Carly

by Lyn Cote

  “You know why I didn’t.” Leigh wouldn’t meet either Carly’s or Nate’s eyes.

  “Why?” Carly gripped the edge of the table.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Leigh said in a haunting, forlorn tone.

  Carly couldn’t believe her mother could say those words with a straight face. “Not hurt me?” Carly felt her throat closing up. “What is he? An axe murderer? Don’t you realize that not knowing . . . ?” Carly looked away, hiding the onrush of tears. “Who is my father? Why can’t I know about him?” She couldn’t go on.

  “Nate is your father. He’s the father who’s raised you,” Leigh insisted, sounding crushed yet defensive.

  “He’s not really my father,” Carly blurted out. “You wouldn’t let him adopt me.” Admitting this shook her, but it felt good to let those long-suppressed words out.

  “What do you mean?” Leigh swung around to face her. “I had a stepfather. He never adopted me, but I never felt he needed to.”

  “That’s you. It’s not me.” Then Carly wouldn’t look at either of them, fearing she’d gone too far. She hadn’t meant to put Nate on the spot. Maybe he hadn’t really wanted to adopt her. He might have just been being polite.

  Nate gently took her hand. “Sweetheart, you are my daughter. And if you’d just let me know that it bothered you that I didn’t adopt you, I would have. You know that, right?”

  Carly blinked away tears. How could she tell him that when she was ten and had overheard them discussing this, she couldn’t make herself say it? The yearning to belong to a father had been too deep, too crucial to be put into naked words.

  As he had many times in her childhood, Nate tugged her and she slid willingly onto his lap. “You’re my daughter, Carly. I still want to adopt you.” He kissed her hair. “I love you. Never doubt that.”

  As always, Nate sensed just what she needed. Grateful for his arms around her, Carly buried her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder, frightened by the force of her reaction to this long-awaited declaration. Her feelings at the moment were too intense to face alone. As he stroked her hair, she grappled with them, with her lack of control. The lid had been yanked off her deep well of concealed emotions. Pain, loss, uncertainty, rejection whirled inside her, dark and thorny, tearing at her confidence, her peace.

  She still couldn’t speak, so in reply to his offer of adoption, she finally nodded against him.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said quietly, touching Carly’s back. “I didn’t know it mattered that much to you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Carly lifted her head and faced her mother. “How could I tell you what was in my heart when you would never tell me the truth about myself? Who is my father? What is his name? Why did you break up with him? And—” Carly made herself ask the bedrock, most dangerous question. “Didn’t he ever want to see me, talk to me?”

  “I didn’t want him to talk to you.” Her mother stiffened. “Evidently you’ve made up some romantic image of him in your mind. By not letting him near you, I was protecting you.”

  “What was wrong with my father?” Carly held out both palms, pleading.

  Leigh turned her head and looked away out the small window. She shook her head.

  Instant, blazing anger consumed Carly. “What’s so wrong with my father? What did he do that was so bad that I couldn’t even meet him, know his name?” The molten lava of bitterness against her mother for keeping the truth from her overflowed its channel, spilling out into searing words. “How bad could he be? You liked him well enough to sleep with him.”

  Leigh slapped Carly’s face. And then she stalked from the room.

  Too shocked, too incensed for words, Carly clung to Nate, who rubbed her back and murmured soothingly to her.

  Ivy Manor, May 1990

  Tall oaks and maples shaded the summerhouse behind Carly’s great-grandmother’s ancestral home in the early evening. Being there gave her confidence. At Ivy Manor she was completely loved. Chloe didn’t dole out acceptance based on performance the way Leigh did.

  In her pale blue graduation dress, Carly sat in the white wicker rocker with the wide curved arms and pushed a bare toe against the floor. She closed her eyes and listened to the chatter of voices around her. The three older generations—the eldest, her frail, silver-haired great-grandmother Chloe and great-great-aunt Kitty, next her grandmother Bette, and then her mother Leigh—sat in a casual circle on venerable lawn furniture. Only Aunt Dory, her mother’s younger sister, was missing. And Carly—the fourth generation—was getting ready to explode the quiet tranquility.

