In Too Fast

by Mara Jacobs

  Betsy showed me to her mother’s room. Caro had been on the main floor since I’d started coming here, and I wanted to tell Betsy I more than knew the way, but I figured that would sound pissy. But that was kind of how I felt.

  I couldn’t help myself, but I hoped that Stick would be in the room with Caro. He wasn’t. I should have been tipped off because his car wasn’t parked out front in the large circular drive, but I figured maybe he’d begun parking over by the garage. Maybe now that Betsy and Joey were back he was acting more like…the help.

  “Jane,” Caro said when I entered her room behind Betsy. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Of course,” I said, moving to the plush upholstered chair at her side.

  She didn’t look good. It had only been about ten days since I’d seen her, when we filmed the interview, but she’d declined quite a bit in that short time. She was propped up in bed, a thick robe wrapped around her frail body, a white nightgown peeking out at her neck. Her hair had been recently washed and was still a little damp. An IV was hooked up to one of her arms, and multiple pill bottles and paraphernalia were on the large bedside table.

  There were fresh flowers in vases all over the room, and the window was cracked slightly, allowing a light spring breeze into the room. But even with all that, the room still had a…sterile smell to it. The smell of sickness. The smell of death.

  “Can I get you anything, Mom?” Betsy asked, moving to the other side of the bed from where I sat down.

  “No, thank you, honey.”

  “Okay, then I’ll just leave you two alone.”

  Caro looked like she wanted to say something more to Betsy, but she didn’t. Her eyes followed her daughter as Betsy left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Thinking I was probably reading her mind, I said, “You can’t force her to accept me, you know.”

  A sad smile flitted across her face. “Am I that obvious?”

  I didn’t answer that. “It’ll either happen or it won’t. You just need to let her make that choice.”

  She nodded. “But, are you…open to her if she wants a relationship with her sister?”

  I took a deep breath. If my breakup with Stick wasn’t enough, seeing this woman’s life slipping away from her made me realize that you should never take any relationship for granted. “Yes,” I said.

  That seemed to satisfy her, and she leaned back against the headboard of the huge bed and closed her eyes.

  I knew this would be the last time I saw Caroline Stratton. The last time to ask her some questions that I’d always wanted answered. “Why did you try to be a part of my life when I was younger?”

  She didn’t even open her eyes when she answered, “Because I loved your father, and you were his daughter.”

  “Even though he cheated on you? You still loved him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still love him.” It wasn’t a question.

  Only a nod from her.

  “Was it…awful being around me when I was a kid? When you’d bring Betsy and Joey to be with me? When my mother would be in the other room?”

  She opened her eyes, leaned away from the headboard. “No, not awful. Well, the situation was awful. Getting Joey and Betsy to go—and be civil—was awful. But it was important that they did, and I wouldn’t have them do it without me there.” She reached a hand out for me, and I inched to the edge of my chair to take it. “But you weren’t awful, Jane. You were such an interesting person, even then. So smart, taking in the situation. Hating it, and yet…”

  “Wishing I was part of your family,” I finished.

  She squeezed my hand, then let it go, leaning back.

  “I’m in kind of a similar situation. I mean, the situation you were in back then. It has a lot of parallels.”

  She sat back up, with more energy than I thought she had. “Stick cheated on you? That surprises me.”

  “No, he didn’t cheat on me.”

  “But you’re not together?”

  “He hasn’t told you anything?”

  She shook her head. “I could tell, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. And then with Betsy and Joey home, and more home nursing people here, we really haven’t had a lot of chances.”

  I told her the story. I felt kind of shitty doing it—it wasn’t my place to tell her Stick had knocked up somebody. But it just seemed…right that Caro know. She’d been such an instrumental part of Stick and me even being together.

  “And so you’re wondering if you’ll be able to accept Stick’s baby like I tried to do with you?”

  “No. I mean, it won’t come to that. He ended it. I won’t have the opportunity to even see if I could…be a part of his life with the baby.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  Yes. “I don’t know,” I said. “It probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.”

  She looked at me for a long time, then leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. “You don’t believe that. And neither do I,” she said quietly.

  I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. After a moment, I realized she’d fallen asleep. I sat quietly in the chair, watching the woman whom I, at times in my life, hated and loved, admired and feared, but always respected. Even when I thought she might be manipulating me, I respected her.

  Because, at the end of the day, her motives were all about doing what she thought was right for her kids and the man she loved. My father.

  I looked for Stick when I left, but didn’t see him, and his car still wasn’t in the front of the house.

  When I got back to the dorm room, I sat for a long time and thought about Caro and the life she led. But mostly I thought about Stick, and whether I could be as big a person as Caro had been. If I could accept his child with another woman because I loved its father.

  It didn’t matter, though, because Stick wasn’t giving me the chance to try.

  Lily entered the room. “How’d it go?” she asked as she dropped her backpack on her desk, not really looking at me.

  “It…it…” And then I lost it. Started crying. And I mean crying. Like, ugly hiccupping shit.

