Just Fine with Caroline

by Annie England Noblin

  “I never needed no more than what I got. I used the last of the savings gettin’ Noah outta trouble, and been livin’ off the land ever since,” Jep said when Caroline didn’t reply. “It ain’t a bad life. It’s lonely, but it ain’t bad.”

  Caroline sighed. She could feel the tears pricking at her eyes. She didn’t want to cry here, in front of Jep Cranwell. “I’m so angry at her,” she admitted.

  “That’s natural, I reckon,” Jep said, placing a big hand on her shoulder. “But you go on and be mad at me, and you go on and be mad at yer mama if ya have to, but don’t blame my grandson.”

  “He should have told me.”

  “He did it for me,” Jep said. “I didn’t want ya to know. I didn’t want you to judge him ’cause a me.”

  “I thought you hated me or something,” Caroline said, almost laughing, wiping a tear away from her cheek.

  “Naw, but I didn’t want no one else gettin’ hurt,” Jep replied. “And you look so much like yer mama it hurts me to see ya.”

  “Thank you for talking to me.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jep grunted. “You go on now, go on home. I reckon I got another conversation yet to have today.” He pointed inside to where Noah sat at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes. “I’ll see he gets back to the station.”

  Caroline thought about telling Jep about the wreck and about Noah’s night in jail, but she thought better of it. It wasn’t her story to tell. “I’ll see myself out” was all she said.

  Jep watched Caroline drive away from the front porch. He got smaller and smaller in her rearview mirror until finally she couldn’t see him at all, disappearing with the rest of Cranwell Corner, its secrets but a tiny hill among the rolling Ozark Mountains.

  CHAPTER 38

  CAROLINE WAS ASLEEP ON THE COUCH WHEN Court came home from his shift, tired and dirty and still in pain from the fresh wound on his hand. He was sitting in his father’s recliner when she woke up. She opened one eye and surveyed him quietly.

  “I know you’re awake,” he said. “I can see your eye open.”

  “What are you, a cop or something?” Caroline joked. “How was work?”

  “Long,” Court replied. “Hot.”

  “Arrest anybody we know?”

  “Always.”

  “Tell me about it,” Caroline said, sitting up. She yawned. “Oh, that nap felt good. I haven’t slept like that in ages.”

  “You get things all worked out with Mr. Fast and Furious?”

  “No.” Caroline stuck her tongue out at her friend. “I told you. That’s over.”

  “I don’t understand why,” Court needled. “Just because he wasn’t honest about one tiny thing?”

  “It’s hardly a tiny thing,” Caroline reminded him. “Besides, I don’t want to talk about Noah right now. Tell me who you arrested!”

  “You remember Jemima Crocker?” Court asked. “She was maybe three or four years younger’n us.”

  Caroline wrinkled her nose up in thought. “I think so. Did she go by ‘Jem’ or something?”

  “That’s her,” Court replied. “She’s been cookin’ outside of town in an abandoned trailer on her daddy’s land for, oh, months, but we could never catch her there.”

  Caroline nodded. She knew that when Court said “cookin’” he meant Jemima had been cooking meth. It happened all the time in Ozark County; it happened all over Missouri, really. But out in the boondocks where there were places to hide out, it happened more often. Court raided a meth house at least a couple of times a month. “So you caught her this time?”

  “Her and her daddy,” Court replied, looking pleased with himself. “I’ve been staking it out for months.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her daddy ran out the back door,” Court said. “Of course we were waitin’ for him. Then Jem tried to wiggle out the damn kitchen window.”

  “Did she make it out?”

  “Well, I was inside, me and Jimmy Parsons,” Court continued. “Those damn masks we gotta wear don’t make apprehending a suspect easy, but I managed to catch her by the hips as she was wigglin’ out.” Court stood up and placed his hands into the air, pretending to pull someone from an imaginary window. “She was kickin’ and hollerin’. You’d a thought I was tryin’ to kill her.”