  She opened her eyes. Across from her, on the love seat with dark green cushions, her mother looked cool and beautiful as usual. Leigh was wearing a stylish ivory linen suit. Nate sat beside her, his sport coat off and his tie loosened. All the other guests, extended family and friends, had left.

  Much earlier that day, in the last second before the guests had begun arriving, her mother had hissed that she forbade Carly to bring up the subject of the army. Carly hadn’t bothered to reply. Today, she would bring it up and hoped for support from her family. But whether she got support or not, she was going through with it. And they might as well all know that. She jittered with nerves, but she’d never felt more sure of a decision.

  “Well, Carly, all day people have asked you where you’re going to school this fall,” Chloe commented. She was wearing one of her vintage designer dresses. “But you kept saying you didn’t know. What aren’t you telling us?”

  Carly’s little half-brother Michael, in his rumpled dress shirt and slacks, slipped inside the summerhouse and climbed into her lap. He laid his head against her breast. “Rock me,” he murmured in a drowsy voice.

  Carly said, “Uh-huh.” She pushed her toe down again. The chair rocked back and forth. Michael made a sound of contentment.

  “Maybe Carly doesn’t want to go to college right away,” Bette commented. In a fashionable purple sundress, Bette sat on a white Adirondack chair next to the love seat. Her long silver and black hair was pulled into a stylish bun at the nape of her neck.

  “Why not?” Leigh snapped back, looking at Carly, daring her to bring up the currently forbidden topic. “Part of the reason she finished high school in three years was so she could get on with her life.”

  “Maybe she isn’t as driven as you are,” her stepfather said.

  A tense silence swelled among them.

  “This isn’t the time or place to discuss that,” Leigh said, her voice low as she gave Nate another warning glance.

  He snorted. “It’s never the time or place to discuss it.”

  “Nate,” Leigh warned him, sounding in earnest now.

  Wildfire blazed through Carly. She hated it when her mother bossed Nate around.

  “It’s a bad sign,” Chloe said in a mild tone without any reproof in it, “when a man and woman open up their disagreements in front of others.”

  “You couldn’t be more right,” Nate agreed. “But your granddaughter has become a dictator, and it’s nearly time for her overthrow.”

  “Me, the dictator?” Leigh shot back. “You’re the one who’s giving the orders, not me.”

  Michael burrowed more deeply into Carly’s arms. “Make them stop,” he whispered.

  Carly stroked his thick auburn hair, so like his father’s, and pressed her hand over his exposed ear. She didn’t want him to have to hear the coming explosion. She looked pointedly at her mother, a look that said, “Here goes.”

  “Carly—” Leigh started.

  Carly braced herself for her mother’s outrage and entered the fray. “I’m not going to college.”

  Leigh sat up straighter and sent Carly a more urgent warning glance.

  Carly lifted her chin as if to say, “I dare you, Mom.” Her stomach quivered in unpleasant anticipation of the tide of angry words that were about to be unleashed. Carly hated turmoil. Mother, I’ve always let you mow down my questions, but this is too important to me. You will n
ot get your way.

  “You are going to college,” Leigh insisted, moving forward on her chair, her face flushed.

  “No,” Carly said, proud of how cool her voice came out. She kept her hand over Michael’s ear and with the other, stroked his springy hair. “I’ve made other plans.”

  “What are those?” Chloe asked in a voice that bespoke only interest, but her gaze shifted back and forth between Carly and Leigh.

  Carly took a deep breath. She might as well jump headfirst into the deep end. “I’ve enlisted in the army.”

  Leigh made a sound like a woman being strangled.

  Carly watched her dispassionately, suddenly feeling removed from the scene. Nothing her mother said would deter her, touch her. Rant and rave all you want, Mom. But I’m going through with it.

  “Never,” Leigh announced. “Never.”

  “I’ve already filled out the papers. I report for boot camp in three days.”

