Caroline hadn’t known how to answer, how much to tell Nina about her dad and his disappearance from her life. How much could a child Nina’s age understand? She’d finally said—more mumbled—something about her dad traveling a lot and not having time to visit. When she’d said maybe one day he would come and meet Nina, she’d wanted to know if he would bring her a present, which made her sound greedy. But she wasn’t. Far from it. In November, the year she was twelve, Nina had asked her parents for the money they were planning to spend on her Christmas gifts. She’d wanted to shop for a family, two parents with six children, she’d heard about at school that had recently lost everything in a fire. The husband had been laid off from his job. They’d had no insurance, no relatives. They’d lived under a highway overpass for two weeks until someone who had rental property had given them a temporary home. Rob and Caroline had driven Nina there on Christmas Eve with the gifts she’d chosen. Everyone, including Rob, had teared up at the gesture. It made Nina sound like an angel, but she wasn’t that either.
She’d made her share of mistakes. There had been a pregnancy scare when she was a high school junior. She’d confessed the news to Caroline. They’d gone together to the drugstore for the test. Caroline had waited anxiously on the other side of the bathroom door for the result, and when Nina had joyfully shouted it was negative, she’d nearly dropped to the floor in her relief.
Nina had asked Caroline not to tell Rob, and Caroline had gone along with her request. Rob could be judgmental, unforgiving about certain things, which in light of what she now knew of his business practices would seem incongruous, even laughable, if it weren’t so . . . twisted. The word floated to the surface of her brain, dragging a plethora of mixed emotions, all clanging together, tin cans tied to the bumper of a bridal couple’s getaway car. She didn’t like having to think of Rob in such terms—that rather than being honorable, he was basically dishonest. It was disconcerting, anger making, even shameful on some level. Mostly, though, it was painful—
The phone in her hands rang, and she flinched. Nina’s name flashed in the ID window. Caroline swallowed, steadying herself. Sounding cheerful, she said, “Hi, honey.”
“Mom, why didn’t you call me?”
“I was just going to—”
“Dad said you were in a wreck? You have a concussion? You wouldn’t go home with him?” Nina paused in the flurry of her speech as if she needed a moment to assemble the rest of it. “He said you’re looking for your dad . . .”
“I am. Yes, I’m in Wichita. I just got here.”
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Between you and Dad, I mean. I can feel it, like, ever since I was home over Thanksgiving. Christmas, you guys were like strangers.”
Caroline’s stomach knotted. She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Mommy?”
Mommy. When had Nina last called her that? Caroline closed her eyes.
“It’s—” All right. Caroline could have—very likely she should have said it, should have offered Nina comfort. Instead, at the last moment, she said, “It’s complicated.”
“Please don’t say I’m too young—”
“Trust me, this time you really are too young. Even I’m too young.” Caroline’s laugh was as brittle as it was brief. “What I mean is that I would spare you if I could.”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
“I so do not want to do this over the phone.”
“Dad asked me if I could come home for a few days.”
A beat.
“Mom? Should I?”
“How is the skiing?” Caroline changed the subject, wanting whatever few ordinary moments she could grab before having the discussion that was inevitable.
“Jessica sprained her ankle yesterday.”
“Oh no. Is it bad?”
“Not too. But we’re heading back to campus anyway. I can as easily go home, though, if you need me to.” Nina paused a few seconds, and then, impatient now, she said, “Mom, just tell me.”
Caroline blinked at the ceiling. I don’t know how! The fury that overtook her was swift, jolting. This was on Rob; he was the one who should be explaining to their daughter what he’d done. She wouldn’t spare him, Caroline decided, and possibly it was spiteful, even childish, but she had given him the benefit of every doubt. She had waited weeks now for him to handle the situation, and he’d done exactly nothing. She had warned him; hadn’t she said Nina would have to know? “This is going to be hard for you to hear, Nins.”
“Is Daddy having an affair? Are you?”
Caroline might have laughed. But when there was trouble in a marriage, wasn’t that where most people’s minds went? “No. Although it might be preferable,” she added gently. “Hard to say.”
