by Marci Bolden
“It was an accident.”
“Oh God.” Her shoulders rocked as a sob pushed its way up her throat. Her chest grew tight and her gut rolled, her breakfast tried to evacuate as she struggled to unbuckle and open the door at the same time. She landed on her feet outside the RV as she lost control of her stomach.
Five
Thick silence filled the RV. John started to speak—no doubt to reassure her once again that Katie’s death was an accident, and no one was to blame—but she lifted her hand.
“Don’t talk to me right now,” she said before swishing water around her mouth and spitting out the window. Before she even pulled the RV back onto the road, he’d climbed from his seat and disappeared into bed.
Carol didn’t care how much pain John was in. They had reservations outside Grand Canyon National Park, and she wasn’t going to miss checking in. She had an agenda. He had pills and a place to rest. She couldn’t do any more for him than that. All she could do was drive as fast as possible to put an end to this hell. Two days down, ten to go.
She didn’t hear any sounds from the back until the alarm on his watch beeped and he shuffled around to get his pills. That was good. That was perfect. She could get through this trip if he’d give her some damn space. She would have loved to drive forever without stopping, but they were getting low on gas. Pulling off an hour into Arizona, she found a gas station and parked in front of the pumps.
“Bathroom break.” She looked in the rearview mirror when he didn’t respond. “John?”
She released her seatbelt and spun her chair to go to the back. Leaning over the lump on the bed, she called out to him again. “Hey. I’m getting gas. Do you need anything?”
When he didn’t respond, she shook him gently. Nothing.
“Shit,” she muttered as she climbed onto the bed and pressed her fingers against his neck. She closed her eyes at the feel of his carotid artery thumping against her fingertips. Confirming he was alive brought more peace of mind than she would have ever expected given their latest exchange of angry words. She exhaled, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. Until that moment, the reality that he could die in her RV hadn’t sunk in. Panic rushed through her veins, making her stomach knot and her heart pick up the pace.
Pulling back the blanket, she gave him several nudges until he came to.
He blinked a few times, looking as if he didn’t understand where he was. “Caroline?”
“I need to pump gas. You should get up and stretch. Use the bathroom.”
He licked his lips. “Yeah. Okay.”
She hesitated before leaving him. Opening the side door and feeling the dry heat envelop her face was a relief. The mood inside had been tense for too long and was becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate. Leaning against the RV after starting the pump, she relived the moment of fear that he’d passed away while she’d been cursing his very existence from the driver’s seat.
Funny how easily they had fallen back into the old habits. Five minutes of being able to tolerate each other followed by hours of anger and bickering. They’d been stuck in that vicious cycle for years before she’d left. Sometimes it seemed they didn’t know how to communicate without fighting.
She had a million memories to support her theory.
Family gatherings were rare occasions, but Katie’s sixth birthday had brought both sets of grandparents calling. Caroline’s dad, who avoided any family event where John was present, sat in the shade watching smoke roll from the grill.
Caroline stood by the pool while John tossed Katie over and over into the water. He never seemed to tire. He probably liked splashing in the pool more than Katie. He’d gotten a deep tan already. The pale skin Katie had inherited from Caroline was covered in about a hundred new freckles. Her sandy-brown hair was lightening from endless hours in the sunshine.
A familiar hint of mischief shone in John’s eyes as he tossed Katie closer to the edge of the pool. Caroline squealed when the water splashed her. Katie resurfaced, laughing as much as her daddy.
“Not nice,” Caroline insisted.
“If she didn’t like that,” John said to Katie, “she’s going to hate this.”
“Don’t,” Caroline warned, but he swiped his arms across the surface to send a surge of water toward her. Resting his arms on the edge, he jerked his head back, indicating that he wanted her to come closer. She hesitated, but the sweet smile on his face lured her in. “You’re such a jerk, John Bowman.”
“You love that about me, Caroline Bowman.” He looked around the yard. “Nice, huh? Having the family together like this?”
“Yeah, it is.” She kept her gaze on Katie, who was doing her best to float on her back the way John had taught her. When he distracted her with a sweet kiss, Caroline narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I kiss my wife?”
“You can, but I know you. This is leading up to you asking me for something.”
Looking over his shoulder, he watched Katie take a deep breath before going under. “Can you believe our little girl is six years old?”
“Six going on thirty.”
“It’s time. Don’t you think?” he asked, returning his attention to Caroline.
“Time for what?”
“To have another one.”
She jolted, surprised by his suggestion. Less than a month ago, she and John had sat at the table and had a heart-to-heart. She was ready to call it quits—for about the thousandth time—but she wanted to give him one more chance to be the husband and father she knew he could be. Not only had he agreed to cut back on his drinking, but he’d actually encouraged her to pursue a medical degree.
“We talked about this. She’s going to start school full-time this year.”
“I know. I can’t believe it.”
“We agreed when Katie started school full-time, so would I.”
“Come on. That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before this… Before we were reminded what it’s like to be a family. I don’t want to wait another four years before having another baby. Let’s do it now. You can always go back to school, Caroline, but you can’t always have kids.”
