by Dana Pratola
Suddenly disgusted with herself, she slumped in her seat, bracing her elbow on the door rest.
“I don’t mean to sound like I’m being tough on you, Winsome. It’s just…” Caleb started.
“It’s not you,” she answered.
“Look at me.”
She obeyed, and he divided his gaze between her and the empty road.
“I’m not ordinarily short-tempered,” he said.
“That’s not what your aunt told me,” she said with a quick smile, but immediately straightened her lips. Clearly, he was in no mood for humor.
“It’s just that every time I look at you, I remember why you’re here,” Caleb said. “Why you’re thanking me for basic items you didn’t have, because some asshole abused you—who, by the way, I’ll probably beat beyond recognition if I ever see him. I don’t want to think of that guy—any guy—hurting you.”
Winsome swallowed at the vehemence in his tone. Still, there was something about knowing he wanted to protect her that flooded her with warmth in spite of his articulation. She wanted to touch his arm, to let him know she understood and appreciated his protectiveness, and that it wasn’t necessary. Instead, she kept her hand lowered, not wanting the cast to catch his eye and serve as another reminder.
“So, don’t think about it. I don’t,” she lied. “Pretend I got banged up skiing.”
He scowled at her.
“Yeah. Or falling down a treacherous mountain path,” she said, smiling once again. “That’s it, I was hiking in the mountains and came across a bear cub. Her mother wasn’t far behind and she charged me—”
“Knock it off.”
His voice thundered through the car’s cabin causing Winsome to jolt and dig her fingertips into the door. Caleb made an annoyed sound in his throat.
“It’s not a made-up story, Winsome. You can’t just rewrite it and take out all the bad parts.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” she said, slamming her mouth shut behind the words. The voice sounded like hers, and held the same familiar warble, but this was tinged with anger, not like her at all.
“I don’t know that you do,” Caleb said. “You’re always trying to be so damned cheery, even when I see that you want to cry. It’s been driving me nuts all morning.”
“You don’t know me.” It was a weak defense, but the only one she had.
“You’re right, I don’t.”
He dropped the sentence there, leaving her to fill in the rest. “I don’t know if I want to.” Real and unsaid, or all in her imagination, the words hit her like a hammer in her chest.
“I get that you have no respect for me because I’m weak—”
Winsome rocked against him when he turned the wheel abruptly and pulled to the side of the road, the car’s tires spinning dirt and twigs into the air.
“Don’t you ever put those words in my mouth,” Caleb warned, keeping his face forward and his fingers in a white-knuckle grip around the wheel. “I don’t think you’re weak. I never said that, never even thought it, so do not accuse me of it.”
She nodded silently, then cleared her throat. “O—okay.”
He fired her a hot look and she nodded. She believed him, but his face, frozen in an angry mask, was still frightening.
“And understand that just because I’m pissed, I am not a threat to you,” he added.
He pulled back onto the road, remaining silent until they pulled up in front of the house a minute later. Caleb turned off the engine and turned in his seat to look at her, draping his left arm over the top of the steering wheel.
“Look, Winsome, I know I have no right to tell you how to cope with your feelings. I’m sorry.” He licked his lips and stared out the windshield for several seconds before looking at her again. “All that’s important is that you feel your own emotions and deal with them. In any way that works for you.”
“Your way is anger, obviously,” she said.
“A lot of good it does me.”
For a second he looked like he might crack a smile, but it never manifested. Instead, he got out of the car and opened the rear door and trunk.
“I’ll get these things, you go ahead inside,” he said.
The back door wasn’t locked, so Winsome went in and turned toward the kitchen, walking through the chilly hallway. A house this size and age had its share of drafts, and given her loss of weight and lack of proper exercise, she felt it more.
She hurried to the sink to fill the coffee pot and turn on the kettle, not knowing which Caleb would want. He would undoubtedly refuse her offer to put away the groceries, so the least she could do was make him something hot to drink. He came in with armfuls of brown paper bags, retrofitted with plastic bags over them, and set them on the table. As soon as she stepped toward them, he shook his head.
“Leave them be, I’ll be right in to put them away.”
“That’s just silly, I’m not an invalid.”
He shrugged and walked out, leaving her to decide her own actions. She didn’t know where anything went, so made her own arrangement as she transferred rice, soups, and pasta to the cabinets.
“Coffee or tea?” she asked, when he came back in with the rest of the bags.
“Whatever’s easier.”
“Got you there, I started both. Pick one,” she said, smugly.
“Coffee.”
She opened the five-pound bag of sugar and refilled the sugar bowl, bracing the bag between her arm and body and bending to the side to angle the bag.
“I got it,” she told Caleb when he moved to assist.
He worked with her, putting things away and fixing their drinks and when they were done, he signaled her with his chin, to sit. His brows were drawn down, his mouth held in a grim line as he took a seat.
“You’re not going to apologize again, are you?” she asked.
“Only if you thank me again.”
She smiled. He didn’t.
“I do want to talk to you,” he said. “I just want to explain why I got angry in the car. I think you have the right to know. You, of all people.”
