A Million Reasons Why

by Jessica Strawser

  Our fun last night meant more to me than you can know. I’m still glad you invited me, even if I can’t stay. Even if I’m not sure we should try this again.

  I’m sorry.

  Sela

  * * *

  Caroline did not sleep. She went back downstairs, let herself into the conference room designated for prep, and boxed up everything left over for the sponsors. The overruns of the programs, the evergreen signage and branded table covers: All of it she sealed and labeled, numbly, methodically. She collected the rest for recycling and completed what she could of the checklist to square with the venue. Her staffers could handle the rest—simple cleanup, odds and ends. At dawn, she intercepted a hungover few in the coffee line, and they perked up at news of the unexpectedly easy morning, even if their expressions did fall somewhere between concerned and confused. It had to be obvious she’d been up all night: She looked down and found she was still wearing her clothes from the day before. Back in her room, she showered hot and fast and changed into jeans and a fitted button-down. When the manager came in for the day, she was waiting to hand over her exhibit hall keys and retrieve the deposit.

  For five hours, she wove from one side of the interstate to the next, eyes on the dotted line dividing them: the passing lane, the slow lane. The life she’d have chosen for herself and the one Mom chose for her. She didn’t stop, not for traffic or for a rest area.

  Not even to knock.

  Mom was in the sunroom, with a mug of coffee and a romance novel, of all things.

  “That’s rich,” Caroline said, nodding at the book. Mom jumped.

  “You scared me! You could have knocked.”

  She could have. But they’d never been that kind of family—knock to announce your arrival, maybe, but walk on in.

  Then again, she’d never understood what kind of family they’d really been.

  Without a word, Caroline flattened the ball of crushed paper she’d been clenching and handed it over. Watched as Mom grew pale.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Where do you think I got it?”

  “I can explain…”

  “Seems self-explanatory.” Caroline started to pace. After being confined for so long in the car, her legs had ideas of their own. “You knew where Rebecca was all along, and who she was with—who she was raising. Both of you hid it from Dad, and from Sela, and from me. With no regard to what it might cost any of us.”

  Mom looked horrified. “That isn’t true.”

  “You sabotaged me! When this little scheme with Rebecca wasn’t enough to completely ruin my plans, you cornered Keaton and made damn sure he wouldn’t take me along. And for what? Pure selfishness. What kind of mother sacrifices her daughter’s happiness to protect her own? I would never! Never!”

  “That wasn’t—” Tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t—”

  “You don’t get to explain. It makes no difference why you did this. Only that you did.”

  Mom got to her feet unsteadily. “You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not the only one,” she snapped. Then, seeing the stricken look on her mother’s face: “I used to beg you for a sister. Even when I should’ve outgrown it. I used to beg.”

  “You saw her again? In Tennessee.” She was a sheet of ice, frozen by fear. “So help me, Caroline. Tell me this isn’t about the kidney.”

  “This?” Caroline laughed mirthlessly. “It isn’t about the kidney.”

  “So we can at least agree that’s off the table?”

  “We didn’t even talk about it.”

  “How can you not? How can you talk about anything but that?”

  How hadn’t they? They’d been afraid. They’d thought they had more time. And Caroline had promised herself not to say or do anything, without Walt’s knowing, that she couldn’t take back.

  Right up until Sela handed over the emails and all bets were off.

  “I guess there’s more to her than being sick. Or maybe we were too busy trying to figure out why it wasn’t enough for you and Rebecca to screw each other over. You had to drag your daughters in.”

  Mom sucked in a loud breath. “This is not about some ideal of having a sister. This is a person with motives of her own, and I would caution you not to oversimplify.”

  “I’m not the one simplifying. You didn’t raise me to turn my back on someone I had the power to help without even thinking it through, without at least some basic fact-finding. Yet all I’ve heard from the rest of you is how scary it would be for you, how awkward for you, how unthinkable for you. And, yeah, how risky for me. But not once has anyone acknowledged the other side: that I could save someone’s life. You’re so focused on the implications to me and my family, you haven’t even acknowledged the person on the other end. Who, by the way, is my family too. But I’m simplifying?”

  Mom straightened. “I will not apologize for having your best interests at the front of my mind.”

  “Like you did when you wrote this email? And when that didn’t quite do it, moved on to plan B?” Silence. “I cannot believe you. I cannot believe the cruelest thing that was ever done to me was done by you.”

  “I didn’t mean it as cruel! It did work out in your best interest. Look around you!”

  “But it wasn’t based on—” Caroline caught herself. Nothing good would come from revealing something she’d regret. “You can’t brush off the principle of the thing. For better or worse with Dad, you chose him.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t choose Walt?”

  Sometimes she wondered if she’d kept the secret so well out of loyalty to Walt, out of respect to their pact, or out of shame. That someone might rightly say they’d given up on love.

  “I’m saying what you did impacted everything that came after. I’m saying I wouldn’t have ever been in the position to choose or not choose Walt if you hadn’t interfered.”

  Mom shook her head. “I hope you’re smart enough not to say any of that to him.”