  “Did you get her?”

  “I’m gettin’ to that,” Court said. “So I get out from the window and try to calm her down, but it’s no use. I had to hog-tie that woman in the backseat of my car!”

  “You did what?”

  “Hog-tied!”

  “You hog-tied Jemima Crocker?”

  “I had to!” Court replied, sitting back down. “Besides, it was just a matter of time before somebody else did it, so it might as well’ve been me.”

  Caroline bit her lip to keep from laughing. Honestly, it wasn’t funny. Jemima’s life hadn’t been easy. Her mother had been dead for years, and her father was well known around the community for peddling the drugs he cooked at various locations out in the woods. Jemima was the youngest of eight, the only girl, and was tough as nails. She and Caroline hadn’t exactly been friends, but Caroline had had enough respect for her to clear a path when she walked by, even if Jemima had been a freshman when Caroline was a senior.

  By now, Jemima had two kids of her own and several family members in jail. If their lives were switched, Caroline couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t have tried to escape through a kitchen window, either. Sometimes, the Ozarks could be a bit more like Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone than people around here wanted to admit. “What will happen to her kids?”

  Court shrugged. “They weren’t there. I’m sure family services will step in.”

  “Did she calm down enough so that you could untie her?”

  “She tried to bite me when I took her out of the car,” Court replied. “If that tells you anything.”

  “That would just be all you needed.”

  “Tell me about it.” Court rolled his eyes. He began to pull at the gauze wrapped around his hand. “This hurts like a bitch. I think I might need to clean it again.”

  Caroline got up and went over to inspect his hand. She cringed when she saw it. It was red all the way around the cut, and his whole hand was swollen. “I think you need to go to the doctor.”

  “No way.” Court shook his head. “I told you, I can’t do that.”

  “But it looks infected,” she said. “And deep.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Seriously,” Caroline urged. “You might need antibiotics or something.”

  “No.”

  Caroline sat back down on the couch, knowing what she had to do. “Give me a few minutes to get changed,” she said. “Then we’ll go see my dad. He’s at home today.”

  “Are you sure?” Court asked. “And he won’t say anything?”

  “Honestly,” Caroline replied, “you’re acting like you cut your hand in a bank heist. He won’t tell anyone. It’ll be off the record.”

  “Fine,” Court relented. “And thanks.”

  CAROLINE SAT IN the cab of Court’s truck, staring at her parents’ house. She knew it was her house, too, but it just didn’t feel that way. Not anymore.

  “You ready?” Court asked. “Or do you want me to go inside by myself?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Caroline replied, although that had been exactly what she was thinking. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Yara was lying on the front porch and snorted with glee when she saw Caroline. She got up and shot towards Caroline, nipping at her legs disapprovingly for having been gone so long. Caroline reached down to scratch her behind the ears. When she looked back up, her father was standing in the doorway. She couldn’t tell if he was happy or angry to see them standing there.

  “Hey, Doc,” Court said, breaking the tension. “I have something I need for you to take a look at. Caroline said it would be okay.”

  “Come in, then” was all he said. He stepped back from the doorway.

  Caro
line followed Court inside with Yara on their heels. Maureen O’Conner was sitting on the couch, knitting. She looked up when they came inside. “Well, where have you been?” she demanded, her gaze setting on Caroline.

  “At Court’s house,” Caroline replied guiltily. Honestly, she hadn’t thought her mother would notice. “For the last few weeks.”

  “I want mashed potatoes tonight,” her mother said, turning once again to her knitting.

  Caroline thought she saw the hint of a smile on her father’s face. “Court’s hurt himself,” she offered, motioning for Court to sit down at the dining room table.

  “Let’s have a look-see.” Max O’Connner sat down beside Court and unwrapped the bandage. “When did this happen?”

  “Last night,” Court said. “Cut it on a glass at Mama’s.”