“You don’t have t—”
He held a hand up to pause her. “Please. Let me.”
She nodded.
“My sister was murdered by a man she was seeing,” Caleb told her.
Winsome covered her mouth with her hand, and her breath backed up in her chest. There was that hammer again.
“He hit her all the time, but one night he beat her to death.”
“Oh, my God.”
Caleb snapped his gaze away for several moments, and when he returned it, it was turbulent, heated. “Witnesses who overheard said when he came home, she was apparently watching a TV show he didn’t want her watching.”
“How absolutely horrible!” But, was it so preposterous? Dante once punched her in the stomach—in public—for saying thank you to a man who’d held a door for her.
“Yeah. He beat her so often, the neighbors either ignored it after a while, or thought she had it coming, since she stayed,” Caleb said, icily.
Winsome lowered her head. She couldn’t help the flood of shame that rushed through her. In her head she knew it was misplaced, but God help her, it was there.
“I did, too,” he said. “At first.” He hung his head for a moment, then raised it and looked at her with sad, confused eyes. “She had plenty of opportunity to leave, so why didn’t she? And when she was out of the house, why didn’t she stay away? Why didn’t she call the police? Why didn’t she call her family? All the same things I’m sure you’ve heard.”
She met his gaze briefly, until he flicked it away, but not before she’d seen something in his eyes. The same guilt and shame that she shared. His hands were on the table, one fist wrapped around the other, his thumb scraping over his knuckle. His shoulders tensed into hard knots.
“I never saw her get angry. Not like she used to when we were kids,” he said. “She was brash and a little bit of a tomboy, but when she met him….”
/> He hung his head again, and she felt so bad. She already knew where he was heading. She’d been there, on the other side.
“She claimed he was the greatest thing ever. And he probably was, initially,” Caleb continued. “I was across the world then, in the service, but when I saw her when I could. She wasn’t the same. She was so defeated. Docile. I didn’t get it. But by the time me or Aunt Ruth knew for sure what was happening, she’d already been with him two years and by then she was just too broken to care, or act if she did.”
Winsome didn’t have family that would have cared, but if she did, she couldn’t imagine causing them the kind of pain and regret she saw on Caleb’s face. But she had to acknowledge that was just what she would have done. Had Dante not been arrested, she would be with him right now, probably sitting next to him on the couch or scrubbing the shower. He had OCD about the shower being spotless, for some reason. Thinking of it, she felt queasy, and sipped her tea.
“What happened to her killer?” she asked, after a moment.
Caleb’s eyes shot to hers. “Thank you for that. For not calling him her boyfriend.”
She gave him a nod, acknowledging that she understood men like that were not boyfriends, but abusers.
“The gutless bastard called the police and said he found Tiffany dead, and that as he was picking up the phone to call them, a guy attacked him, they fought, and he was shot—with his own gun, by the way—and the attacker got away.” Caleb smirked. “When he hung up, he shot himself in the leg to make it look legit. I’m sure he figured he’d get help in time, but he hit an artery and bled out before the ambulance got there. Idiot.”
“Good,” Winsome said. She meant it, with everything inside her.
They sat in mute agreement until Caleb flattened his palms on the table and sat up straight.
“I wanted you to know I get it. As much as I can,” he said. “And why it bothers me so much when you take the blame, or even part of it, on yourself. Those kinds of guys are animals—no,” he shook his head. “Animals don’t treat each other that way. They’re some kind of sub-human, slime sucking creatures that don’t have a right to live, let alone ruin others’ lives. I get it.”
“Thanks.” Winsome swallowed down a lump of emotion and brushed her thumb over the handle of her mug.
“I’m going to try not to bring it up again. Unless you come to me and tell me it’s something you want to talk about,” he added.
He looked like he hoped she wouldn’t, but she could hardly blame him. If she’d had any idea how closely her own abuse mirrored his sister’s, or how hard it must have been for him to be around her, she wouldn’t have come here. Watching her deal with the open emotional wounds was bad enough, but it must have been sheer torture for him to have seen her beaten black and blue, and broken, knowing now that more than once he must have envisioned Tiffany in her place.
She wondered how his aunt could have put him in this position. Was she more mentally diminished in her last days than Winsome wanted to believe? Or did she have ulterior motives? Maybe it was her plan to have him watching her heal, and hopefully have it become an avenue to bring healing to them both.
She splayed her fingers over her cast, and moved her arm as far below the table top as she could, trying unsuccessfully to cover the evidence. The reminder.
“Good to know. I don’t want to talk about it right now, maybe ever. But thanks,” Winsome said.
She couldn’t drag him into her pool of regret and self-derision over what she’d allowed to happen to her life. She sometimes felt she might spend the rest of her days mulling over the “if onlys,” “should haves,” and “could haves.” It was pointless, but how could she think back and not accept responsibility for the obvious and ever-present fact, if she’d only listened to people when they warned her he hit his last girlfriend, she wouldn’t be in this spot right now.