  She was at my side in an instant, sitting next to me on my bed, putting her arms around me, rubbing her hand up and down my back. “It’s okay. I know you thought of her…kind of like a mother. It’s okay.”

  I remembered, not so long ago, that I had thought I would never cry about a boy in front of Lily like she’d done when Lucas and she had broken up. I knew Lily thought I was crying about Caro, and part of me was. But most of the tears were about Stick.

  I let Lily comfort me, not even embarrassed that she saw me being so emotional.

  For some odd reason, I thought about my mother. And the fact that I had one thing she never had—a best friend.

  Three days later, I got the call from Grayson that Caro had passed that morning. In a weird twist of fate, I received a letter from her that afternoon that she’d sent two days earlier. She must have written it right after my visit.

  It was on her monogrammed notecards; the handwriting was shaky, but definitely Caro’s. It was only two lines.

  His name is Patrick Dooley.

  And he loves you.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jane

  Later that day I called my mother and told her that Caro had died. I also told her I had done an interview with Caro and my father before her death and that I would be involved in his campaign during the summer. She already knew that my father was running for office, of course, so them involving me wasn’t a big shock for her.

  I didn’t tell her about spending nearly every afternoon for the past two months at the Strattons’. There didn’t seem to be any point now, and I honestly didn’t know what that information would do to her. The news of Caro’s death confused her enough as it was. I could tell she was torn between wanting to call my father and giving him space. Probably trying to strategically play her cards. I was guessing she’d long seen Caro as the only obstacle be
tween her and getting my father back.

  She was wrong, but I knew she wouldn’t listen to me on that score.

  She offered to come down from Baltimore to “be with me,” but I knew she just really wanted to go to the funeral. I told her no, that I was fine, and that I was certain the funeral would be private. She seemed to accept that, and I mentally sighed with relief, dodging the bullet of her making a play for my father while standing at the graveside of his dead wife.

  Yes, ex-wife, but I knew my father still thought of Caro as his wife.

  I wanted to reach out to Stick, ask him how he was doing, if he’d been there with her at the end. But I didn’t.

  I did tell Grayson that I wanted to go to the funeral even though it would be a private one. I thought I might have to negotiate on that one, assuming Betsy would not want me there. And maybe she didn’t, but Grayson said right away that of course I would be on “the list,” and gave me the details.

  I wanted to pay my respects to a woman I admired. And, yeah, it was hard to admit, but I wanted to be there for my father too, who surely would be taking this hard, given their history and their…unfinished business.

  But mostly, selfishly, I wanted to go just to see Stick again.

  Lily went to the funeral with me, and I was grateful for the company. We drove out to the Chesney cemetery in Yvette, me in a tasteful black dress borrowed from Lily—who apparently had a closet full of them, because she wore one too.

  When we parked at the curb amidst a small group of cars, I looked around for Stick’s Charger, but didn’t see it. Surely he would be invited to the funeral?

  “He sold it,” Lily said.

  “What?” I said, playing dumb. “Who sold what?” But I knew. And I also knew why he’d done it, why he’d sold his baby.

  For his other baby.

  “Stick. He sold his car. And the one Lucas was using, and I guess he had a third one. He sold them all and got something different, something…”

  “Kid friendly,” I finished.

  Lily had known Stick and I broke up, but I didn’t tell her about his impending bundle of joy. Lucas must have. And bless her for not wanting to talk about it with me—I didn’t think I could have handled it.

  I looked at the group of cars, wondering if one of them belonged to Stick. It must have killed him to sell the Charger, he loved it even more than I had come to love Yvette. And that was a lot.

  But he did it for the greater good. Much like why he’d stopped seeing me. Or at least that was what he’d told me.

  We walked up the grassy slope, careful to mind our heels on the soft grass, to the area with a small gathering of people. Grayson came down and met us, giving Lily a hug and then even awkwardly hugging me. He escorted us up to the site and maneuvered us into the second row, where he had saved chairs for Lily and me next to him and Lily’s mother.

  I wondered about my being so close, if maybe I shouldn’t move to the back, or even be one of the group standing behind the four or five rows of chairs. But my father was in the front row, just ahead of me, and he turned around and gave me a nod and a smile, so I stayed where I was.

  It was a lovely service. After the minister spoke, Betsy said a few words, barely able to make it through, one hand clutching her notes, the other a linen handkerchief she needed throughout her eulogy.

  Joey spoke too, and I could see both of his parents in him. A golden boy with his father’s easy charm. He might abhor the limelight of the political world enough to give up his job and head to Africa, but if he ever changed his mind, he would make an excellent candidate.

  My father was the last to speak. He was eloquent and charming and, I believed, totally genuine. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he was done.

  People started walking by the casket, still up on some kind of stage thing, hovering above the dug grave. Then they’d make their way past Betsy, Joey and my father and say a few words, or just shake hands. My father and Joey stood up for this, but Betsy stayed seated.

  People were moving in an organized fashion from the back to the front, so we stayed seated in the second row until it was our turn. It was kind of nice, because I got to watch everybody else go through, hear what they said to the Strattons. A nice voyeuristic treat.

