Just Fine with Caroline

by Annie England Noblin

  After a few minutes, Ava Dawn came out to the truck and climbed inside. “Are you mad at me?”

  Caroline blinked back tears, willing herself to keep from crying in front of her cousin. “Of course not.”

  “Then why are you still sitting out here? Uncle Max isn’t mad, either.”

  “I’ll be in, in a minute.”

  “Okay,” Ava Dawn said. “He’s taking her to the hospital, just to be sure. He thinks she might need a stitch or two on one of her feet.”

  “Ava Dawn?” Caroline asked.

  “What?”

  “Did you sleep in that outfit?”

  Ava Dawn looked down at herself. “No, I put it on this morning.”

  “Before you even looked for Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you put on makeup, too?”

  Ava Dawn wrinkled her nose. “This is from last night.”

  “It looks fresh.”

  “Well, it’s not,” Ava Dawn said.

  Caroline sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just overwhelmed, I guess. I was so worried something bad had happened.”

  “Well, don’t worry.” Ava Dawn reached out to pat Caroline’s thigh. “Everything is fine.”

  “You’re right.” Caroline forced herself to smile. “Everything is fine,” she repeated. “Everything is just fine.”

  CHAPTER 29

  THE COLD RIVER HOSPITAL WAITING ROOM was one of Caroline’s least favorite places. She was sure that it probably felt that way for everyone, but she’d spent more time there than anyone in the whole county, she was certain. As a child, it had been a source of entertainment when her father was working long hours. She would sit in the reading corner and look through the books. She would play in the activity center with the toys, and during those rare occasions when she was alone, Caroline flipped through the channels on one of the high mounted television sets. She liked to pretend that the waiting room belonged to her, and that it was really her apartment; the rest of the hospital a tall high-rise nestled in the heart of some far-off Eastern city like the ones her mother told her about.

  It went on that way until the summer she was ten years old. Caroline had been reading in the corner when she saw her father walk into the waiting room and sit down next to a man sitting alone. He looked young to her, and she thought maybe he had been waiting for his mother or another elderly relative. Most of the time she didn’t pay much attention to the people coming in and out of the waiting room, but Caroline liked this man. He’d been nice to her and let her watch whatever she wanted on the television. He’d even chatted for a few minutes with her about the book she was reading. So when her father came in and sat down next to him, Caroline listened.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard her father say. “We did everything we could.”

  “I know you did, Doc,” the man said. His voice wavered, and he began to cry quietly into his hands.

  “I’m sorry, Joe,” her father said.

  The man looked up at her father. “Can I see them?”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Please.”

  Max O’Conner stood up and led the man away. Caroline knew something awful must’ve happened. She’d never in her life seen her father look as sad as he had that day. On the way home that night, Caroline asked him what happened.

  “He lost his family,” her father said. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white.

  “His whole family?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Caroline’s father sighed. “His wife was pregnant, and the baby had something wrong with his heart.”

  “Did the baby die?” Caroline wanted to know.

  Her father nodded. “We tried to save him and his mom.”

  Caroline swallowed. “The mom died, too?”

  “Yes. She lost too much blood.”

  “Does he have any other family?” Caroline asked. She could feel her heart breaking for the man in the waiting room.

  “Nobody that can help him,” Max O’Conner replied.

  They rode the rest of the way home in silence.

  Caroline tried to go back to the waiting room the next week, but all she could do was wonder who in the waiting room was going to lose someone they loved. After that, she didn’t go back until the winter they found out that her mother had Alzheimer’s. She’d been sitting in the same spot that young man had been sitting in, and at the time she remembered thinking how lucky she was that the doctors weren’t telling her that her mother was dead. Five years later, she sometimes wondered if her mother being dead would have been better . . . easier.

  Today Caroline was back in the waiting room. The reading corner was gone and the chairs weren’t nearly as comfortable, but other than that, it looked exactly the same. “How is she?” Caroline asked when she saw her father.

  “She’s fine,” he replied. He was wearing his white doctor’s coat. “The lacerations on her feet aren’t bad. Just two of them needed a stitch.”

  “Then where is she?” Ava Dawn wanted to know.

  Caroline’s father sat down, yawning. He looked like he’d aged twenty years. “They’re keeping her overnight for observation. She’s dehydrated, although it’s unlikely her little stroll this morning caused it. It’s a combination of her medicine and simply not drinking enough fluids.”

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline murmured. “I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should.”

  “It’s not your fault, kiddo,” her father replied. “I think we’re just going to have to hire someone to be with her all the time, even when we’re home.”

  Caroline nodded. She looked over at Noah who was sitting on the other side of Ava Dawn. They hadn’t spoken since they were in the truck with her mother. She didn’t know what to say to him, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to talk about it. Caroline looked away from him and back to her father. “Are you staying here?”

  “Just for a while. You three should go on home.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Caroline said, quickly. “Ava Dawn can take the truck and take Noah home.”

