by Karen Gordon
“My Mom is already talking about us getting married,” he chuckled a little, probably more from nerves than humor.
Carrie looked up at him with fear in her eyes, “I need time to think.”
“Me too.” “Will you,” Carrie wished she didn’t have to ask for his support, “Will you stay here with me tonight? I really don’t want to be alone.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he looked around the room as if he was hoping another bed would magically appear. It was clear he was afraid to touch her, as if she were contagious.
He did sleep with her that night and held her, but even lying next to him, Carrie could feel his distance. The next morning he went with her to tell her parents. At the last minute Maureen decided she and Jack would come too. Carrie welcomed all the reinforcements she could get.
♥ ♪ ♥ The scene was as bad as her worst nightmare. It was the first time his parents met hers, so there were pleasant introductions, then silence, and the awkward question that hung in the room; why was everyone there? Maureen, still thinking this was a blessed event, started things off, “Carrie has something to tell you?” Her voice bubbled with excitement.
“I’m, um,” Carrie looked down, “I’m pregnant,” she almost whispered.
“Oh, god, Carrie, how could you?” Lana left off the implied ‘Do this to me?’, but Carrie knew it was there.
Earl was just as supportive, “Figures.”
Maureen and Jack were dumbfounded. This was clearly not the response they expected.
“Nick will do the right thing. He’ll marry her,” Jack added in defense of his son’s character.
Carrie and Nick looked toward each other, fear bouncing between them.
“Well there goes any hope for a proper wedding.” Lana made sure everyone knew that her hopes were dashed.
Then there was silence, a lot of it. Sweet Maureen made an attempt to come to her rescue, “Carrie, honey, do you want to come home with us and spend a week or two?”
“I have to work.”
“I guess there goes your job too. How will you waitress if you’re pregnant?” Maureen still didn’t know that these were rhetorical questions, so she tried to answer, “I have pregnant women working at the resort all the time, right up ‘til the day they deliver.”
Before the tension could choke them, the Callahan’s made excuses about a long drive home and left. Carrie went up to her room. She needed to talk to MG. It was a toll call, but for once she didn’t care. Whether she married Nick or not, she was out of there. Maybe a nice big phone bill would be her parting gift.
♥ ♪ ♥ MG was shocked and a little less supportive than Carrie had hoped for. They had grown apart, especially in the past six months, when Carrie started dating Nick. Between spending so much time at the lake and her lack of a cell phone, Carrie hadn’t talked to MG since mid-summer. Evidently a lot had changed in MG’s life in that time too. She mentioned something about going to college and her real dad, but she didn’t want to share many details with Carrie. It was a stunted conversation that left Carrie feeling more alone than ever.
The best response she got was from some of her customers. From the perspective of an 80-year-old, all babies are blessings and things always work out somehow in the end.
Sissy was the hardest person to tell, at least in person. She cried, but also hugged Carrie and told her that she still wanted to be her friend, to be part of her life. She offered to be the one to write to Ben, but Carrie declined. She needed to do it herself.
So, now for the worst part, writing to Ben. She felt more nauseous than usual as she put pen to paper. It took her 11 tries, but she finally felt like she got it as close to right as possible.
Ben, Please don’t hate me. My life is a complete mess, and the only thing that can make it better right now would be to know that you don’t hate me for what I have to tell you.
I’m pregnant. I know your mom told you I have been dating. I was careless. I don’t know what else to say about how it happened.
I am about 2 months along so the babies will be born in July. Yes, that’s babies, as in twins. I just found out at my ultrasound this week. I’m probably going to live with his family. His name is Nick Callahan, and his family owns a little resort at the Lake of the Ozarks. They are really nice, loving people, and they are very happy about the babies. They also want Nick and me to get married.
I wanted us to be together with all of my heart and soul, but I guess fate was not on our side. You will always be my first love, and the person who taught me how to love. I hope you will also always be my friend, because I could really use one right now.