  Until I saw Stick. I shouldn’t have been surprised; I’d expected he’d be there, had even looked for his car. The car he’d sold.

  But seeing him, and not being able to touch him, or throw a zinger his way, or run my hands through his messy hair—it was more painful than I would have imagined. I’d gotten pretty damn good over the years at pushing the bad stuff away, putting my shield (Stick’s word for it) in place and letting painful things ping off of it.

  But the shield was pretty thin on the day we were burying Caro Stratton, and what shred of it that was left was obliterated when he looked over my sister’s shoulder and met my gaze.

  He was wearing the suit he’d had on for my birthday party. He’d told me the next morning that it was the only suit he owned, that he’d gotten it for his father’s funeral and hadn’t worn it since before my birthday.

  So, two funerals and a surprise birthday. Sounded like the title of a bad romcom.

  He gave me a small nod, and I returned it, not trusting myself to do anything more. Moving with the rest of the line, he was soon behind me again, and I felt my lungs start to work once more.

  Our row rose and moved to the end to get into the line. Grayson stood to the side, allowing his wife and daughter, and then myself, to go ahead of him. We moved slowly to the front. Whoever was speaking with my father right now had pretty much stalled the whole process.

  “So, it’s over with you and Stick?” Grayson said quietly in my ear as he stood behind me.

  I nodded and turned to face him. “I imagine that makes everybody pretty happy. No need to explain him on the campaign trail this summer.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, just nodded a tiny bit and looked thoughtfully at Caro’s casket. “As a campaign runner, yes. As someone who has come to know the both of you? No, I can’t say I’m happy about it.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that, so I stayed quiet. We moved a few more steps ahead and then stopped again. Another chatty someone was with my father.

  “You know,” Grayson said, again quietly enough that only I could hear him, “Stick called me the night Lucas was arrested. After I’d talked to Lily. Apparently he was in the room when that call took place?”

  I nodded. Yes, he had been. And I’d been there too.

  “Well, he called me shortly afterward and asked if he could offer himself up instead. If instead of making Lily give up Lucas, I would give Stick to the DA in return for Lucas’s freedom.”

  “He had mentioned that before. But we thought getting you involved was the better choice.”

  Grayson nodded, seemingly approving of what had been my idea at the time. I think in some sick way, he’d admired me for it. It was obvious now that he admired Stick just as much for what he’d done. “All this selflessness. From all three of you. Who says the youth of today only think of themselves?”

  The line started moving again, and we were now in front of the casket, so I didn’t say any more to Grayson. I knew I should be saying my farewells, or at least thinking about Caro. But I’d said my goodbye to her in person, and this box in front of me did not symbolize the woman I’d come to know much better in the past few months.

  Instead, I thought about what Grayson had just told me. I’d known Stick had a skewed sense of integrity. I mean, he was a car thief, but he also would have gone to jail for Lucas in a heartbeat. Had brought it up to Lily and me, and when I’d said we’d go with a different plan, he’d gone directly to Grayson to try and make the deal.

  That must have been when he’d entered Grayson’s radar. And Grayson Spaulding knew how to use people to their best advantage. And his.

  And not just wanting to take the heat for Lucas, but the way he was standing behind Shelly, when he wasn’t even
one hundred percent sure the baby she was carrying was his. And selling his beloved cars to help out with expenses. How good he was with Caro, and apparently his dying father as well.

  He called me fierce the day of the interview filming. If I was fierce, Stick was…ferocious. And loyal, and an all-around Stand-Up Guy.

  I mean, I knew I was in love with him. I knew that I…craved him. But standing here, waiting my turn to pay my respects to my siblings and father, I realized I…liked Stick.

  At that moment, I looked past the crowd and saw him at the very back of the gathering, watching me. I almost broke line and went to him, but before I could, he turned and walked away, disappearing down the slope of the hill, peeling his suit jacket off as he did.

  Done with the world that required him to wear suits.

  Find her. Be her…and let the rest of the bullshit go. Montrose’s words played over and over in my head.

  The rest of it—my father’s campaign, Stick’s and my different backgrounds and futures, him getting someone pregnant—while not insignificant, was indeed bullshit. And I needed to let it all go.

  I needed him in my life. That’s who I was. I had found her.

  I was someone who didn’t give up.

  “We never did negotiate my continued involvement with the campaign,” I said to Grayson.

  I expected him to balk at that. Remind me of the car, tell me it wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. “What’s your price?” he said instead.

  “I want Stick to be able to go to nursing school next year—if he wants to.”

  I waited for him to say he couldn’t pull those kinds of strings, but he only said, “And?”

  I smiled. The man knew me much better than my own father did. “And I want Amanda Teller’s phone number.”

  He raised a brow at that, but didn’t try to talk me out of anything, or ask what I intended. “And?”

  “And you better start preparing some kind of spin, because I intend on making it work with an ex-car-thief who has an out-of-wedlock baby with another woman.”