Seeking Carolina (Bitterly Suite Book 1)

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  “If she notices, I’ll tell her I took them,” Emma answered. “It was very nice having you with us today, Charlotte.”

  “I like being here. I felt like a little sister for a change, instead of the oldest.”

  “I can imagine it’s a welcome switch once in a while.”

  “You ready, Char?” Johanna asked. “Your dad’s going to be waiting.”

  “Sure. Thanks again, Emma. I said good-bye to Nina, but could you hit Julietta up when she comes in? I don’t want to pull her from Efan and the boys.”

  They all looked out the window to the two adults and three little boys rolling a colossal snowman. In the gloaming, magenta clouds scuttled. The perfect Christmas card, right there on the lawn, but it wasn’t anything near the truth.

  Holiday images, like those made-for-TV movies, were shallow. Lifelong sorrows fixed in two hours, complete with uplifting music and images like the one out the window right now. They never showed the next day, when the outcast girl melted down, scaring off her perfect new boyfriend, because her grandmother’s sneakers weren’t in the place they’ve always been. Those movies didn’t show the troubled marriage rolling into oblivion, or the successful power-couple silently filling the holes left by things money could not buy. Or the prodigal daughter coming home to realize being with the love of her life meant making sacrifices she wasn’t sure she could make.

  Johanna caught her breath, held it. She waved to her sister, hurried outside, unable to let go that breath until she was in the car, fumbling with the key in the ignition.

  Thankfully, Charlotte was young and oblivious. She chattered about the marvelous day she had, of Naughty Scrabble that she was definitely playing with her suite-mates, and how ridiculously gorgeous Gunner and Nina were.

  “Whew. She really isn’t here.”

  They sat in the driveway, engine idling. The source of Charlotte’s chatter wormed its way to clarity.

  “Who? Your mom?”

  Charlotte nodded. “I thought they were trying to trick me, to get me home.”

  “Would your dad really do that?”

  “I guess not. I just…I mean, it’s not like I don’t love her. She’s my mom, you know? I just can’t stop being…”

  “Being?” Johanna prodded.

  Charlotte’s mouth chewed on thoughts she did not wish to become words. Her cheeks reddened. Tears brimmed but did not fall. She turned so they were face to face, even if she only looked at Johanna through her lashes.

  “Dad has always loved you, Jo. I don’t think I realized it until recently, but I’m all growed up now.” She laughed softly, her eyes flicking to Johanna’s. “He and Mom would fight whenever you came to town. I didn’t realize it either until I started thinking about it, but it’s true. I don’t know the whole story, why you two split or if you’d have lived happily-ever-after if it hadn’t been for…” Again the furtive glance. “…for me. Over the years, listening to them fight, I got enough of it to know that my parents had never been a couple of crazy-in-love kids.”

  “They tried,” Johanna said, but Charlotte shook her head.

  “They just kept having kids, hoping one of them would make them love one another.”

  “If you know all this, why are you so angry with your mom?”

  Charlotte looked up, those brimming tears hanging on thick lashes. “I’m not angry. She fell in love with someone who’s not my dad. It happens.” She sniffed. “I want her to be happy, just like I want dad to be. It’s not about them.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Another sniff. Charlotte wiped her eyes. “I’ve known, all my life, that if my dad had the chance to go back and start over, he’d do it all again. And I’ve always known that my mom wouldn’t.”

  Johanna’s heart lurched. Her brain buzzed with heartfelt words she could not know the validity of. Would Gina choose differently? Johanna simply did not know.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “I cry a lot.” Johanna laughed, wiping her face with her fingertips. “I seriously do. I cry over schmaltzy commercials.”

  “You must be a mess every Christmas then.” Charlotte sniffed. “Did you see the beer one this year? The colt and the dog?”

  “Ugh! They grow up together and get separated—”

  “And then are reunited years later when the horse returns in full regalia. I feel like an idiot but it makes me tear up every time.”