If you don’t write back to me, I’ll understand. I really screwed things up. I just hope that you can forgive me with time, and someday we can talk and be friends again.
I still love you. I always will.
Carrie
♥ ♪ ♥ Ben was supposed to meet, Theresa, the girl he had been dating at a café in town for dinner. But he got Carrie’s letter, and he just couldn’t face seeing anyone, especially another girl. So he went to the gym. And he put a scowl on his face so everyone would leave him alone.
FUCK! He slammed his fist into the weight bag. He spun around and kicked, then turned and kicked again, and again. He punched, and kicked, and pummeled the weight bag. Half the time he imagined he was kicking the shit out of this Nick guy, and half the time he was just trying to hurt himself. How could he have been so stupid? He told her to date. Did he really think that there was some sort of magic that would make it all work out in the end?
He had debated whether to try and get leave and go home when his mom’s letter arrived letting him know that Carrie was dating. He reasoned he would be an asshole if he kept popping back into her life, so he had his family visit him at Ft. Lewis instead. Now he was second guessing that move.
The (very) small voice of reason in the back of his mind said that he did still want to be her friend, he always would, but right now he was too full of pain to hear that voice. He couldn’t write her back yet. Maybe with time … maybe.
♥ ♪ ♥ On December 20, 2000, Carrie Gould married Nick Callahan. The ceremony was at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church with a reception following in the little restaurant at the resort. Maureen took Carrie shopping for a wedding dress, and she and Jack paid for it. In fact, they paid for the entire wedding. Carrie’s parents washed their hands of her … then decided to attend the wedding after all, at the last minute. Maureen was beyond gracious, changing plans left and right to include them in the event.
On the positive side, it was a really-packed, really-fun reception. Maureen followed all the traditions, and acted as if this was the exact way she wanted things all along. There was a multi-tiered cake, a photographer, and a small, Irish band composed of some of Jack’s fishing buddies.
Christopher danced the night away and had a great time. Lana complained to anyone who would listen about the use of paper plates, the decorations, and the food. Earl drank. Carrie looked at them and felt detached, as if they were someone else’s parents. Gina and her girlfriend came with Laura, Casey, Steve and Amanda. Her only friends in a sea of Callahan guests. Wayne and Pat refused to come out of loyalty to Ben. Their absence highlighted the pain she felt that this was clearly the end of her relationship with him. He never responded to her letter. She was stupid to think he could want to still be friends after this.
Their wedding night/honeymoon was at Tan-Tar-A, the big resort across the lake. They were polite to each other, and had what could only be described as obligatory sex that night. They were both still getting used to the idea that they were now a family.
The next day their transformation into full adulthood was completed when Maureen and Jack gave them their wedding gift, the resort. Jack gave an inspiring speech about how proud he was to pass on his legacy to his son, new daughter-in-law, and their coming grandchildren. He talked about how much faith he had in the young couple, that they would carry on, and keep up all the Callahan traditions, and pass it all on to t
heir children.
It a generous and heart-felt gift, but Carrie hoped that, at least for now, it was a symbolic gift only.
Chapter 29 Grace Maureen Callahan was in one pumpkin seat on the kitchen table and Benet Steven Callahan in the other next to her. Carrie alternated giving Gracie a spoonful of apples and Ben a spoonful of green beans. As always, Grace polished off her food in half the time it took Ben, and she was getting ready to loudly announce that she wanted more.
“Just cool your jets, sister. I’m working on it.” Carrie made a silly grimace face at her daughter as she opened another jar of baby food.
The twins were born a month and a half early in May, 2001. Since they were early, she and Nick hadn’t really discussed names yet. In a fit of post-delivery emotions Carrie thought of all the people she most wanted with her at that moment. Maureen was so touched by Gracie’s middle name that she let the rest of the names go with the simple explanation that they were members of Carrie’s family who meant a lot to her.