  “I don’t mind staying here and waiting with Uncle Max,” Ava Dawn replied.

  “Go ahead,” Caroline said.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Caroline’s father told her, standing up to give his daughter a hug. “But I know you’re going to, anyway.”

  Behind them, Noah stood up. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and when Caroline turned and saw him standing there, she thought that he looked like he was about to bolt. Instead, he said, “Can I talk to you for a minute, Caroline?”

  Caroline shrugged. She didn’t really want to talk to him, but that wasn’t something she could say. Not in front of her father and her cousin. “Sure.”

  Noah led her outside the waiting room and down one of the never-ending white halls. “Do you want to talk about this?” he asked once they were out of earshot of everyone.

  “About what?” Caroline crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring him. She absolutely did not want to talk about it.

  Noah sighed. “About this morning.”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m sorry.” Noah ran his fingers along the stubble on his chin. “I wish you hadn’t found out like this.”

  Caroline narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I begged my grandfather to tell you,” he began. “I told him you deserved to know the truth.”

  “You acted like I was making a big deal out of nothing.” Caroline took a step back from him. “You acted like it was all in my goddamn head.”

  “You have to understand, it was years ago.” Noah sighed. It was a heavy, defeated sigh. “It was before you were even born.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “It was a family rumor since I was little,” Noah replied. “Then when I got to Cold River, my grandfather told me to stay away from you, and that’s when I knew for sure.”

  “Oh my God,�
� Caroline said under her breath.

  “I found pictures, more pictures of your mom and my grandfather, that I didn’t show you.” Noah was reaching out to her. “I’m sorry, I should have told you myself, but I didn’t know how.”

  Caroline felt the anger bubbling up from her core. He’d known. He’d known for practically his whole life. “How could you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” Noah replied. “And my grandfather didn’t want you to know. He doesn’t want anybody to know.”

  “It’s a little too late for that now.”

  “I don’t want it to change things between us,” Noah said. “Caroline, this has nothing to do with me . . . nothing to do with you.”

  “This has everything to do with us!”

  “It doesn’t,” Noah replied. He reached out to her. “We aren’t them. I’m not my grandfather.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Caroline tried to contain herself, but she couldn’t. Her emotions came flowing out of her, and before she could stop herself, she shoved Noah back as hard as she could with both of her hands. She shoved him so hard that he went tumbling backwards, landing with a thud onto the cold tile.

  Caroline hurried past him, ignoring the people staring at her, coming out of rooms and offices to watch the scene unfold. She didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was getting away from Noah.

  Away from her mother.

  Away from the sterile hospital walls and that awful, awful waiting room.

  Away.

  She just had to get away.

  CHAPTER 30

  CAROLINE LEFT FOR THE BAIT SHOP THE next morning before her father or Ava Dawn were up. She’d pretended to be asleep the night before when Ava Dawn finally returned from taking Noah home, and although she felt slightly guilty, Caroline let her think that she was mad at her for letting her mother escape rather than telling her the truth. She’d heard Ava Dawn crying in the spare room into the wee hours of the morning, but Caroline knew if she went in there to check on her, she wouldn’t be able to keep from telling her everything.

  It was cruel to let her cousin beat herself up like that, but Caroline just didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to say it out loud, because she knew the moment that she finally did, it would become real.

  Truthfully, she didn’t want to open the shop, either. She knew she’d have to see Noah, and he was, aside from her mother, the absolute last person she wanted to see. She hoped he’d at least be smart enough to stay on his side of the road.

  She pulled up in front of the shop and hopped out of her truck. Relief flooded through her when she realized it was far too early for Noah, or anybody else, to be up and at ’em. She headed down to the river, squinting into the early morning sun. It had been dark when she left the house. It felt good outside—it was too early for the heat to be miserable, and when she sat down in front of her tree, the mist coming off of the river made it all the more enjoyable.

  She baited her hook and cast a line out into the water. Caroline usually came to this spot to think. It was, and had always been, her safe place. But today, she didn’t want to think. She just wanted to sit and watch the water ripple without worrying about that awful, empty feeling that had begun to grow in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t understand how things could be perfect one minute—sharing a bed with Noah—and spectacularly not so perfect the next.

  Of course, she thought, deep down I knew my mother was cheating on my father. Caroline cringed as the word cheat ran through her head. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Cheating. There was no sugarcoating it. Her mother was a cheater, and oh God, did her father know? Surely he didn’t know. How could he still be married to her if he knew?

  Their marriage was a lie. She remembered what Noah told her about perfect marriages—about how they didn’t exist. He’d known then about her mother and his grandfather, and still . . . still he’d said nothing.

  Caroline tried to shake those thoughts from her head as she felt a familiar tug at the end of her line. Slowly, she began reeling in from the water. She continued to tug and reel, coaxing the line and whatever was hanging from it out of the water. It was a dance she knew well, and it was thrilling when for the first time all summer, a shiny smallmouth bass popped up out of the water, dangling from the hook jutting out of its mouth.