  “I do too.”

  Silence fell, this time, a more comfortable one. Charlotte started taking off the sneakers.

  “You don’t have to give them back,” Johanna told her. “You heard Emma. Just keep them.”

  “Better if I don’t,” she answered. Stuffing the piggy slippers on, Charlotte grimaced. “Thanks again, Jo. I had a great day.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  Johanna tried to smile. “Let’s take this a day at a time, okay?”

  “Okay. But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  And out the door she flew. Johanna took several deep breaths, drained yet somehow, uplifted. She could almost hear the sappy TV holiday movie soundtrack playing in the back of her brain.

  She watched Charlotte go up the driveway. The door opened for her, and there Charlie stood, silhouetted by the lights behind him. He waved, just as she’d asked him to. Johanna imagined his smile, sad and tired but glad to see her. Her heart thumped. Being this close, it was silly not to at least say a proper hello. She opened her window to wave him closer.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to come out,” he said, leaning on her car door.

  Johanna pulled him gently to her. She breathed him in, kissed him deeply, and let him go.

  “Now you can go inside.”

  “Sure you don’t want to come in?”

  “It’s what I want more than anything. But I have to get home. My sisters are waiting.”

  He did not back away and wave as a small part of her wished he would. Charlie reached in, pushed his fingers through her hair and kissed her as the bigger part of her wished for.

  “You made today bearable,” he said against her lips. “Knowing if I got through without my head exploding, you’d be here at the end of it is all that kept me together.”

  “Charlie, it wasn’t m—”

  He kissed her again, this time longer, deeper. Johanna was breathless when he pulled away. “Not my kids, Jo. Not my nice-guy nature. You. Whenever I wanted to scream at her, whenever my kids were crying, I thought of you. I thought of this. It calmed me down enough to keep my cool. Wherever this goes from here, I wanted you to know that.”

  “Where is this going?” she asked, her face burning for doing so, but she met his gaze and did not let it fall.

  “Where do you want it to go?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. All I do know is I’m…I’m happy.”

  “I am too. For now, that’s all it has to be.”

  This time when they kissed, it was no one pulling anyone in, but mutual and soft and sweet. Johanna took her foot off the brake, let the car roll them apart. Charlie sidestepped along a moment, then jumped back laughing. She watched him in the rear-view. He stood in the road, hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the cold. She thought the words she could not say. Not yet. And drove home to her sisters waiting.

  * * * *

  It is so fragile, so fleeting. No one understands this truth until it’s gone. Eternal emblem, confounder of time, effacer of all memory of beginning, all fear of an end! Take it in your hands, little sylph. Hold it tight and never, ever let go.

  Chapter 6

  Seven Swans a’Swimming

  Johanna entered the house through the front door, leaving Gram’s sneakers on the rack where they belonged. But for the soft discussion coming from the kitchen, there was no sound. No television. No little boys. No men. Just her sisters
, waiting.

  She stripped off her coat, kicked off her boots, and walked slowly down the hall to the kitchen. Before stepping through the doorway, she pulled the locket out from underneath her sweater.

  “Where are all the boys?” she asked, sliding onto the empty seat at the table.

  “We sent them to the movies,” Nina answered. “The theater in town is playing four different versions of A Christmas Carol.”

  “Didn’t they just watch one with Mike’s family last night?”

  “Not the Muppet one.”

  Emma’s smile faded into the silence falling. The locket Johanna clutched seemed to pulsate. She lifted the chain from around her neck, and opened her hand.

  “When I took it out,” she said, “I thought it was mine. I wouldn’t have taken it had I known Gram promised it to all of us.”

  “I just don’t get it.” Nina took it from Johanna’s palm, clicked it open. “Of course she would know we’d all want it. Could it be she just couldn’t bear to disappoint any of us?”

  “Gram?” Julietta snorted. “Are you kidding? You can’t be talking about the woman who told me to suck it up when I cried over the tooth-fairy not being real.”

