A Life Without Flowers (A Life Without Water Book 2) Page 11

  Carol turned her palm up and entwined their fingers. Her aunt’s hands were thin, the skin soft as Carol ran her thumb across it, mesmerized by how close to the surface the blue veins seemed to be. She traced one vein before bringing herself out of the trance with a few rapid blinks. “I had a lot to work through before I could open up to anyone about what had happened. Tobias and I were together for over a year before I even told him about Katie. I was scared he’d judge me, hate me as much as I hated myself. Even after I told him, I had such a hard time sharing her with him. I felt like she was a secret I had to keep so I didn’t lose her.”

  “I understand that. Sometimes sharing feels like letting go.”

  “I’ll never forget John’s reaction to seeing her urn again.” Her voice sounded flat to her ears, but that tended to happen when she dissociated from her feelings. “He was so shaken he fell to his knees crying. Seeing him like that broke my heart.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t easy. Nothing about what happened was. There was no right way for you to recover. You did what you had to. I’m sure even John understood that in his way.”

  Carol nodded enough to show Ellen that she’d heard her reassurances. “Looking back on things now, I have to consider that I didn’t run away simply to recover. I think part of me was punishing John. He took her from me, so I took her from him. That wasn’t right.”

  “There was no right or wrong. There was just a whole lot of pain. If John were still alive, I’d hunt him down and kick him square in the ass for putting you through this again.”

  Carol laughed wryly. “Oh, Aunt Ellen, he didn’t put me through anything I wasn’t already going through. I’d never come to terms with losing Katie.”

  “You never will, Carol. But if you keep finding ways to blame yourself, you’re going to lead yourself to a very dark place.”

  “I’ve been in a very dark place for a long time,” Carol admitted. “Part of me never left that place, not even for Tobias. I put the darkness away, found a place in the back of my mind to keep it, but I never left. Without him here, keeping me going forward, it’s been pulling me back. I think that started even before John showed up.”

  “This sounds an awful lot like depression, Carol. Maybe it’s time to talk to someone.” Ellen spoke softly, gently, as if she expected the suggestion to ignite a fire.

  “I’m talking to my favorite aunt.”

  “I meant a professional,” Ellen said, unmoved by the flattery. “I think you need to talk to a therapist, honey. There’s no shame in that, especially after what you’ve been through in this life.”

  “I know there’s not, but…”

  “You can stay here with us. Let us help you process all this grief. I’ll keep your mother at bay as much as you need.”

  “Aunt Ellen—”

  “I’ll take care of you so you can focus on getting well.”

  Carol squeezed her hand to stop her from rambling. “I must seem pretty far gone to you.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying—”

  “I know what you’re saying, and I understand where you’re coming from. I appreciate your concern, which, by the way, is completely founded. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I probably would benefit from speaking to someone.” Sitting back, Carol considered what to say next to try to ease the worry on her aunt’s face. “Forgiving John changed me in ways I still don’t understand. He made me take a good look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw. Not just how frozen in time I’d become, but how…” She laughed lightly and then whispered, “How much I’d become like them.”

  Ellen tilted her head, confused for a moment before whispering back, “Your parents?”

  Carol nodded. “I was completely dissociated. I’d been going through the motions for so long, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.”

  “Grief does that.”

  “It wasn’t all grief, Aunt Ellen. That’s how I was raised. Stand back, don’t get invested, don’t feel too much, don’t show emotion. I was able to break free from that when I had Tobias, but once he was gone, I fell back into the same old behaviors. I was losing myself behind the wall Mom taught me to build. Behind the numbness Dad instilled in me. I don’t want to be like that, but that’s exactly where I was a few months ago. A shell going through the motions, angry at the world for betraying me.”

  “Carol,” Ellen said, her voice almost a plea. “You lost your husband in an unexpected and tragic way. You’re allowed to be angry. What you can’t do is let the grieving process consume you, and honey, you are being devoured. I’m worried about you. So is your mother.”

  “I don’t mean to make you worry. I know this must look incredibly destructive to you, but I swear, I’m okay. I’m going through some things, but I’m okay.”

  “Going through some things? You’re putting yourself through a meat grinder, expecting to come out whole on the other side.”

  Judith had said something similar the night before. Carol was going to have to find a way to explain herself if she expected to ease their minds. At the moment, however, all she could think was to ease the concern in Ellen’s eyes.

  “The best cheeseburgers in the world have gone through a meat grinder a time or two,” she said lightly.

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Ellen said, even though her lips twitched with a hint of a smile.

  Sitting back, releasing her hold on her aunt, Carol swirled the coffee in her mug. “Mom said that Dad never forgave me for leaving like I did. I wish he would have said so. Maybe we could have mended things.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t count on that. You know how he was. If he’d told you, it wouldn’t have been to mend things. He would have been trying to hold you accountable for something that he would never have let go of anyway. You would have been worse off if he’d said something.”

