past.
Carol knew, however, nothing brought her mother more pleasure than throwing Carol’s mistakes into her face. “I was young and inexperienced and completely infatuated with John. You couldn’t have convinced me to break up with him.”
“If he hadn’t gotten you pregnant—”
“But I did get pregnant,” she said firmly. “And never once, in all these years, have I regretted having a child with him. I loved my daughter.”
Judith frowned but softened her tone the slightest bit. “I know that.”
Carol let her defenses slip as well. “We had Katie for six beautiful years. It’s taken me a long time, but I’m learning to focus on that instead of on what might have been. I’d love if you could too.”
“He took her from us.”
Carol took several steps, closing the distance between them. Where she wouldn’t have hesitated in taking her aunt’s hands, she looked at her mother’s, debating, before finally sitting next to her and grasping her hands. She waited for Judith to meet her eyes before saying, “Blaming John tore me up inside for years. I’m not doing it anymore. I can’t make you forgive him, but I did, and I need you to respect that.”
Judith jerked her hands away and did the stiff upper lip thing she’d perfected long before Carol could recall. “Maybe some of us aren’t ready to forgive and forget.”
She walked away, leaving Carol to wonder who her mother wasn’t ready to forgive. Because the cold stare and pointed words certainly seemed like they were directed at Carol.
Noticing her aunt standing in the doorway, Carol shrugged. “That went better than I expected.”
The concern in Ellen’s eyes didn’t waver. “She still hurts over Katie’s loss.”
“So do I,” Carol stated with more of an edge than intended. The following silence lingered long enough for her to regret her response. “I’m sorry. Touchy subject.”
“For all of us.” Crossing the room, Ellen gave Carol a weak smile. “I’m glad you feel more at peace, but your mother is right. You always did let John twist you around until you couldn’t tell which way was up. Sounds like he did it again.”
Carol wasn’t surprised Ellen saw things that way. John had been a master manipulator, and Carol had been easy prey. She’d been starved for affection when she’d met him. He found her weakness and exploited it until she was in over her head, which hadn’t taken long. But the John who’d resurfaced in her life had been truly repentant.
“I’m not the only one who changed over the last twenty-four years. John had as much loss and sorrow to work through. He wasn’t the same man I divorced all those years ago. It’s been twenty-four years. People change a lot in two and a half decades.”
“People do change,” Ellen said, “but not fundamentally, Carol. John was a schemer and a liar. He knew how to play you.”
“We were both toxic back then,” she said, “in different ways.”
“You said he made you realize you’re responsible for Katie’s death. Seems like he was still pretty toxic to me.”
“Putting the blame on him was easy,” Carol said instead of trying to convince her aunt of something she would never believe. “Pretending I didn’t have a hand in how things turned out was easy. But those were lies I’d told myself so I didn’t fall apart more than I already had. Now that I’ve accepted the truth, I can finally grieve for my daughter in a healthy way. I can think of her without a burning ball of rage in my heart. I’d never been able to do that before. Crazy as it sounds, I needed to face John in order to accept responsibility for my mistakes and forgive myself.”
“The only mistake you made was loving that son of a bitch too much.”
Carol squeezed Ellen’s hands. “He was a good man underneath his many flaws. I watched his drinking consume him, and then I blamed him for being weak.” She shook her head enough to stop Ellen before she could protest. “I was a textbook enabler. I avoided, denied, and blamed. When I got fed up, I would set ultimatums, and he would pretend to meet them until the pattern started all over again. Every time. That was on me as much as it was John.”
Ellen tightened her hold on Carol, as if begging her to reconsider her views. “Don’t let that guilt eat you up.”
Ever thankful for her aunt’s tenderness, Carol smiled sweetly. “I’m not. We were young and had never dealt with adult problems. We both let things go too far, and it cost us our daughter. Neither of us ever expected to pay for our ignorance the way we did. I forgave him. And I forgive myself. Because of that, I’ve started to heal instead of ignoring how much pain I’ve been in.”
“Your mother needs to hear that. She worries about you, even if she doesn’t know how to show it.”
Carol bit her bottom lip, bracing for another round of explaining herself. “Part of why I’m here is because I hate how distant we are. We always have been, and I want to change that. But I can’t, not until I lay everything out there and find a way to forgive her and Dad for the way they’ve always treated me.”
As expected, Ellen’s concern visibly grew. “Oh, Carol, tread lightly. She’s been through a lot too.”
“I know. I’m trying to make things better, but we can’t ignore the last fifty years.”
“You can’t push her. You know how she reacts when she feels cornered.”
Carol rolled her eyes. “Like a feral cat?”
Ellen grinned. “Sometimes feral cats are better left alone.”
“I’ve left this alone for too long. If we don’t work this out now, we never will.” Carol shook her head and let her shoulders drop with the weight of the burden she felt. She’d come to realize, probably too late in her life, she wanted to be close to her mother. “I can’t tell you how sad that makes me. I want to know my mother.”