  They all laughed softly.

  “She had a reason for what she did,” Emma insisted. “We just have to figure it out.”

  “But how?”

  They looked at one another, waiting for someone else to start. Finally, Johanna asked, “Emma and I already talked about this, but did Gram ever mention a wish to either of you?”

  “One no one has had the courage to make yet,” Julietta said solemnly.

  Nina’s cheeks were suddenly pink. “You’re not saying you believe it, are you?”

  “I’m just asking if she ever mentioned it.”

  Nina nodded.

  “Then we know two things. One, Gram promised it to each of us, and two, she told us all there was a wish inside, waiting to be made. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Now let’s see if she told us all the same story of where it came from, too…”

  * * * *

  To Nina, Gram told the story of Fiorenza, the maiden aunt who taught etiquette to the fine young women of New York City. Her young man hadn’t the money for a ring, but they made their promises on the locket her nona had given to her before leaving the old country. One evening, he left her on her doorstep after their nightly stroll, and was never seen again.

  The story Gram told Emma was even more tragic—the locket belonged to Fia, a dancer with a small ballet company touring America. She met a man, married him, and contracted tuberculosis by the tender age of seventeen. She left behind the locket—again, a gift from her nona before leaving Italy—and a baby daughter when she died at twenty.

  And to Julietta, the most adventurous tale—the locket first belonged to Fabrizzia, an Italian inventor hand-selected by Nikola Tesla to assist him in his work. Her nona gave her the locket, but warned her not to go to America. Fabrizzia didn’t listen. Tesla fell madly for her, she did not love him in return, and was erased from history.

  “Tesla?” Nina gaped at Julietta. “And you believed her?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? This is Gram we’re talking about. She doesn’t make stuff up, and we all got our mouths washed out with soap more than once for lying.”

  “Why do you think she told us such sad stories?” Emma asked, turning the locket over and over in her hand. “Why did you get the only happy story, Jo?”

  Johanna turned the details of the story Gram told her, of Florentina leaving for America as a newly made bride. A story of hope and new horizons that ended with a life well lived.

  “I wish I knew,” she said at last. “Could it be there is no reason?”

  “We’ve already established that Gram didn’t do anything without a reason,” Nina said. “She made us all the same promise, knowing we’d find out one day. She also made sure each story had one common element.”

  “The wish,” Julietta said.

  “The wish,” Nina repeated. “She knew this would happen, after she was gone, we’d share all the stories, we’d all want the locket.”

  “Then there’s a reason my story ended with a dead mother, and your story with love unrequited, Julietta’s, a woman erased, and Jo’s, happily-ever-after.”

  “Maybe she just liked Jo best?” Nina asked, and they all laughed. Johanna did as well, though the hollow-belly feeling was beginning to creep up on her. There was something they were missing, something trying to make itself clear to her.

  Vanished. Dead. Erased. Happy. Oh, Adelina Coco, you’ve really done it this time.

  “There is one more common factor,” she said. “In each story, the girl’s grandmother gave her the locket before leaving Italy.”

  “That’s right,” Emma said.

  “And she is giving it to us.” Nina added. “That’s something, right?”

  “It must be.”

  “Or we are over-thinking this whole thing. She was rather old.”

  “But she wasn’t when she told us the stories,” Johanna said, “and promised us each the locket.”

  “Another piece to the puzzle.” Emma sighed and stretched. “We’re not going to figure this out now, if ever.”

  “So, what do we do about the locket in the meantime?” Nina asked. “Take turns?”

  “Starting with you, of course.”

  “I’m the oldest.”

  “But that’s not what Gram wanted,” Julietta cut in. “Whatever her reason, she wants us to figure it out.”

  “But…how?”

  Again, the silence. Johanna could almost hear their minds whirring through possibilities. The crunch of tires in the driveway signaled the boys’ return, and the end of their conversation. Whether or not any of them believed in the stories or the wish, there was an unspoken agreement to keep it to themselves. The women rose from the table as if pulled by the same cord.