A beat, while Caroline assembled the words, the will to say them. “Your dad has been lying about the payroll, underreporting the number of our employees to the insurance company to save on workers’ comp. He’s also faked the tax returns for . . . I don’t know how many years.” She managed to keep her voice calm, but having to tell Nina these things about Rob sickened her. It was as if she were tattling to her daughter about her husband. But Rob was also Nina’s father, and although Nina was more her mama’s girl than her daddy’s, it still felt horrible taking down his image in Nina’s eyes.
Long moments passed, and Caroline could only imagine Nina’s puzzlement that would ultimately give way to colder waves of shock and disbelief. “I wish you didn’t have to know this, Nins,” she said finally, when she could no longer bear the awful silence.
“It doesn’t even sound like Dad.”
“I don’t want to believe it of him either.” He’s done it before . . . Caroline debated: Should she tell Nina about the incident in college? Should she say she suspected there were other infractions, older than the current bad business? If she did, she would have to confess to marrying Rob despite her misgivings. Nina knew her parents had married in the wake of discovering Caroline was pregnant, but she knew nothing of Caroline’s prior ambivalence, the doubt she’d hidden even from herself.
“What does it mean? He’ll have to pay a fine or—”
“I don’t really know, honey.” She would spare Nina the details of her research that suggested imprisonment was a possibility. Truthfully, she had no idea what would happen. It depended on Rob. But it occurred to Caroline now that possibly she should consult a lawyer herself to find out her liability as Rob’s wife and business partner. She closed her eyes. She had never in the nineteen years of their marriage conceived of a situation where she would be forced to act in her own best interests without regard for how Rob would be affected. But he’d had none for her when he’d put her in this position, no matter how much he might hotly protest, avow, and declare that he loved her and would never hurt her. How could he say that? His words . . . his actions . . . they were impossible to reconcile.
“He’s such a straight arrow, always ranting about the fake news and crooked politicians. ‘Never lie, Nina. Tell the truth no matter how hard it is, Nina.’” Her voice as she parroted advice Rob had given her from the time she was small was sharply sarcastic.
Caroline felt Nina’s pain all the more acutely for having suffered through a similar rude awakening to her own father’s disregard. “I would give anything if you didn’t have to know this,” she said, pushing the words through the narrowing channel of her throat.
“Oh, Mom, I know. I’m sorry for you too,” Nina said. “How did you find out? Did he tell you?”
“Not willingly,” Caroline said.
One weekend morning last October she’d accidentally bumped Rob’s laptop, which had been open on the kitchen counter. Righting it as the screen saver cleared had given her a view of the renewal form for the workers’ compensation coverage. Some odd intuition had prompted her to scan the document, and she’d noted Rob had registered the number of their employees at fifteen when the actual number was thirty-eight. No biggie, she’d thought. Typo, her brain had told her. But reading fur
ther, she’d found other “typos,” chief among them the reduced amount of their payroll. She remembered thinking when she saw it that she could only wish it were as low as the figure Rob had entered. Still, she might have let it go if Rob hadn’t walked in and caught her. It was the look on his face and the way he’d barked at her that had alarmed her. She’d stood her ground, though, and with hands shaking had turned the laptop toward him and asked him to explain. The lies were there in black and white; still she’d clung to the hope that he would make them into truths. The fact that he could not, even after days and weeks of heated arguing and lengthy, strained discussion, had ultimately shattered her faith. There was little chance now they would ever recover their past life, the quiet tempo of those ordinary days before she’d unwittingly upset Rob’s laptop and brought down their world.
He wasn’t the only one who was being forced by circumstance to be honest, though. As a kind of backhanded bonus, Caroline, too, had been handed an opportunity to confront what had become a lingering unhappiness, one she’d assumed was tied to Nina’s departure for college. Now she realized the distance between her and Rob had been widening for some time prior to that, possibly years. They’d become almost awkward with each other. Oddly, she’d found she didn’t want to undress in front of him. He slept with his back to her. Sex wasn’t more than an obligatory ritual.