Caleb looked her in the eye. “Can I just ask one thing?”
“Sure.” It was one thing. How bad could it be?
“How long were you with him?”
“Almost a year.” She couldn’t believe it. “He didn’t start getting violent until about two months in. Looking back there were signs long before, but…. For one thing, I’d heard he hit his last girlfriend. He was so sweet to me, I just figured it was a lie or she’d really pushed him and things went too far.”
Caleb opened his mouth to speak.
“I know there’s never an excuse,” she interrupted, embarrassed that she could ever have rationalized Dante’s behavior. “Pretty soon he started asking why I didn’t return his messages fast enough, then why I didn’t answer the phone every time he called.” Even now her stomach started to feel queasy as the memories stirred up the habitual dread. “Then he was checking my phone and reading my messages, suggesting, at first, who I should talk to and who I should avoid. The snowball effect started getting out of hand and before long—a matter of weeks, really—I was isolated.”
Caleb nodded and got up from the table and went to a cabinet. “You want some?” he asked, holding up a bag of snack mix.
Apparently, he’d stay true to his word and not force her to talk about it. “No, thanks.”
She didn’t really like that brand, but the fact that he’d bought items to stock here, rather than in the home he shared with his girlfriend, meant he intended to come here often. The idea raised a peculiar bubble of happiness in her chest.
Which promptly burst when she remembered the g-word. Girlfriend.
Winsome’s heart executed a strange dip. She had to remember he wasn’t a free man. And even if he was, he wouldn’t be interested in her. They came from completely different worlds, him from this serene country atmosphere with a quaint farmhouse kitchen, charming décor, and established roots, while she had become a pro at moving from one dump to another by the time she was twelve, never staying in one place long enough to form strong ties with community.
From what she could gather from Finn, Caleb was a well-respected member of the community, active in some community events, like the Christmas toy and coat drives, and the group of volunteer workers who helped neighbors with little income repair and maintain their homes. He probably had a hundred friends.
She’d had a few good friends, too, though Dante had seen to it that they either fell away from neglect, or were shaken loose by his abusive behavior the few times they’d come around to see her. When Caleb went back to his normal life and she was on her feet again, one of the first things she would rectify was rekindling those lost relationships. But the future was uncertain and she didn’t want to get ahead of herself.
CHAPTER 9
Dee was cheating on him. With her friend Noreen’s husband, Mike. He might have suspected as much, if he’d been involved enough to scrutinize the relationship, but he hadn’t, and now he was packing his belongings into the same three tan duffels he’d used to move in just months earlier. He kind of felt bad that he didn’t feel bad. Other than a sprained ego. Mike was a handsome guy, Cal supposed, but a thinner, more squirrely type than he’d imagine Dee with.
At first, he’d been tempted to blame himself, thinking she might have turned to Mike simply because she felt neglected while Cal had been living this strange half-life, dividing his time between work, home, and Winsome. But that wasn’t it. If they’d had a good relationship, he would have made more of a point to be around. Not that that was an excuse for his behavior. He should have been honest with her every step of the way.
Looking back over their fight, and her rather startling confession that she’d been screwing Mike before he even moved in, it was no wonder their relationship wasn’t working. It never stood a chance. Plus, since the affair started while Aunt Ruth was still alive, and before he’d heard the name Woodbead, he couldn’t even give her leeway and presume she’d acted out of bitterness for his keeping the house, and Winsome, a secret.
His finally telling her those things had, in fact, become the catalyst for the fight that brought about her confession
. Now that it was out, and their relationship at an end, he could breathe a sigh of relief.
Oh well. It wasn’t meant to be. Dee was a nice person—or so he’d thought before finding out she cheated with her friend’s husband—but they were so different. He worked with his hands, was sweaty and hot and focused on work most of the day, while Dee was from an upper, upper middle-class background, an intellectual by nature. Her idea of hard work was rearranging her shoe closet. This split was definitely for the best, except for one thing. The only place he had to go was Aunt Ruth’s.
He eyed the house as he drove up, hoping Winsome was looking out to see it was him. The idea of her hearing an approaching car and being afraid, even for an instant, twisted his gut in knots. Relief—and he had to admit, pleasure—swept over him when he spotted her rocking gently in a white wicker chair on the porch, a book in her hand. He’d never met a person who read as much, including Aunt Ruth.
He exited the truck as Winsome bookmarked the page and set the book down.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Hey.” Nervous, he climbed the steps and sat on the painted wood of the porch, his back to her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, her voice tight, like she was braced for bad news.
“No, nothing wrong,” he assured her. “I just have a sort of dilemma I want to run by you.”
She didn’t hesitate to get up from her seat and come to sit beside him on his right. “A dilemma? You okay?”
“I broke up with my girlfriend,” he said.
She stretched her hand out and gripped his arm. “I’m so sorry, Caleb.”
He gazed into her deep brown eyes, finding all the compassion he could ask for, if he needed it. But he had to glance away. It was dangerous look too long into that well of sincere emotion, especially when it was undeserved.