A Million Reasons Why

by Jessica Strawser

  “Catch me up all the way. You did get through when you called Sela earlier?”

  “The call got through. Not so much me.”

  “I’m sure you caught her off guard.”

  “She was pretty firm about not wanting to even discuss it. I—it’s my fault. Every time we meet, it starts off well and then ends in disaster. Largely due to me reacting poorly.”

  “In your defense, there’s been a lot to react to.”

  “Yeah, well.” Caroline sighed. “I get that she doesn’t want to talk to me right now. But I have to talk to her. I need to better understand where she is with this and what her life is like and how she feels about the future before I can decide what I might be open to. I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start, but I need to start. I’ll drive myself crazy otherwise.”

  “But you’re not going without filling in Walt? On everything? Promise.”

  “Promise. His mom’s shuttling the kids to their after-school stuff now, then treating them to dinner—we have all evening to hash it out.”

  Caroline wouldn’t hit the road until morning. But one way or another, she would hit the road.

  “And what does he think he’s coming home to?”

  “An ordinary day.”

  Maureen put an arm around her. “Can’t remember the last time you had one of those.”

  “Well, some of that is my own fault too. Sela isn’t the only thing I’ve handled poorly.” There were few things Caroline hated more than breaking promises to herself. Especially ones she shouldn’t have made in the first place.

  “Repeat after me: I am doing the best I can with the information I have available at the time.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not. Either I’m torturing myself with information I didn’t have available at the time, or I’m proving myself just as bad by racking up my own list of secrets.”

  “Walt is going to understand.”

  “He’s going to be mad.”

  “Doesn’t mean he won’t understand.”

  They sat quietly for a few moments, lost in thought.

  “While I’m coming clean, do you think there’s any point in talking to Keaton too? Not about this, but how Mom cost me the job?”

  “Definitely not.”

  Caroline knew she was right. Still. “I have this irrational urge to set the record straight. All along, the story has been that I couldn’t lock down my opportunity, my end of our bargain, and then things fell apart. But I never actually failed at that, you know? Is it wrong to want him to think better of me?”

  “He doesn’t hold any of that against you. If anything he blames himself.”

  “Isn’t that all the more reason to tell him?”

  “I think it’s better for you both if you don’t. He just wants you to be happy.”

  Caroline narrowed her eyes, realizing.

  “How do you know who he blames? What he wants?”

  Mo looked away, but not fast enough.

  “Oh my God. You’ve been talking to Keat? Behind my back?”

  “Hey, don’t put it that way. Did you honestly think he was going to watch you run off to a family emergency and never follow up to see if everything was okay?”

  Caroline faltered. That was exactly what she’d thought.

  “I think he figured it’d be easier for all parties if he checked in through me. He still cares about you, more than he’d ever say out loud. But you have a lot to deal with right now, and he doesn’t know the half of it.” Mo squeezed her shoulder. “And neither does your husband.”

  “Neither does your husband what?”

  They both startled toward the voice. Walt stood in the kitchen doorway; they hadn’t heard him come in through the garage. Caroline saw his playful smile fall, his color drain. But he wasn’t looking at her—only past her.

  At the suitcase.

  * * *

  At the edge of the kitchen, Caroline and Walt sat together, alone, as they had the night this whole mess started. The night they perched on these same stools with the laptop and these same full wineglasses and puzzled out the beginnings of a truth that would make too many things ring false.

  “Feeling like you had to sneak around to see her is one thing. I admit I might have made you feel…” He shook his head. “But to come home, get tested, and keep that from me too?”

  The words themselves were angry, but the man behind them seemed too shocked to be properly mad. He’d listened in subdued silence while she laid down the weight she’d been carrying ever since the rainy night at soccer practice when she’d made the first phone call to the toll-free number. The rabbit hole internet research. The sisterly meet-up on the sly, and the unthinkable email exchange Sela had found. The falling-out with Mom afterward, the visit to the testing center, the talk with the altruistic Dr. Kay Adams while waiting there. The nagging conscience that refused to let her be.