  “He doesn’t need to hear me say it. He knows!”

  “You shouldn’t be talking to your husband about old loves. Knowing aside, there’s a reason it’s not done.”

  “I’m through taking your advice on what is and is not done.”

  “Caroline—”

  “Stay away from me. Do not call me, do not come by. Do not ask to see the kids.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “Would you rather I show these emails to Dad?” Silence. “Give me space. I mean it.”

  “Until when? When will you let me explain?”

  Maybe never, Caroline thought. She turned at the doorway.

  “When you’re ready to discuss my life without telling me how to live it.”

  30

  Sela

  “Sela!” She could hear Doug’s voice, muffled through the front door, which he’d been pounding on for the better part of a half hour. He’d stop for a while, and she could imagine him circling the perimeter of the house, looking for an unlocked door or window. Then the pounding would resume. Oscar kept running up to her bedside, whimpering, then back down to paw at the door frame. Brody hadn’t been feeling well, either, and she’d cranked up the white noise machine in his room to soothe him through a long nap—fortuitously, given this racket.

  She should have gotten herself one, too.

  Maybe a neighbor would see Doug prowling, fail to recognize him, and call the police. Anything to make him leave her alone.

  For days, he and Leigh had lobbied protest after protest. Maybe if we talked to Caroline … Maybe if she came and saw for herself what this is doing to you …

  They didn’t really know the details, though. It had been simpler just to tell them that Caroline was not receptive—that this was over. The cover story was no less true.

  Sela would not be swayed to reach out to her sister again—for any purpose. The most decisive thing about the visit, now that Sela was home, was what Caroline had left unsaid, alluded to perh
aps without even meaning to.

  That she found herself feeling lost enough to hide her actions because of Sela.

  That fear and conflict had driven fissures between not just Caroline and her parents but Walt, maybe even the kids on some subconscious level. Also because of Sela.

  That it was poor Brody who endeared Sela to Caroline, more than Sela herself.

  The mere mention of his name—think of Brody—made her heart sink at how spectacularly she’d botched things. It was bad enough that because Sela had let emotions get the better of her—breaking her self-made promise to keep her mouth shut, squandering her second chance—Caroline would now have to contend with a history of betrayals that no one could undo. That could only cause more hurt, more harm. And for what?

  She aimed her thoughts away from Doug’s pounding, indulging a little fantasy of rewinding to her first truly good moment with Caroline. The one that might have led to something better, if only her weaknesses hadn’t surfaced and ruined it all—once, and then all over again. Caroline across that table they’d shared in a hole-in-the-wall on a faraway afternoon. The smell of French fries and browned butter, the protective arms of the cozy booth, the novelty of acting normal for a few hours she could still kid herself wouldn’t make her sick. She floated on the stream of consciousness to other cozy booths for two, back when normal hadn’t been an act. Ecca’s face smiling at her over steaming stacks of silver dollar pancakes, or the summery scent of chicken clubs and iced teas, or the sunset celebration of enchiladas with no beans, extra rice. Always two of the same, she and Ecca. One would order, and the other would say, “Make that two,” not even looking at the menu.

  She and Caroline had gotten as far as buying those kitschy matching PJ pants, but she’d kid herself to think they symbolized anything other than a shared laugh at a tourist trap’s expense. No one was the same as Sela now—no one kept that easy, “make that two” company. Inside her memories, she minded less. She was finally free of the pounding—whether Doug had really stopped or her mind had simply carried her into this padded state of semi-consciousness, she didn’t care.

  She had to accept that she was too tired to care anymore.

  They all did.

  But then Doug was there, shaking her shoulder roughly, fearfully. “See!” Through half-open lids, she tried to focus—he stood next to her bed, leaning over her, eyes wide with concern. So blue, tinged with gray. She’d loved them once. She could have loved them still, if only.

  “What?” She managed to infuse the word with all the impatience she could muster.

  “Jesus, Sela, I had to drive all the way home and get my key. Why didn’t you answer?”

  She moved her lips, trying them out. Her mouth was so dry. She pulled the blankets tighter around her neck, not to warm her body but to mask it. It was hard to remember what she was even wearing underneath, but whatever it was, she’d had it on for days. “Maybe because I didn’t want to see you.”

  “Well, then you should have taken my calls.”

  “Or talk to you.”

  He sank onto the bed, in the empty spot beneath the bend in her knees. This had been his side. She’d switched when he left, though she couldn’t say why. “Sela. What did I do to make you shut me out this way? Leigh, too. She’s so beside herself, she’s texting the dreaded me.” An attempt to disarm her with levity. Transparent.

  “I just want to be alone.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a healthy idea.”

  She closed her eyes. Would it be overly cruel to remind him he was the one who’d left her alone?

  It was cruel to make her remind him.

  “Doug.” She peered out again through the narrowest slits she could manage. Her eyelashes cast blurry lines across his face. “I’m dying. How’s that for an unhealthy idea?”

  He leaned forward and clutched at her hand, clasping the clammy length of it unflinchingly between his warm palms. “So you’re on the list. No one is saying you’re dying.”