“He said it was a mistake,” Caroline told Nina now.
“How is faking numbers a mistake?” Nina’s tone suggested her question was rhetorical. “But Mom, didn’t you sign the tax returns?”
Nina wasn’t interrogating her. She didn’t intend for her questioning to inflict pain, but Caroline felt it nonetheless. “I didn’t look at them. I just assumed—” How was it possible that she hadn’t known? That was what Nina was asking. That was the million-dollar question. As a partner Caroline was privy—if she wanted to be—to all the company’s records. But the truth was she hadn’t cared enough in recent years to pay attention. She’d taken for granted that Rob was doing his part of the job of running their business. It had never occurred to her to check the tax returns or insurance forms. She had her own duties and responsibilities. “I should have been more diligent, obviously—” That was hindsight talking.
“Does anyone—like, I don’t know—the cops, the feds—do they know?”
“Not yet.”
“What are you going to do? If you report Dad, won’t you be in trouble too?”
“I don’t know what to do. I keep waiting for your dad to take action, hire an attorney, something.” A threat of tears burned Caroline’s eyes, and she pinched the space between them. “I don’t think I could live with myself if I caused him to be arrested.”
“It’s awful, Mom. You’re under so much pressure. Dad told me your aunt Lanie is sick, that her cancer is back. I’m so sorry. I know how close you are.”
“Yes. Thank you.” Nina didn’t share Caroline’s bond with Lanie. They’d lived too far apart, visited back and forth too seldom. Caroline regretted it, that she hadn’t made more of an effort to bring them together more frequently.
“So now you’re trying to find your dad to bring him to Lanie?”
“It’s what I’m hoping to do. He might be here in Wichita.” Caroline went on, telling Nina how she’d come across the letter with the reference to trouble her dad might have been in with Coach Kelly. “I wouldn’t have known where to start without that letter, and even though he wasn’t any help, I did get the name of a possible girlfriend of Dad’s who lives here.”
“From Coach Kelly?”
“Yes.” Caroline wasn’t going to mention Jace and her misgivings about him that persisted. She couldn’t rid her mind of the sense that he, and possibly his dad, too, was hiding something from her. More than that, her impression that someone had followed her from the Kellys’ house and subsequently run her off the road hadn’t faded. Rather it had strengthened. Her damaged brain hadn’t conjured the weight of a hand on her shoulder or the sound of a voice speaking her name, and who else could they belong to but Jace Kelly? She’d gone over the incident any number of times during the drive from Omaha, and it had occurred to her that he’d never actually denied doing it. No. Instead he’d gone on the offense, attacked her for calling him a liar. It was the same tactic he’d pulled the night before, putting her outside the door and closing it in her face. His final words surfaced in her mind: Don’t stir the pot, that’s all I’m saying . . . They had the sound of a warning.
But to say them—to say any of this—to Nina would only frighten her.
“What about your dad’s second wife? Julia, right?” Nina sounded as if she was thinking aloud. “I know you didn’t like her—”
“Oh, it wasn’t that I didn’t like her. I didn’t even know her.” Caroline had filled Nina in on her history, minimizing the drama of her parents’ divorce, her mother’s mood swings. She’d spoken of Lanie’s home as her safe haven. “Dad and I spent so much time together; I was so used to having him to myself. Sometimes he’d come to Aunt Lanie’s and stay for a week or more. After he married, though, he had his other family. I was so angry at him for that, and jealous of Julia’s son, Harris. Whenever I think about them now, I’m ashamed of myself, you know? I can’t imagine what they must think of me.”
“He left Julia, too, though, didn’t he?”
“That’s what she told Lanie.”
“I guess she doesn’t know where he went?”
“She said she didn’t.”
“I don’t know, Mom. The kind of man your dad is—the way he’s hurt people—it makes me wonder why you care about him. Why do you and Lanie even want to see him?”
Caroline sat abruptly on the bed’s edge, brought down by Nina’s disgust. “People make mistakes,” she said carefully.