  Before she could revel in her catch, she heard footsteps behind her. She knew who it was, who it had to be. “Go away,” she said, without turning around.

  “Caroline, can’t we talk?” Noah asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you lied to me.” Caroline wanted to turn around and yell at him, but then he might see the tears streaming down her face. She reeled the line in enough so that the fish was dangling just out of the water. “Please just go away.”

  “Caroline.”

  “Please.”

  Noah didn’t say another word, but she heard him walking away from her. She listened until she could no longer hear his footsteps and then she brought the fish in closer to her and out of the water. Caroline considered keeping it and fishing for her dinner like she and her father used to do when she was a kid. They’d gone out every weekend when her father wasn’t on call to the Cold River. Sometimes they went out on her father’s old, rickety johnboat, but most of the time they sat right where she was sitting now—at the old, rickety tree. The first time her father taught her to clean a fish, that’s where they’d been.

  They’d caught almost a dozen smallmouth bass that day. Their cooler was full, and their bait was gone. Max O’Conner placed a fish on an old stump and told Caroline to watch as he ran his knife along the belly of the fish. “Now you try it,” he said when he was done. He put another fish on the stump and handed her his knife.

  “I don’t think I want to,” Caroline said, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “You’ve gotta learn sometime.”

  Caroline took the knife and squatted down next to the fish. “What do I do?”

  “Just like I showed you,” her father replied. “Hold his head and cut as close as you can to the backbone.”

  Caroline did as she was told.

  “Careful, careful,” he said. “Don’t cut through his backbone.”

  After she made the cut, she grabbed at the insides of the fish with one of her hands, something she’d actually done once or twice when her father made the initial cut. But this time, something was different. Something else came out with the fish’s guts—hundreds of tiny, white balls. It took her a minute to realize that they were eggs, fish eggs. The bass had been a female, and she was pregnant, or had been pregnant until Caroline gutted her with a filet knife. “Dad,” she whispered, falling back onto her behind into the grass, “Dad, she was going to have babies.”

  Her father took the knife out of her hand. “It looks that way. Happens sometimes, kiddo. Don’t worry about it.”

  Caroline hadn’t wanted to worry about it, but she had for the rest of the day. Still, years later, she thought about it. She was thinking about it right now as she held the fish up to eye level. Was this fish a girl? Was it pregnant? Of course there was no way to tell without killing it, and it just stared at her, open-mouthed, until Caroline wasn’t sure which one of them was on the hook. She wasn’t sure which one of them was out of her element, which one of them was gasping for air until she pulled the hook out of the fish’s mouth and threw it back into the river, watching it swim away from her as fast as it could, making the tiniest of ripples beneath the water’s surface.

  CHAPTER 31

  “I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING TO me!” Ava Dawn wailed, throwing herself down onto the bed.

  Caroline rolled her eyes. Lord have mercy, did her cousin have a flair for the dramatic. “It’s not the end of the world, Ava Dawn.”

  “Why did Darlene have to go and have her damn baby on the night of the races?” Ava Dawn picked up one of Caroline’s pillows and screamed into it. “Whyyyyyyy?”

  “I
don’t think she planned on having her water break all over the diner’s kitchen floor,” Caroline replied.

  “Darlene ruins everything,” Ava Dawn said. “I cannot believe I have to work tonight. Now I’m going to miss everything.”

  “You’ve been to the races before,” Caroline replied, losing patience. “It’s not anything new.”

  “Except Tyler’s racin’,” Ava Dawn reminded her. “That’s new.”

  Her cousin was right. Tyler racing a stock car at the Cold River Speedway was new, and it was honestly pretty exciting. “I don’t have to go, either.”

  “Of course you do. You promised Kasey. We all did.”

  Ava Dawn was right again. “I’ll tell them you had to work and you couldn’t help it,” Caroline offered. She didn’t really want to go, but she didn’t want to stay at home, either. She’d spent the last few days avoiding conversation with both of her parents. She was afraid her father, at least, was starting to notice.

  “Thanks,” Ava Dawn sniffed. “I guess I better go wash my uniform.”

  Caroline couldn’t remember the last time she went to the race track. It had been years ago with Court and his family before Pam got sick. Pam loved the races, and so did Court. Caroline enjoyed them, too, but the loud noises and exhaust fumes almost always gave her a headache.

  She was waiting on the porch when Court and Reese drove up.

  “Hey, whose Corolla is that in the driveway?” Reese wanted to know. “Surely that ain’t your new rig.”

  “It’s the new nurse’s,” Caroline replied. She hoisted herself up into Court’s truck. “Dad hired someone to be here full-time, even at night.”

  “So you’ve got a stranger in your house all the time?” Court asked.

  “Is she hot?” Reese wanted to know.