Damn it.
Once again, he’d only told her what she wanted to hear but never had any intention of standing by his words. Once again, he’d lied to appease her. Once again, she’d bought it.
“No.”
He creased his brow, as if he’d never heard the word before. “What?”
“No, John. I’m going back to school. Like we’d planned.”
He stared at her. “Why isn’t what we have ever enough for you?”
Before she could retort, he swam away.
“You and Daddy fighting again?” Katie asked slightly above a whisper. The fun that had been like an aura around her all day had dimmed and sadness seemed to replace it.
Caroline hadn’t realized how close Katie had gotten. Forcing a smile, she lied. “No, sweetie. No. Daddy’s ready for cake. You ready for cake?”
Her face lit up and her happy aura returned. “Yay! Cake, everybody!”
Caroline made her way to the ladder and waited for Katie to climb out of the pool. She wrapped a towel around Katie’s shoulders as the girl stuffed her wet, bare feet into her red boots. Caroline steered her toward her grandparents before going to find John to tell him to get over himself. Caroline’s mom started pushing candles into the pink icing, but stopped long enough to cast her daughter a disapproving glance.
Caroline ignored the silent judgment. Her parents had never approved of John. They merely tolerated him for Katie’s sake. She didn’t blame them for that any longer. Some days she thought she merely tolerated him for Katie’s sake as well.
Caroline followed John’s wet footprints inside the house, easing the door shut behind her despite her urge to slam it. “No,” she said, before the door was even closed all the way. “Put it away. John, put it away.”
Sneering, he cracked open a bee
r.
“You are not drinking at Katie’s birthday party.”
She marched across the living room toward him as he started to chug the drink. Smacking the can, she glared as cold beer spilled down his chest.
“Goddamn it.”
“You are not drinking at Katie’s party.”
Spinning, he threw the half-empty can across the room. Foam exploded as the beer hit the wall. Turning, he glowered at her until the sound of sniffing broke the tension.
Caroline faced the door where Katie stood with tears in her eyes and her chin quivering. Her heart plummeted to her stomach as she rushed to her daughter. Dropping to her knees in front of Katie, she put her hands on her cheeks. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Don’t cry.”
“You said you weren’t fighting.”
Caroline brushed her hand over Katie’s hair and kissed her cheek, warm from the sun. “We’re talking, kitty cat. That’s all.”
“You’re lying, Mama.”
Guilt burned through her veins. She was lying. She was always lying. About everything. Katie was far too smart to keep believing Caroline, just like Caroline was too smart to keep falling for John’s lies. She couldn’t fool herself, or Katie, any longer.
“Come here, baby girl.” John swooped in to play hero, as he always did. Lifting Katie into his arms, he kissed her several times and hugged her close. “Sometimes Mommy and Daddy get upset, and we forget to use our inside voices. That’s all.”
“You threw your drink.”
“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry.” He pulled Caroline to her feet and into the hug with Katie, making a show of kissing her, too. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I was wrong to throw my drink.”
Caroline forced a smile. “I know. It’s okay. We’re all okay, Katie.”
Katie put one arm around each of her parents and squeezed. “Promise me. No more fighting.”
“No more fighting,” John whispered.
“No more fighting,” Caroline agreed, though she knew, like John, she was making empty promises to appease her daughter.
Carol blinked away the memory as the gas pump kicked off. After putting the nozzle back, she walked into the convenience store and used the restroom. John was filling a cup of coffee when she emerged. She joined him in the corner, intent on filling her own cup when he lifted one to her.
“Got it.”
“Thanks.”
She gathered her drink and a few snacks and headed to the cash register. John told the cashier to add her items to his, and she didn’t argue. They’d argued enough already that a few dollars for honey-roasted nuts and a drink wasn’t worth the effort. When they got back to the RV, he sat in the passenger seat instead of going to the back. She buckled her seatbelt and reached for the ignition, then dropped her hand as the need to confess a long-held secret became overwhelming.
“Our first date,” she said.
He looked at her, brow creased in confusion. “What?”
“One of my favorite memories, not only of you, but of my life, was our first date. You walked into the coffee shop with a handful of wildflowers. It was obvious you’d picked them from the side of the road, but you denied it.”
“I was a rookie cop. I couldn’t afford flowers, but what kind of chump shows up empty-handed on the first date?”
Smiling, she continued, “You drove us to Possum Creek and spread out a blanket so we could have a picnic. We talked for hours.”
“You broke the dorm’s curfew and had to sneak in through a window.”
“No one had ever made me feel as…interesting as you did that night.”
“Well, you were interesting.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Her smile faded. “I was invisible, and I liked it that way. It was easier, you know. I didn’t disappoint people or make waves that way. You listened, and you asked questions, and you actually saw me. You were the first person who ever saw me, John.”
“Tobias saw you.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, he did. But you were the first.” Rolling her head to look at him, she ignored the pain hearing her husband’s name brought. “We did have good times. I know we did. It’s easier to hate you if I hold on to the bad ones.”