“Maybe my dad’ll run away like your dad did.”
“Oh, Nina, no.” Caroline caught the edge of defiance in her daughter’s voice and knew it for what it was, an attempt to cover her fear. “I know you’re disappointed in him, and you have every right to be—” She paused, picking at the bedspread. “My dad wasn’t there when I graduated high school or college. He didn’t walk me down the aisle at my wedding. He never held you as a baby. He doesn’t even know you exist.”
“I get what you’re saying—” She stopped. “I’m scared for you and Dad. I don’t want to have to break my parents out of jail.” Nina’s laugh was shaky.
“Oh, Nins, try not to worry, okay? We’ll be fine.” Her promises sounded false even to her own ears, but they were all she had to offer.
Bloom, Tricia DeWitt’s shop, was in an older section of Wichita, a small storefront sandwiched between a dry cleaner’s and a health food store. Caroline parked in front, letting the engine idle, reluctant to leave the car. She hadn’t slept well, and she felt shaky, a combination of nerves and the cold. It was twenty-eight degrees outside. Gray and dismal, the same as Omaha without the dirty rime of snow.
What if she won’t talk to you? Nina’s question from yesterday whispered through Caroline’s mind.
A bell over the door rang when she entered the shop, a little breathless, heart pounding.
“Be there in a sec,” a woman called out.
Her voice was low pitched and husky, reminding Caroline of smoky bars, not florist shops. “No rush,” she called back. She wandered over to a small antique wooden-wheeled wagon that held pots of pink and red blooming cyclamens. Nearby, a refrigerated cabinet held an assortment of cut fresh flowers: cabbage roses, long-stemmed roses, assorted mophead hydrangeas, daffodils, and irises. The sight had Caroline longing for spring.
“How may I help you?”
Caroline was bent over, face buried in a nosegay of lilies of the valley she’d spied in a small cobalt-blue vase on the counter, when the woman addressed her. She straightened so quickly her head swam a bit. “These smell divine.”
The woman smiled. “I know. Those little beauties are a favorite of mine.”
She was tall but curvy. H
er blonde hair was caught in a messy chignon, tendrils falling loosely around her face. The effect was somehow seductive. She was older than Caroline but not by much. Fifties, maybe, but trying not to look it. Caroline’s thoughts ran together in her mind. Was she her father’s type? Was her dad in the back, behind the curtain, where this woman had come from? Was she even Tricia DeWitt?
“Can I help?” The woman was frowning slightly.
“I don’t know. I’m looking for Tricia DeWitt?” My dad’s girlfriend . . .
“I’m Tricia,” the woman said. She approached the counter opposite Caroline and balanced her hands on its glass edge.
Caroline saw it then, the wide band of gold on Tricia’s third finger, left hand. Were they married, her dad and this woman?
“Trish?” A man’s voice, the slam of a door, broke Caroline’s reverie. She stiffened.
“Yeah, Ben. Out here,” Tricia called. “UPS guy,” she explained to Caroline.
He appeared, nodded at Caroline, and thrust a tablet at Tricia, which she signed.
Caroline barely registered their conversation, and then Ben was gone.
“Are you looking for work?” Tricia asked when he’d left. “You seem—ah, maybe I shouldn’t say it, but you seem nervous.”
“I’m looking for my dad. Garrett Hoffman?”
The thrum of silence followed Caroline’s query, potent, heated, while Tricia’s eyes widened. Her hand rose to her throat. “Oh my God, you’re Hoff’s daughter. You’re Caro.”
“Yes,” Caroline answered.
A second silence sounded, a long hollow note.
“You look like him,” Tricia said finally. “Same dimple.” She tapped her left cheek. “Same chin, forehead, eyes, hair. My God.” She repeated it. Prayer or lament, who knew?
“Is he here?” Caroline gripped the counter’s edge.
“Here? Heavens no. Why would you think he was—”
“Jace. Jace Kelly. There was a letter, too, that Dad wrote to my mom.” Caroline pulled it from her purse, setting it on the counter faceup. “Is this your handwriting?”
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