  The test results marking her as a tissue match.

  “All I did was ask some questions and have blood drawn. I never set out to head down any kind of path without you.” The idea was hard for even Caroline to believe, now that she’d cataloged all her transgressions at once.

  “But you did. And I think it’s worth questioning why. Are you trying to do right by Sela, or are you trying to spite your mom? Because I have to say, it feels a little like you’re spiting me in the crossfire.”

  Beneath her, her knees actually jerked. “Has it occurred to you that you wouldn’t be anywhere near this crossfire if not for what Mom did?”

  “How could it not? Has it occurred to you that you might not have snowballed like this if Keaton weren’t involved?”

  “I only saw him the once. Which you knew about at the time.”

  “I’m not talking about seeing him. I’m talking about the idea of him. We promised to be honest with each other, Caroline. It was our deal.”

  He looked so sad, she had to fight the urge to cry. She had done this. She wasn’t the only one who could no longer keep Keat and Sela in separate camps. And for what? You shouldn’t be talking to your husband about old loves, Mom had warned. There’s a reason it’s not done. Caroline had shrugged it off with her usual ready excuse that she and Walt were different, and Hannah was certainly not one to talk. But why had it stayed with her, if not because it rang true?

  “And I wouldn’t be holding up my end,” he continued, “if I didn’t point out that every time you take a step toward Sela, there’s something emotionally charged with your parents to step away from. Your dad’s heart attack. Your mom’s double cross.”

  It was a fair point. Fairer, perhaps, before she’d gotten those test results. She’d moved beyond spite, but Walt was still catching up.

  “When in the last couple months has there not been drama with my parents?” she challenged. “Here’s what I know: Until now, the closest thing I’ve had to a sister is Mo. She rushed over here today because she knows she’s the only one here willing to acknowledge what being a sister means.” But as she said it, she realized maybe Mo was not the only one. Mom and even Rebecca had put enough stock in the power of sisterhood to keep it from her and Sela both, long before things got this far. “If you can’t buy into that, can you at least give me the benefit of the doubt? Trust that I know my heart and will do the right thing?”

  “Can you do the same for me?” He covered her hands with his. “I need to know this isn’t about anything other than you and Sela. I saw that suitcase and I thought…”

  He didn’t need to spell out his fear. She’d read it: in the way he’d eyed her, horror-struck, and made no move to intervene when Mo made her quick exit. Shame burned beneath her skin, but she didn’t want to think about what it meant that she’d so easily rattled him in a way that would have been unthinkable mere months ago.

  She turned her hands upward, into his grasp. “I swear, this isn’t about anything other than me and Sela. If it ever was, it’s not anymore.”

  She watched as he rolled it out of the way—the doubts
he’d held, the harsh words they’d exchanged. His relief was unmistakable, but brief. “Now you’re in this, though. You’re in it.” He looked more panicked than she’d felt in her lowest moments, and she might have wondered what she’d done to deserve someone who cared so deeply, had she not already damaged that bond.

  “Not irreversibly. The testing center assured me that even if I move ahead, I can stop the process anytime, for any reason. All Sela will be told is that I’m ‘medically ineligible.’”

  “That’s their policy. But can you honestly say it’s yours? You’d be able to do that when this is already eating at you enough to do—what you’ve done?”

  She couldn’t pretend he didn’t have her there.

  “All I wanted was for them to clear me. You wanted me to stop considering it. I thought if they ruled me out, I could. I didn’t count on this. But now that I’m here, the only thing I can think to do is go to her. Talk to Sela, see how I feel. Without the pressure of what everyone back home thinks.”

  She hadn’t realized how badly she needed him to understand this until she said it aloud. He spun his wineglass on the counter, the rotations as slow and careful as his words. “Don’t leave me back home, then. I want to go with you.”