  Leigh surged to her feet. “You’re only seventeen—a minor—and I told you I won’t sign for you.”

  Carly shrugged. “Then as I told you, I’ll just work some job till I’m eighteen next year. I’m not changing my mind.”

  “I absolutely forbid it,” Leigh declared.

  Kitty leaned forward and held out a restraining hand. “Foolish words, my dear. When did Bette’s forbidding you to do things ever stop you?”

  Chloe chuckled. “The apple never falls far from the tree.”

  Leigh glared at Chloe and Kitty. Carly watched her mother breathing hard and fast. She wondered where her own feeling of control, of calm, had come from.

  “And we aren’t asking the most important question, really,” Bette said, turning to her granddaughter.

  “And what’s that?” Leigh demanded.

  “Why does Carly want to enlist in the army?”

  “I would think it’s fairly obvious,” Leigh replied before Carly could. “She’s doing it because she knows it’s the last thing I want her to do.”

  Bette looked to Carly. “Is that why you want to enlist?”

  “No.” But the larger question, why the military attracted her, still stumped Carly. It was something she hadn’t been able to put into words. She’d never told anyone about the nightmares, afraid they would worry everyone. Then her parents might make her go back into counseling. But the day she’d spoken to the recruiter had been followed by two nightmare-free nights. “It’s the only thing that’s interested me,” Carly mumbled.

  “What about it interests you?” Bette probed.

  “Why are you even taking her seriously?” Leigh asked her mother.

  “Because when I was young, if I could have, I would have enlisted to fight Hitler.”

  “There is no Hitler in this world today,” Leigh declared.

  “Are you so sure of that?” Kitty asked.

  “What’s going on here?” Leigh demanded of her senior female relatives. “Why aren’t you telling Carly that this is ridiculous, out of the question?”

  “Maybe because,” Bette said, “Aunt Kitty’s right. In the sixties, whenever I forbad you to do something, you always did it anyway. Why do you think you have the right now to forbid your daughter to do anything?”

  “I was right to do what I did. The march on Washington and the 1968 convention were two of the most important events of the century. You shouldn’t have tried to keep me home.”

  “I was just trying to protect you,” Bette said.

  “And I’m just trying to protect Carly,” Leigh added.

  “I’d think you’d be pleased with Carly,” Nate put in. “Didn’t you write several articles about women in the military?”

  “That has nothing to do with this.” Leigh drew away from him as much as she could on the love seat.

  “That’s hypocritical, Mom,” Carly said dismissively, “and you know it.”

  “You are not going to enlist in the army until after you finish college. It makes no sense to go in as enlisted personnel.” Leigh looked ready to spit.

  Feeling her anger flare again, Carly stared at her mother, reaching down deep to come up with yet another cool, calm reply. She might as well speak the truth. “You can delay me, but you can’t stop me.”

  “Then at least I’ll delay you for a year and maybe you’ll come to your senses.”

  “If you won’t listen to the good advice your family’s just given you, I will. If Carly still wants me to,” Nate said with quiet authority, “I’ll adopt her and then I’ll sign her enlistment papers.”

  Carly gasped.

  Leigh gawked at Nate. “If you do that, knowing how I feel, I’ll file for divorce.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Carly closed her eyes. How did her mother always manage to make herself the center of attention? If you’re stupid enough to divorce a great guy like Nate, don’t try to blame it on me.

  “Have you lost your mind, Leigh?” Chloe’s voice sliced through the stunned silence. “Carlyles don’t announce ultimatums in public to their husbands, and we never argue in front of others.”

  “McCaslins don’t either,” Kitty added.

  “It’s time you sit down, Leigh,” Chloe ordered, “and get your emotions under control.”

  Opening her eyes, Carly noticed that her grandmother Bette had pursed her lips so tightly, they were white. Carly rocked Michael again, keeping her hand over his ear. He felt warm against her. Even though it was evening, the temperatures were still in the low eighties. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. Carly hoped he’d fallen asleep.

  Chloe nodded her head in the direction of Michael and gave Leigh a pointed look.