They were so tiny that it was scary to just hold them at first, but in the past four months they had grown considerably, and Carrie had grown more accustomed to them. It helped immensely that Maureen was there, helping her learn, giving her time to rest. It would have been even better if Nick looked like he wanted to join in too.
He was still adjusting to the idea that he was her husband, the father of two, and owner of a business. His sudden transition into all three roles had him confused, overwhelmed and pissed off most of the time. He tried to be calm around Carrie and spend time holding his kids, but his dad was putting more pressure on him every day to take on more of the responsibility of running the resort. All he wanted to do after work was take a few beers and go out on the lake, alone, to get away from it all. So most nights that’s what he did, then he would have dinner late, and go to sleep, before getting up to do it all again the next day. That was the other problem; all he and Carrie were doing was sleeping. They had only had sex once since the babies were born. One time in four months didn’t do much to boost his mood.
♥ ♪ ♥ It was a perfect fall morning. The leaves were just starting to turn and blow from the trees. It looked like kaleidoscope rain and Carrie thought about asking Maureen if she would watch the babies so she could go for a walk in the woods that afternoon. As always, the TV in the corner of the big kitchen was tuned to Good Morning America. Carrie looked up from stirring the jar of apples when Diane Sawyer announced that a plane had hit a skyscraper in Manhattan. How can you not see a building? It was hard to hear the report with Grace calling for more food and Mary preparing breakfast behind her. She watched the screen, and kept feeding the babies.
Later, she was burping Gracie and hopefully rocking her to sleep, when the TV caught her attention again. A second plane hit the building next to the first one. She froze. This was no accident. She rushed over to the TV and turned up the volume. As the reports came in, that the US was being attacked, a million scary thoughts went through her mind, but two were at the top … we would go to war, Ben would go to war … MG was in New York City. She picked up her son and hugged both of their namesakes close as planted herself in front of the big TV in the living room. She clung to them, and rocked them, but her attention was riveted to the screen. She didn’t know exactly where Ben was, or what his job was, but she was sure he would want to go wherever the fighting was going to be. This is what he had trained for, and it had all sounded so interesting in theory, but now, it was all too real.
How could she reach MG? She borrowed Maureen’s cell phone and tried the last number she had for MG. There was no answer. Gina called the resort, then Casey and Laura. No one knew how to reach MG. It was late afternoon, and Carrie was in a panic when Steve finally called and said he had talked to her. MG was away from the city, at school. She was safe. Her mother had been showing a property on the other side of Manhattan, or she would have been killed. The real estate office she worked out of was close to the towers, and it was demolished.
Sissy also called, but only to say that she didn’t expect to hear from Ben for a while, and that she would let Carrie know as soon as she knew anything.
♥ ♪ ♥ It started with briefing after briefing, as plans changed and everyone scrambled to react to the latest news, then there was debriefings after debriefings, as they sorted through tons of Intelligence to try to figure out what went wrong.
Ben didn’t get a chance to call home and check in with his mom till one week after it happened. He was frazzled and exhausted, but exhilarated. It looked like he would be working with a ground unit leaving for Afghanistan in late November.
This was what he had been training for his entire life. He would be in the thick of it, with a unit, providing Intelligence for their daily missions.
He also hadn’t been back to the apartment he shared with Theresa in over a week. He had left her a fast voice mail after three days, but that was all he had time for. He hated that he left her worried and pissed off through all of this, but she knew when they moved in together that this was a possibility.
This would be the end of them, and they both knew it. As long as he was at Ft. Lewis, she had held out hope that their moving in together was the next step toward a commitment, toward marriage. But there had been rumblings in the Intelligence world for the past year that things were heating up in the Middle East, and with deployment on the radar, Ben would not make that commitment. Now he was leaving.