Ellen gave another of her sympathetic smiles. “I understand, more than you can imagine, but she’s a bit old to change her ways, honey.”
“I have to try.”
“Well, the first step is to convince her to join us for lunch. No more talk about John. Not right now. Enough has been said about that subject.”
Carol preferred to pull the bandage off, so to speak, but she understood where her aunt was coming from. She could only push her mother so far at once. Convincing Judith to change her views was better done in small steps, gentle nudges. Though she’d like to force her mom to sit down and hash everything out right then, Carol decided she’d nudged as much as she could. For now.
Two
Carol looked across the small kitchen table when Judith let out a long, dramatic breath while staring at her breakfast. After an afternoon of working on a puzzle, a short walk, and then dinner at a local restaurant the night before, Carol had left her mom and aunt and returned to her motorhome. She’d been restless until the wee hours of morning when she’d gone to the park’s guest center and taken out her aggression on the treadmill.
Even so, her mother’s early morning play for attention was grating Carol’s nerves before she’d even sat down for the bacon and eggs Ellen had prepared. “Are you okay, Mom?�
�
Judith eased her mug down and blinked several times. “No, I’m not. I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep a wink for worrying about you. I don’t want you sleeping in that RV alone. It isn’t safe. I told you that last night.”
Oh boy, had she told her. They’d spent almost half an hour going around and around about Carol sleeping at the campground, as well as walking the short distance between there and the townhome.
“I’m in a secured park,” Carol reminded her. Again. “People have to check in before gaining access, and there is an officer patrolling all the time. Like here in your neighborhood.”
Pressing her lips together, clearly frustrated that Carol hadn’t simply caved into her demands, Judith stared. “I suspect they use the term ‘officer’ loosely.”
Carol focused her attention on buttering her toast. “The RV doors lock.”
“Locks can be picked,” Judith pointed out. “What would you do if someone broke in while you were sleeping inside?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“How?”
Wiping her hands on a napkin, Carol pinned her mom with the same hard look she was receiving. “I have a gun.”
Judith gasped and fell back in her chair as if Carol had pulled the weapon from her bag and aimed it across the table. “A gun? Caroline!”
“I’ve been thoroughly trained how to handle a weapon.”
“I can’t deal with this,” Judith muttered as she walked away, leaving her breakfast barely touched.
Carol glanced at Ellen, catching the frown on her face. “What?”
Ellen didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her face expressed her disbelief at Carol’s confession.
“I’ll apologize,” Carol grumbled, leaving her coffee and breakfast on the table, knowing both would be cold by the time she returned. She found Judith sitting and looking out the window as she’d been the day before. “I was trained how to protect myself, Mom. Tobias made sure—”
Sitting even taller, clearly readying for a fight, Judith snapped, “It’s a husband’s job to take care of his wife.”
“My husband did take care of me.” Carol kept her voice as measured as possible. The implication that Tobias did anything less spiked her defenses. She took a lot from her mother, but she wouldn’t tolerate attacks on her husband. “Part of which was making sure I could take care of myself.”
“By teaching you how to shoot a gun?”
“I learned how to shoot a gun after my husband died. We lived in a gated community, but I’m not foolish enough to think nothing bad could ever happen. A single woman living in a big house in a fancy neighborhood made me a target. Traveling alone makes me a target too. I’m aware of that, Mom. I took steps to protect myself. As for Tobias, he taught me how to beat the hell out of someone.” She grinned when Judith widened her eyes with shock once again. “You’ll be happy to know that when John showed up unannounced, I punched him so hard, I knocked him out.”
Judith smirked but forced the reaction away as if she refused to allow a moment of harmony between them. “Violence isn’t becoming of a lady, Carol.”
Sitting on the couch next to Judith, Carol chuckled. “No, but punching his smug face felt really good.” Her mom did smile then, and Carol rested her hand on Judith’s forearm. She hoped to put the conversation to rest. “I know you’re worried about my safety, and I appreciate that. But I can take care of myself. Being alone doesn’t scare me.”
“It never has. You’ve always been brave.”
Carol wasn’t sure how to respond. Compliments from her mother were as rare as Halley’s Comet. Thank you was on the tip of her tongue, ready to push through the shock.
“So much so, you bordered on foolish,” Judith added, squelching the moment of amazement.
Yep. That was the mom she knew.
“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” Carol said instead of engaging further. “I wanted you to know that I can keep myself safe.”
Judith gave her the same disbelieving frown Ellen had, and Carol had to consider if her motives had been as direct as she’d intended. She couldn’t deny their long history of poking each other for no reason other than to get a response. That was the pattern she was hoping to break. In order to do that, Carol had to acknowledge she was equally as guilty of starting fights as her mother. She’d learned that behavior from her mom, who had likely learned it from hers. This type of generational cycle wasn’t going to be easy for either of them to change.