  Leigh sat back down. She looked shaken but unrepentant.

  Carly knew that her mother would bounce back quickly. And stonewalling was her favored tactic. Well, I can stonewall, too, Mom.

  “I don’t think it has escaped anyone’s notice,” Nate said in the uncomfortable quiet, “that Leigh and I are dealing with a stressful period in our marriage.”

  Leigh glanced at him sideways, but said nothing.

  “I think . . . I’ve told Leigh that she needs to cut back on the hours she devotes to her writing career.” He held up a hand to stop Leigh from breaking in. “We both need more time together and time with Michael. He’ll be getting into more activities like Little League and music lessons. We need to be available more. And I’ve already discussed adjusting my work schedule with my captain at the precinct.”

  “Before I met you, I worked full-time and I managed to find time to do things with Carly,” Leigh retorted. “I don’t—”

  “You didn’t manage to pick me up on time that night at the dance studio,” Carly said in a deceptively calm voice, referring to the life-changing event that had taken place seven years before. Inside, she shook with sudden emotion. She’d never voiced this accusation—though she’d wanted to for as along as she could remember.

  Obviously stunned and uneasy, everyone turned to look at Carly. She stared back at them, waiting for someone to react, waiting for her mother to react.

  “I can’t believe you’ve brought that up now. Don’t you know the guilt I carry because I wasn’t there to protect you?” Leigh finally replied, rising again. “Do you think you can browbeat me with my past mistakes and get your way?”

  “We’re getting far afield,” Bette said, motioning Leigh to sit down.

  Leigh complied but didn’t attempt to mask her irritation.

  “We were discussing why Carly wants to serve in the military.” Bette turned to Carly. “Why do you want to do this?”

  Carly still trembled, the aftereffect of finally voicing her deepest pain and grief. Stalling, she tucked Michael closer and chewed her lower lip. A gust of wind stirred the leaves of the tall trees. The sound reminded her of her vague but menacing shadowy nightmares. At last, she said, “I want to be on my own.”

  Bette nodded encouragement.

  Carly searched for words. She wanted to sound logical and in control. But she didn’
t completely understand yet what drew her to the army. How could she say, “It makes me feel stronger”? So she said, “I want to be part of a group.”

  “That makes sense,” Leigh said in derision. “Those are opposites.”

  Carly ignored her mother’s uncharacteristic dig. “I want to see if I have what it takes.” That final reason rocked her inside. She felt the old terror escalating, and she tamped it down. She faced bad dreams at night and sudden bursts of panic in daylight. At some level, she knew that to free herself, she must face and defeat her fears. Was that why she was enlisting? Was she testing herself, as she had in other ways in the past? Well, if that was her true reason, no one needed to know but her. “That’s about all I can put into words.”

  Leigh opened her mouth, but Bette spoke up first, her voice strengthening word by word. “I think each generation tries to protect the younger. And it never works. All it does is cause discord. Leigh, forbidding your daughter to start her life her way won’t deter her. It will only put up a wall between the two of you.”

  “Thank you, Bette,” Chloe said quietly. “Thank you.”

  Carly looked from face to face. She didn’t like the feeling of being the only one present who didn’t know what everyone was talking about or, rather, not talking about. Why were there always secrets? “What am I missing?”

  Bette faced her. “When your mother was your age, I did a lot of forbidding, and it had the effect I just mentioned. I don’t know if your enlisting in the army makes sense, but perhaps it’s something you need to do. I don’t know. I ran out of having all the answers several years ago.”

  Nate stood up. “Carly,” he murmured, “is Michael asleep?”

  She nodded. Michael’s body against her had finally taken on that sensation of boneless, complete relaxation that meant deep slumber.

  Nate scooped him gently from her arms. “Leigh, let’s take him up and put him to bed. Then we’re going to take a walk and do some talking. You’re not divorcing me, so get that out of your head.”

  Carly expected her mother to argue, but instead she trailed Nate out of the summerhouse with only a backward glance, one filled with anxiety.