He paid far more attention than necessary to flipping open the top on his coffee. “I gave you plenty of those, didn’t I? I regret that. Of all the things I regret, one of the biggest is that I wasn’t a better husband to you. I always put myself first and that was wrong. I should have been more supportive of your dreams. After you left, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I wasn’t, and I think…I think I was scared you were going to wake up one day and realize you could do a million times better than me. You deserved a million times better than me. Somebody who could buy you things and take you places. Somebody like Tobias.”
“I never wanted things, John. I tried to tell you that many times. I wanted you to stop drinking and start showing up when you were supposed to. That’s all I wanted.”
“I see that now. I didn’t then. I do now, though. I wish to God I’d understood that back then.”
“Me too.” She started the ignition but didn’t shift into gear. “I thought you were dead.”
“Well, I came close a few times, but I managed to pull myself together.”
“No. When I went back to wake you up. You didn’t answer me. I had this flash of fear that you were dead.”
The tension between them escalated again, but with a different underlying feel. Instead of years of anger feeding the stress, the knowledge that he was, in fact, going to die, sooner rather than later, hung over them.
She gave him a weak smile, hoping to break the bleak mood. “The thought of you haunting my RV is too much to bear.”
“Oh, I would, too.” The familiar light of mischief found his eyes. “I’d rearrange the pantry so the cans of veggies are out of order and fold all your towels wrong.”
She reached for the gearshift. “That’s cruel, John. Buckle up, please. We don’t need the odds of you dying on my watch any higher than they already are.”
The next stretch of silence that fell between them was companionable. The smooth sound of the Moody Blues filtered from the speakers, loud enough to block out the road noise, but not deafening. Realizing that John wasn’t occasionally humming or singing along, she glanced over. His head was back, his mouth open, and his eyes closed. He snorted before she had a chance to once again fear he wasn’t breathing.
She chuckled to herself, thinking of the many times she’d found him like that. Her smile faded, though, as she remembered most of those times were because of the alcohol he’d consumed. Giving her head a hard shake, she dislodged the thought. She did not want to keep dwelling on offenses long past. It was time to start working on letting them go. No matter how difficult that might be.
Splashes from the pool at the RV park pulled Carol from the report she’d been reading on her laptop. The constant yelling set her on edge. Though she had never been one to swim, she understood the attraction. Katie had loved to swim. However, there was no lifeguard on duty and the parents weren’t paying enough attention. Didn’t they know how easy it was to lose a child? Didn’t they know how they would never find peace again if anything ever happened to their kid?
Once again trying to tune out the sounds, she stared at her screen. She could block out office chatter, Tobias watching a game, she’d even once blocked out the noise of a Fleetwood Mac concert to answer several urgent e-mails. The one thing she couldn’t block out was the sound of children playing. Every squeal of happiness felt like nails raking over her skin. She’d asked for another spot, but the park was full.
“Put that away,” John said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
She didn’t need more prompting than that. She closed her laptop and carried it into the motorhome. She joined him and they walked in silence until he heaved a sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Can I ask you something that’s been bugging me?” he asked.
She felt her stomach do
a flip-flop, not certain what to expect. “You can ask. I don’t promise I’ll answer.”
“You were determined to be a pediatrician. What happened?”
She gave a polite nod to a couple walking a dog down the gravel road. John waved and wished them a good evening as Carol considered how to answer his question. They’d moved away from the screaming children, and the park was quiet. People sat at picnic tables eating, playing cards, or talking. The peace of being surrounded by nature fell over her as she inhaled the dry air deep into her lungs.
“After I left you that night,” she said, “I stopped at the hospital to quit. One of the doctors asked where I was going. I told him I didn’t know. He had transferred from St. Louis and still owned a house there. He said I could rent it, and offered to put in a good word for me at the hospital where he’d worked. When I got to Missouri, I had a new life waiting for me. It should have been easy to start over. My very first patient was a little girl, a year or so younger than Katie. I froze. I couldn’t move. All I could do was stand there looking at her thinking about how… Thinking that I hadn’t been able to save my little girl, what right did I have to try to save someone else’s? I went straight to the head nurse and told her I had to quit and why. She moved me from pediatrics to another area in the hospital.” Scanning the horizon, she tried to focus on the present, but her mind’s eye was stuck in the past. “I couldn’t work with kids anymore, but I wasn’t great working with other patients, either. I was angry and short-tempered. Not great qualities in a nurse. I pushed through it while I went back to school, but I knew I couldn’t be a pediatrician anymore. I got my degree in medical science instead. Tobias pushed me to get my doctorate. He said even if the area of study had changed, the end goal shouldn’t.”
“Doctor Caroline Bowman,” John said with pride.
“Doctor Carol Denman,” she corrected. “It wasn’t the path that I’d always imagined, but I get to help people even if I’m not working directly with them. You might snub your nose at pharmaceutical companies, but my job is important. Without my work, millions of people wouldn’t have the medications that keep them alive.” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder. “Or help manage their pain.”