Since Carol was the one who had decided to stop the cycle, she was going to have to be the one to step up and follow through. “I’m sorry I told you about my gun,” she said. “I know you don’t care for weapons. I apologize.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you please come finish your breakfast?”
Judith quirked a brow as her lips parted, looking shocked at the request. “Are you even the slightest bit concerned that I couldn’t sleep last night?”
“What do you want me to do, Mom?”
“Stay here. With us. Where it’s safe. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
Instead of reminding her mother she would be leaving soon, traveling and sleeping alone, Carol conceded. “Okay. If that will make you sleep better tonight, I will stay here. I’ll go over and pack a bag today.”
“Thank you.”
She gestured toward the kitchen. “Can we finish our breakfast now?”
Judith huffed melodramatically as she pushed herself up. Carol stood, too, but came face-to-face with her mom, who hadn’t taken a step. Clearly she wasn’t done yet.
“You get upset when I don’t worry about you,” Judith said, “and you get upset when I do. I can’t win with you, Carol. I never could.”
She opened her mouth but immediately clamped her jaw shut. Taking a moment to envision the delicate pink hyacinths Tobias had grown soothed her so she didn’t bark when she spoke. “I’m not upset. I told you I appreciate your concerns.”
Pressing her lips into a thin line, Judith shook her head ever so slightly. “I don’t know why you have to be so difficult.”
Carol bit the inside of her cheek before asking, “How am I being difficult?”
“I am concerned about you, and you are mocking me.”
Throwing her hands up, Carol said, “I’m not mocking you, Mom. I agreed to stay here, didn’t I?”
Judith waved as if batting the words away. “If you keep this up, you’re bound to get yourself into trouble.”
Carol rolled her eyes and silently cursed. “Would you like to tell me what this is really about? Because I’m having a hard time believing you are this upset about my sleeping arrangements.”
Several tense seconds passed before Judith stated, “I cannot understand why you went on a vacation with that man.”
Furrowing her brow, Carol gawked at her mother. “This is about John? Seriously?”
Anger sparked in Judith’s eyes. “After everything he did to you. To Katie.”
Despite her attempts to stay calm, Carol’s fuse was instantly lit. “That was twenty-four years ago.”
“Twenty-four years that you have been without your daughter.”
Carol’s heart thudded. The statement struck more than one chord in her chest. Not only the reminder of Katie’s loss, but the realization that before yesterday, she couldn’t remember the last time she and her mother had discussed anything about Katie. Not her death, or how much she was missed, or memories of the short life she’d lived.
If nothing else, that was a clear sign of how distant from each other they were. She talked about Katie all the time with Tobias’s family. Mary, his mother, considered herself Katie’s grandmother and brought her up often as if she’d known her, even though Katie was gone before Carol and Tobias met. Her in-laws had never known Katie, yet Carol felt more comfortable reminiscing with them than with her own mother.
Sadness washed over Carol. More than sadness. The feeling was closer to anguish. This was a recognition deep in her soul at
how disconnected she felt from her mother and that they may never have another chance to connect. Judith was in her midseventies. How much more time would they have to fix this? If not now, when?
This was the tipping point. Carol either played into their established cycle, or she broke it. Forcing her anger down, Carol counted to five. “Sit down,” she said with a level of softness she didn’t feel. She was met with her mother’s usual defiance. “Mom, please, sit down.”
Judith sat on the edge of a beige cushion but kept her eyes straight ahead, not willing to give an inch.
Carol eased down next to her. “I’m not going to ask you to forgive John. I’m not even going to ask you to understand why I did. You have every right to be angry at him.”
“Well, I’m glad you think so,” she snipped.
Biting back her response, Carol forced her voice to remain calm. “I forgave him because I had to find a way to forgive myself. Losing Katie was the most devastating thing I have ever been through. All of these years without her, and I’m just starting to heal. I’m starting to let go of the pain and anger. Do you have any idea how debilitating it is to carry that kind of guilt and grief for twenty-four years?” She scoffed as she shook her head. “I didn’t even realize how much it was weighing me down. John helped me face a lot of things I had ignored for too long.”
“Because he was acting as selfishly as he always had.”
“I agree with you, one hundred percent,” Carol said. “He showed up in my life without warning, without consideration for how I would feel about seeing him, and that was selfish. Believe me, I told him so. But he was right.” She looked at her mother, who appeared unmoved. “John was an idiot. He was self-centered and foolhardy, but he was right about a lot of things. He was smart and compassionate.”
Judith threw her hands up as she stood. “You sound as smitten now as you did then.”
“I’m not smitten with him, but I do see him differently now. After letting go of my hatred for him, I can allow myself to understand him better.”
“Understand what?” Judith eyed Carol with the kind of sympathy only a mother who had given up trying to get her child to see reason could. “That he was a monster?”