  She thought of everything she’d already piled into her bag. Memories, offerings. It was already so heavy.

  “Walt, Sela is self-conscious as it is. Like I told you, I haven’t convinced her it’s a good idea for me to come. And the way you two left things—”

  “I’ll apologize. And I’ll do better this time. Now that I’m…” He searched the air for words. “Prepared.”

  She pictured the trip anew: Walt at her side as she rang Sela’s bell, made excuses for showing up unannounced, explained herself, waved hello to Brody at last. Walt following her in as Sela held open the door, reluctant but also—would she be?—secretly glad. Walt sitting between them as they did their best to pick up where they’d left off before things went awry, working their way up to the matter at hand. She shook her head.

  A text dinged into her phone, on the granite in front of her. Maureen:

  Feeling icky after running out that way. Thinking: Want me to come along?*

  Caroline flipped the phone over, screen down, even as it pinged again.

  “Look,” Walt said. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you on this before. I was upset with your parents for wishing this away, and I see now that I went and did the same thing. But if you’re really going to pursue this?” He leaned closer, forcing her to turn her full attention to his face. “I don’t want to get details this important secondhand. If there’s even a chance you’re going to do this, I’m going to be a part of it. We might as well start now. My folks can watch the kids.”

  “I don’t know if there is a chance—”

  “Your suitcase is packed.” He was only being matter-of-fact, but her eyes fell, chagrined, to their entwined limbs. “You’ve come this far alone. But you don’t have to be. I don’t want you to be.”

  She’d missed the warmth of this feeling: she and Walt, together, no matter the chaos around them. The crazier their lives got, three kids in, the nicer it was to have him as her port in the storm. Even if they hadn’t been shuttered against these particular winds.

  She flipped the phone faceup, to the new message from Maureen:

  *I know what you’re thinking. But just because I don’t have morals doesn’t mean I can’t offer moral support.

  Hiding a grin, she tapped out a reply.

  Thank you, love you, but I’m covered.*

  *Walt is coming too.

  34

  Sela

  Caroline had protested. “But Sela…” Then: the kind of long, weighty pause of disbelief that came in arguing a point that wasn’t yours to make. Of course you should want me to come, it said. In fact, why aren’t you begging me to come?

  “I wasn’t going to tell you like this, damn it.” Caroline’s long intake of breath was clear across the line. The exhale of words came all in a rush. “I’m a match. I mean, initially. We’d need more tests to really know. Before I consent to that, though, I need to—just let me—”

  Sela didn’t hear anything after that.

  Her own certainty was louder.

  Knowing what she did now, feeling as she did now … Caroline had to stay away. Face-to-face, Sela might not find the strength to say no.

  Even as Caroline saw for herself all the reasons Sela was unworthy of yes.

  35

  Caroline

  “That must be it.” Walt slowed the car as Caroline leaned across him, checking the number.

  Their GPS had led them to exactly the kind of house she’d pictured Sela in: big enough for a small family, but only just; unique enough for a creative soul, but not showily so. The roof sloped at artful angles, like a curtain pulling aside to reveal a swath of gray blue mountains in the distance. They pulled to a stop at the curb opposite the single-car driveway, which was occupied by a shiny blue SUV.

  “Have you thought about how to do this?” he asked, turning to her. “What to say?”

  Caroline wanted to laugh. Fine time to ask. As they’d passed the hours through Kentucky and across Tennessee, they’d kept mostly quiet. It was the kind of windy day that comes along at some unwelcome point late every autumn and wipes the trees clean, stripping the colorful canopy to reveal the skeletal trellis of branches beneath. There was something entrancing about the dried leaves swirling across the highway, and they watched them in pseudo-companionable silence, occasionally breaking it to wonder aloud how many more exits until the next decent coffee or which of Kentucky’s advertised historic sites they should someday stop to see.

  Caroline supposed she’d been trying to behave as if Sela were expecting them.