It only took him a few days to pack. He had hardly unpacked into the apartment they had shared for a less than a year. Theresa made him promise to write, and he would try, but in his heart he knew it was over. He was back to his first love, the Army, which he had chosen over his one true love, Carrie. When he lost her, he had doubled his commitment to focusing on his career. Now it would become his entire world for as long as they would let him stay deployed. There was no better way to forget about the stupid mistake he’d made in letting her go.
Chapter 30
Sissy kept Carrie updated on Ben’s whereabouts, at least as much as she knew. He started out in some place called Camp Rhino, where all he could tell her was that they had no running water and no beds. After months there, he was moved to Shindand Air Base near the Iranian border. Again, he couldn’t say much, except the living conditions were better.
After 9-11 Carrie talked to MG more often. She was going to college in some dinky little town in upstate NY, and it was all being paid for by her real dad. She met him after researching online and finding out that he lived a couple of hours north of New York City. She said it was weird to see some of herself in this crazy, aging-hippy kind of dude. She definitely got her eyes from him and her chin from his mom. After he left St. Louis, and Amber and baby MG, he had been a roadie for a bunch of bands and traveled the world. Now he had a wife and two kids, and he liked to visit MG at school every month or so to try and get to know her. She also had a sort-of boyfriend, as she described him. She said they might be just friends, maybe more. To Carrie, it all sounded suspiciously like a replay of her and Steve.
♥ ♪ ♥ At the resort, tension had been brewing between Nick and Carrie for months, then everything came to a head the day of the twins’ first birthday. Maureen tried to keep it from happening, but they got into a screaming match that started in front of the 35 guests at the Callahan Twin’s First Birthday Party.
Nick contributed nothing but complaints during the planning. First it cost too much, then it was too small. In the end, he said it was a stupid idea because it wasn’t like they knew it was their birthday anyway.
He was miserable. He hated running the resort, especially with his father looking over his shoulder all the time. He didn’t feel like a dad. His mom and Carrie always had the kids, so he had no reason to hold them, or feed them, or play with them. And he sure as hell didn’t like being a husband. The fun, cute girl he married was always either tired, or angry, or crying. He wasn’t sure how things could change, but they sure as hell needed to.
He knew t
hat Carrie was miserable too. Despite how well she got along with his mom, there was still tension. They were together all day, every day, working and taking care of the babies. She never got time away from the resort or his family. Not that he was taking any vacations either, which was ironic, at a vacation resort.
He walked out on the party. He was too pissed off to go back in and pretend everything was great. He drove to his friend Matt’s house in St. Louis and crashed there for a few days. He needed some perspective, some ideas, something to make things better.
♥ ♪ ♥
Nick had been gone for three days, and Carrie still kept replaying their fight, trying to figure out if there was something else she could have said or done. His friend Matt called when he figured out that Nick hadn’t. He assured Carrie that Nick was OK, he just needed some time to think. He also assured her that Nick wanted things to work out between them.
Maybe it was time for his parents to give them some more space. Maureen and Jack had run the entire resort together when Nick was little. Carrie was sure they could do it too. Jack was already pushing to buy a new RV and do some traveling. Maybe if she talked to Maureen, she would be willing to go away for a week or two at least.
Carrie was completely unaware of everything happening on the driveway until one of the maids thought to run and get her. When she walked out of the office, Jack was bent over his wife, who had her head on the roof of the Sheriff’s car. Maureen appeared to be crying. Most of the staff was gathered around them.
“Are you Carrie Callahan?” The Sheriff asked as she approached.
“Yes.” No one would look at her. The Sherriff looked past her and kept his face officially detached from his words.
“Mrs. Callahan, I’m sorry to tell you, there’s been an accident.” Carrie felt the blood drain out of her face. She broke out into a cold sweat. Nick. It had to be Nick. That’s why Maureen’s crying.
She didn’t respond so he continued, “there was a two car collision on Highway K about two hours ago. Your husband was in one of the vehicles. There were no survivors.” His voice dropped off at the end of his last sentence.