  “Well, at least the alcohol in the glass killed whatever flesh-eating bacteria is undoubtedly living at Mama’s,” Caroline’s father said. “But you really should have gone to the ER last night. You could have used a stitch or two.”

  “He wouldn’t go,” Caroline said. “He was afraid the sheriff would think he’d been involved in a bar fight.”

  “Were you?” Max O’Conner asked, as his eyebrow rose ever so slightly.

  “Of course not,” Court scoffed. “It was an accident. I set the glass down a little too hard.” He shot Caroline a look that told her not to say anything more about why the glass had been broken.

  “It’s really too late to stitch,” Caroline’s father lamented. “But we’ll get it good and cleaned out and put some fresh butterfly bandages on it. I’ll write you a prescription for an antibiotic.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Court replied. “I appreciate it.”

  “Be more careful from now on, son.”

  Caroline glanced around the house, realizing for the first time that her cousin wasn’t there. “Where’s Ava Dawn?”

  “Hmm?” Her father looked up from Court’s hand. “Oh, she had some Bible study or something to go to. She’s sure spending a lot of time with that Brother Crow.”

  “I guess that’s better than spending a lot of time with Roy.”

  “I reckon so,” her father replied. “I don’t trust him much, though.”

  “Me neither.”

  Caroline’s father gave her a smile and then turned his attention back to Court’s wound, and Caroline wandered into the living room and sat down next to her mother. She knew it was silly to still be angry with her, especially for something her mother couldn’t explain, couldn’t talk to her about. She wondered if her mother, her real mother lost somewhere inside this woman’s brain, would have told her once Noah came into town and she saw her daughter falling in love with him.

  Her breath hitched in her throat. Love, she thought. What a scary word. Love gets everybody into trouble. Like it or not, that’s exactly what she’d been doing—falling in love with Noah Cranwell. And more than anything, more than the anger she felt towards her mother, she just wanted to tell her she was in love with someone. She wanted to tell her mother how she felt. She wanted her mother to hug her and comfort her and be the one to cook the mashed potatoes. Caroline blinked back a tear, but she couldn’t stop a few of them from falling to her cheeks. She wiped at them furiously when she noticed her mother staring at her.

  “Why are you crying?” Maureen O’Conner asked.

  “Nothing,” Caroline said. “It’s nothing.”

  “Well,” her mother replied, “it certainly seems like something.”

  Caroline sighed. What could it hurt to tell her? “I’m just sort of sad right now. I got into a big fight with my dad and there’s this guy I like, and I think I’ve screwed it up with him.”

  Her mother nodded. “These things happen sometimes.”

  “I wish they didn’t.”

  Her mother looked down at her knitting and continued on with what she’d been doing. After a few minutes she looked back over at Caroline and said, “Would you like it if I knitted you an afghan?”

  Caroline smiled. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”

  “This one can be yours,” Maureen O’Conner replied, beckoning down to the pink yard in front of her. “I think pink is your color.”

  “It is, Mom. Thank you.”

  After a few more minutes of Court wincing and her father apologizing, Court was all fixed up and ready to go. Caroline lagged behind, desperate to talk to her father. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say, but she knew she didn’t want to get back into Court’s truck without having said something.

  “I’m going on out to the truck,” Court said, reaching out to Max O’Conner with his one good hand. “I’m in no hurry, Carolina.” He walked out the door leaving Caroline and her father alone together.

  Caroline’s father cleared his throat. “How have you been?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Did Court really cut his hand on a glass?”

  Caroline nodded. “Reese asked Jolene to go out to Mama’s with us. You can imagine about how well that went over with Court.”

  “How is he coping?”

  “You saw the result of how well he’s coping,” Caroline replied. “It’s not fair.” She sat down at the table. “I know you hate it when I say that, but it isn’t. So much about love isn’t fair.”

  Her father sat down across from her and began to clean up the mess he’d made bandaging up Court’s wound. “You and Court are young yet,” he said. “Wait until you’re old like me. Love will be the least of your worries.”