  “You’re just not listening.”

  “I listen plenty. So you’re approaching twenty percent kidney function. You don’t even need dialysis until you’re down to fifteen. You have time.” His eyes traveled the curl of her body beneath the blanket. “You might feel better on dialysis? This could actually be the worst of it.”

  Was there any pleasure to be gleaned in calculating where your rock bottom might be and how far off the mark you fell? She’d let him deal his own way, but he would not foist his methods upon her. She pulled her other hand from under the covers and placed it on top of the cocoon he’d made of his own.

  “I’m dying,” she said evenly. “Slowly, or not so slowly. Until and unless someone intervenes. Even then, what I get is a deadline extension. Don’t argue it’s better for me not to accept that.”

  “It’s better to accept what might be done about it. To talk to Caroline—”

  “Stop! With the pushing and the guilt and redemption and everything else!” She hadn’t known she had the outburst in her, and a geyser of surprised tears erupted on its heels. She curled tighter, pulling her hands away. But then she felt the shift of Doug hoisting himself higher on the mattress, followed by his arms around her, cradling her, the shush of his breath in her ear.

  “Okay,” he whispered over and over. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  This was bad. If he was hugging her this way, it was … worse than she’d thought.

  “I only want to help,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I always say the wrong thing.” Though she kept her face buried in the blanket, she nodded her agreement.

  “You do.” He managed a laugh, but it only made her tears start again.

  “It’s okay to be scared,” he said softly. His cheek was on hers now—close enough to kiss, if she turned—and his was wet, too. “I’m scared for you. For all of us.”

  She curled her fingers around the soft jersey of the sleeve cloaking his forearm. He didn’t belong to her anymore, but damn it, he was as close as she’d get to having anything like that again. She shifted closer, into his chest, breathed in that familiar scent of aftershave and lotion, trying not to think about how she must smell. The fibers of his shirt brushed her lips when she tried to whisper Thank you, but no sound came. She swallowed hard, trying again.

  “You’ll take good care of Brody for me, right?”

  He jerked back, alarmed, but she held tighter to his sleeve, pleading with her fingers. Doug had wanted to be a dad almost as badly as she’d wanted to be a mom—and the first moment he’d laid eyes on Brody, she’d seen what a natural he was. Sela knew it was insulting, broaching the subject this way—she didn’t blame him for recoiling. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been over it a million times before. Still. “I need to hear it,” she croaked.

  He pulled to sitting and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking shaken. He always did lose steam after he stormed out the gate.

  “We’ve been through this about Brody. Please, don’t start again. I thought you were past this.”

  She’d been on the brink of the exhale that came with a little reassurance. She’d even grown grateful for the welfare check, embarrassing as it was to require one. But this …

  “Past it?” Past her child? Past her illness? Past a future without her in it? How dare he? All the fury she’d been tamping down—not just at Doug but at everything—loaded itself in her throat and fired at her cowering target.

  “I’ll never be past it!” She scrambled out of the bed, away from him. Her stained T-shirt and stretched-out leggings hung around her, but she felt naked, exposed. “I don’t want to leave him. It’s not fair that I have to leave him.”

  She could see in Doug’s eyes that he’d detached—a familiar tactic to them both. There would be no more pulling her into his arms, shushing that things would be okay. He looked at her now with a coolness that was foil to the fire of their exchange.

  “Then fight,” he said flatly. “If we’re back on Brody, that’s the point, isn’t it? Or have you lost sigh
t of that too?”

  The question hit her like a slap. Since when had she needed the reminder?

  On cue came the faint sound of Brody calling from down the hall, stirring from his nap.

  Doug got to his feet. He didn’t offer to make her something to eat, or ask if she felt steady enough to shower, or if she needed anything from the store.

  He just followed the sound of Brody’s voice out of the room. She knew better than to hope he’d come back.

  31

  Caroline

  “Who are you here for?”

  One step past the initial phone call, and Caroline couldn’t even bide her time in the waiting room without someone asking. You’d think at a medical testing center, the desire for privacy would be implied. Then again, maybe something about her invited the question.

  Even Caroline wasn’t sure how she’d gotten here. One minute, she’d been facing off with Mom. The next, she’d been trying to figure how in the world she could go home to Walt without him looking at her and knowing, on sight, that whatever usually held her together had come apart. Where to start when she hadn’t even told him about seeing Sela again in the first place? How to explain the hurt of learning what Mom had taken from her without hurting him in the process? How to mask her remorse that what she’d told herself was restraint in her approach to Sela—I’ll ask later, or she’ll bring it up when she’s ready—now seemed like cold cowardice? She certainly hadn’t given Sela the impression that she could not be written off with a note, that Sela’s poor health was of grave concern to them both, that all the little signs she’d missed before—how Sela often rested a hand unconsciously in the middle-back realm of her kidneys, how she gazed at the nuclear families in the restaurant with the same overt longing she directed at the menu—had kept Caroline awake in their suite long after she’d shut the bedroom door between them.