  “Gunner and I are going to stay through New Year’s Day,” Nina said. “We’ll head back to the city on the second. Let’s see what happens between now and then. Jo? Can you stay until then?”

  “I was planning on it. Actually…” She took a deep breath. Once she said the words, she could not unsay them. “I closed CC’s for the season. I’m staying in Bitterly until the spring, if it’s all right with Julietta.”

  “Are you kidding me?” her youngest sister grabbed her hands and started twirling. “You’re staying! You’re staying!”

  “Is this because of Charlie?” Emma teased.

  “I closed the bakery before I left Cape May.” Johanna extricated herself from Julietta’s grasp. “But I won’t lie. It’s a definite perk to the decision.”

  “I don’t care why you’re staying, just that you are.” Julietta hugged herself, swayed back and forth. “I say Johanna is the one who started all this, she should hold onto the locket until we figure it all out.”

  “Fine by me.” Nina yawned.

  “I suppose it is by me, too,” Emma said, then wagged a playful finger in her face. “But no making any unauthorized wishes.”

  “I won’t.” Johanna made an X over her chest. “Cross my heart, that’s no lie, stick a booger in my eye.”

  Her sisters laughed, Julietta the hardest. “You remember that? Where did we get it from?”

  “Probably Gram,” she lied. It wasn’t Gram. Johanna remembered quite clearly.

  Gunner, Mike, and Efan each carried one of the sleeping little boys. Hushing them all, Emma gestured upstairs where the boys were stripped, and tucked into the trundle-beds set up in what had once been their mother’s room.

  “We can sleep in Gram’s room,” Emma said when they all came back down again, but Nina halted her.

  “Or you and Mike can go home and have a nice night just the two of you.”

  “Light a fire,” Gunner added, “turn on some music, have a glass of wine…”

  “Or two,” Johanna added.


  Mike slipped his arm around his wife’s waist, whispered in her ear. Emma shoved him gently, but smiled and kissed him before asking, “You sure you don’t mind?”

  They left moments later, laden with Christmas gifts and dinner leftovers, half a pie and a plate of cookies. Emma would come back in the morning to get her sons.

  “A glass of wine by the fire does sound nice.” Nina curled into her husband, a smile on her lips and a sparkle in her eye. He kissed her nose.

  “You crack the bottle, I’ll stoke the fire.” He turned to the parlor, nearly bowling Efan over. “Oh, sorry. Would you guys like to join us?”

  “No thanks,” Johanna said quickly. “I’m heading to bed.”

  “And I have an early day tomorrow,” Efan said. “No rest for the wicked.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to be weary?” Julietta asked. He took her hand, kissed it floridly.

  “It is an alternate to the old saying, cariad. A play on words. Now if you will escort me to the foyer, I shall depart this warm and wonderful place to brave the elements and my lonely carriage house anon.”

  “You’re so weird.”

  “Which is why we get along famously.” He offered his arm. Julietta took it and fell into step beside him. Johanna watched them, their heads close and voices low, her heart doing little flips. Her youngest sister had liked boys just as any other teen. When she reached her twenties and the quirks of childhood became problematic for an adult, she seemed to retreat from the world that included men in a romantic capacity. Efan’s quirks made him a bit dorky, but that was all he was—not like Julietta, for whom a missing pair of sneakers could be a traumatic event.

  Caught in the kitchen by Efan and Julietta at the front door and Gunner and Nina in the parlor, Johanna tidied up. She washed the teacups in the sink and set them on the rack to dry, piled cookies into plastic containers, put the butter in the fridge. Johanna hummed Christmas songs, sad the holiday was mostly over. The days leading up to New Year’s Eve seemed more like a deep breath after a long run, and then came the lead up to Little Christmas, once a grand event in the Coco household, now mostly forgotten, and Johanna wondered why that was so.