  “Do you ever wish that Jeremy had lived and I’d never been born?” Caroline gasped as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She hadn’t expected to say that. She hadn’t even been thinking about that.

  “Is that what you think?” her father asked. “That I wish you’d never been born?”

  “No!” Caroline said. She didn’t think that. “Sometimes I just wonder what our life would be like if Jeremy hadn’t been killed.”

  “I wonder about that, too,” Max O’Conner replied. “But I never wonder what my life would be like without you in it.”

  Caroline felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Dad.”

  “I love you, Caroline. Just like I love your mother and just like I love Jeremy.” He paused, fidgeting with a piece of loose gauze. “You have been the happiest surprise of my life.”

  “I love you, too, Dad,” Caroline said. “And I’m sorry for the things I said to you earlier. I was angry, and I wasn’t thinking.”

  “I’ve had almost thirty years to understand why your mother did what she did. She’s not the only one to blame. Our marriage wasn’t perfect then, just like it isn’t perfect now. Your mother was lonely here; she was an outsider. I spent more hours with my patients than I did with my family, and I didn’t make time for her or your brother.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Dad.”

  “It wasn’t all my fault,” her father corrected. “I may not have cheated on your mother with another woman, but I know she felt about that hospital like I felt about Jep Cranwell, and that counts for something.”

  Caroline guessed it did. She forgot sometimes that her parents were more than just her parents—they were people. They’d once been her age. It was an odd thing to think about. “I never thought about it like that.”

  “We all miss you, especially Yara,” her father said.

  Caroline looked down at Yara snoring beneath her feet. “Can I come home?”

  Her father grinned, reaching out to take Caroline’s hand across the table. “I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”

  CHAPTER 39

  IT WAS THE LAST WEEK OF THE BAIT SHOP being open, and with that came the first week in September. Caroline watched Noah prepare across the street for his grand opening. There had already been a piece in the paper about Cranwell Station being passed on to a younger generation, complete with an interview with Noah and Jep. She’d considered more than once going over to talk to him, especially since it seemed from
the article in the paper that he and his grandfather had patched things up. She wanted to hear about it. She wanted to see the inside of the station. More than anything, she just wanted to see him, but she didn’t even know where to begin. She hadn’t exactly been nice to him. There were so many things she was still working through in her head, and she couldn’t think of anybody else she’d rather talk to about it.

  She was a bit taken aback when she saw Smokey pull up to the station in his rusty truck. The roof had been done the week before, and Caroline figured Smokey was back to his old tricks, drinking away his roofing money at Mama’s. When he saw her staring at him through the window he waved and trotted over.

  “How are ya, Carolina?” Smokey wanted to know. “Gettin’ pretty late in the season for ya to be out here, ain’t it?”

  Caroline grinned. For a drunk, he sure had a good memory. “It’s the last week,” she said. “I probably could have closed a week or two ago. It’s been slower than usual.”

  “I’m hopin’ that this cooler weather don’t hurt Noah’s chances none,” he replied. “He’s s’posed to open tomorrow. Gonna have a grand opening tomorrow night. Even asked the Rattlesnakes to come out and play out back.”

  “Really?” Caroline was impressed. “I bet he’ll have a good turnout.”

  “That’s what we’re hopin’.”

  “Didn’t you finish the roof last week?” Caroline asked. “I’m awful glad to see ya, but what are you doing out here?”

  “Didn’t Noah tell ya?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I work for them Cranwells now.”

  “You what?” Caroline wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “You work for him?”

  “Well, for him and his granddaddy. I’m the hired hand, keepin’ this place up to snuff.” Smokey beamed at her. “Paid by the week.”

  “Smokey, that’s wonderful!” Caroline meant it. She could tell he was stone cold sober. She’d never known him to do any work other than roofing, but she was sure he could do just about anything he set his mind to . . . as long as he laid off the grain alcohol.