  Why, she couldn’t say. They both knew she was not.

  “Better not to overthink it,” she said, clicking her seat belt free, and they stepped out onto the pavement, pausing to stretch their legs. As they started across the street, the front door opened—but the woman who emerged was not Sela. The rounder, darker-haired figure slipped out and pulled the knob quickly behind her in the manner of someone trying to contain something wily inside. Sela had that beautiful dog, Caroline remembered, with the curmudgeonly name. Eeyore? The woman looked preoccupied with worry as she started down the walk, hugging a thick, knee-length cardigan around her. Caroline reached for Walt’s hand as they stepped aside, waiting for her to pass. But when those dark eyes lifted and registered their presence at last, she didn’t walk congenially by—didn’t return Caroline’s reflexive smile.

  Instead, she stopped short and stared.

  “Are you … Caroline?”

  Caroline exchanged a surprised glance with Walt.

  “I am.” She kept her voice pleasant, with a good-natured twinge of guilty as charged. Sela had mentioned a best friend, newly pregnant with her third. Any advice for her on number three? she’d asked Caroline. And Caroline had joked, To schedule her husband’s vasectomy as soon as they reach their deductible.

  Her eyes bounced over the woman’s soft stomach. Could be her.

  “You’re here.” The woman said this as if it were a miraculous relief. A lost purse recovered. A stalled car starting right up with the turn of a key.

  Caroline smiled again, less certainly this time. Walt surveyed the woman with something like suspicion but extended a hand.

  “I’m Caroline’s husband, Walt.” Her handshake was slow, full of wonder, as if he’d introduced himself as Bruce Wayne. “And you are?”

  She blinked quickly a few times, coming to. “Sela’s best friend,” she said. “Leigh.” She looked nervously over her shoulder at the house, then back at them. “I recognized you from your picture. Listen, this is going to seem strange, but I’m wondering if I could speak with you. Before she knows you’re here?”

  “Oh.” Caroline tried not to sound put off. “Well, we’ve driven a long way—”

  “What about?” Walt cut in. But Leigh
didn’t even look at him. She was homed in on Caroline.

  “I don’t want to seem underhanded. But I’m worried about her, and you might be able to shed some light.” Her eyes did flick to Walt’s then, only for a second. “Also, there are some things you should probably know.”

  “Maybe tomorrow we could all talk,” Caroline offered. She wouldn’t jump to Leigh’s word, underhanded, but it didn’t feel right, talking behind Sela’s back. Or, rather, right in front of it. “I’m glad she has you looking out for her,” she added, hoping to appease. But Leigh didn’t make a move to let them through. It started to seem a little forceful, the way she was blocking their path.

  “Ever since that trip to Cincinnati, she’s been … off. Worse.” Leigh’s tone wasn’t accusatory, but Caroline felt her face flush.

  “We didn’t know at first, about her diet restrictions, her condition.” But as she explained, what Leigh had said sank in. Not that Sela came back worse. That she was still worse. “Is she not okay?”

  “Well. I don’t know.”

  Walt’s hands went to his hips. Leigh had, after all, come from inside. “Isn’t she home?”

  “Yes, but she…” Leigh let the words trail into a sigh, then started again. “I’m here because I got a call from a nurse, Janie, who’s taken Sela under her wing. Or is trying to. She said Sela’s stopped coming to her appointments. Stopped answering their calls.” Caroline blinked at her. “I’m down as her second emergency contact,” Leigh explained. “Janie wasn’t too keen on calling Doug.” She let a smile escape, and Caroline softened. How easy, how ordinary, to unite against the most common of enemies: the inconsiderate ex.

  “Did Janie say what’s going on?”

  Leigh shook her head. “Privacy laws. But she wanted me to check on Sela, see if I could nudge her. Seemed like she was stepping outside the lines by calling, so I’m guessing she’d have to be pretty concerned to do that.”

  “You just checked on her, then,” Walt prodded. “And?”