  Her aunt was right. That was the man Carol knew. The one who kept a mental ledger of all the ways he’d been wronged. He didn’t hold a grudge, he never wanted people to suffer, but he certainly never forgot. People who crossed her father were never given a clean slate. Their misdeeds were always there. She probably knew that better than anyone.

  “Why was he like that?” Carol asked her aunt. “Why was he filled with bitterness all the time?”

  Ellen shrugged. “Honey, he had a hard life. He lost his parents when he was young and had to take care of his brother. I don’t think he ever learned how to relax and take it all in. He was a hard worker and took his responsibly as a provider seriously. You never went without because of that.”

  “I never went without material things because of that,” Carol corrected. “But I never had a father. Not really. I think that’s why I allowed myself to overlook so much of John’s bad behavior. He drank too much and was irresponsible, but he was an attentive father. He was always there for Katie, never hesitating to play with her or read to her.” Even now, Carol could remember a thousand different times John had made Katie laugh. Her little cheeks would turn red from giggling so hard. He’d blow raspberries on her belly or lift her up and spin her like an airplane as she squealed.

  Carol didn’t have a single memory like that with her father. She couldn’t even recall a time when he’d sat on the floor and played with her. There wasn’t a single memory she had that humanized him.

  “I can’t remember ever hearing my father laugh,” Carol said sadly. “Not once. Not even when I was younger. He was always so stern. So…cold.”

  “Dennis wasn’t the father you wanted,” Ellen said, “but he was there. He provided for you and took care of you in other ways.”

  Yeah, he was there. Scowling. Judging. Making sure she was too scared to step out of line. He never raised a fist, but his raised brow was equally as frightening. Psychological warfare left wounds too, and Carol had plenty of scars to prove that.

  “And Mom?” she asked softly. “Why was she so…compliant? He wasn’t any kinder to her. I remember her scurrying around the house, making sure ever
ything was in its place before he got home. I think she was as intimidated by him as I was.”

  To that, Ellen chuckled. “You keep using these terms like hostile and intimidated. Maybe that’s how you saw it as a child, but you’re older now. Surely, you must see things a little differently. Your mother wasn’t intimidated by him. She felt it was her job to make him happy, and he was happy when things were in order. They both were. That’s how they liked things. She still likes things in order. You know that.”

  Carol did know, but she couldn’t understand. There had to be more to her mother than what she’d seen all her life. That was the part she was starved to know. After taking a sip of her coffee, she asked, “How is it that the two of you are so different?”

  “You think your parents were tough? They had nothing on our parents. When we were growing up, being hard on your kids was far more acceptable than it is these days. Judith got the brunt of it, being the eldest. I learned how to let their disappointments and harsh words roll off my back, but those things cut her. Like they cut you when you were younger. I don’t know why some people are more easily hurt than others, Carol, but you were one of those sensitive souls, like your mother. So easily broken.”

  Carol scoffed. She’d never use sensitive to describe her mom.

  Ellen continued. “You said you learned how to hide your feelings when you were young because it was safer. Your mother did the same thing. That cycle started long before you were born. I’m sorry you were subjected to it, but because you were, you developed the same coping mechanisms your mother used. Hiding all the hurt away so no one could use it against you. So you couldn’t use it against yourself. Your mother’s life was easy compared to yours. Stuffing her feelings down works for her. That approach isn’t working for you any longer, is it?”

  Lowering her face, Carol shook her head. “No. This is the cycle I’m trying to break. I can feel it—that old way of shutting down. Life is so much easier when I don’t have to feel anything, but I can’t keep hiding like that.”

  “I’m glad you see the cycle. But you have to remember, just because you’ve come to this point doesn’t mean your mom has too. She’s clung to this way of thinking her entire life. She can’t change simply because you want her to.”

  “I know that, but I…”

  “You want to be close to her and you feel like you can’t because she keeps the world at a distance.”

  Carol let the words sink in before nodding. “Yeah.”

  Ellen smiled. “Maybe one of the lessons you need to learn is that being close to her isn’t the same as being close to someone else. You and I, we can talk. We can laugh. I can hug you and show you that I love you because that’s who I am. I’m comfortable giving affection. Judith never has been. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel affection. I wish you could understand the difference.”

  Rubbing her fingertips into her temples, Carol frowned. This was a fairly heavy conversation to be having under the weight of her hangover. “I do understand the difference. I do. But I guess I always hoped for more, and losing Tobias like I did, facing John, watching him die… We’re all on a clock, Aunt Ellen, and we run out of time eventually. I don’t want her to run out of time before I know her. Really know her.”

  “That’s a wonderful thing to want, and we all need hope. However, we have to accept reality. Judith might not show you love the way you want, but she feels it. Deeply. Stop looking for affirmations the way you want to see them and start looking at the ways she gives them.”

  Carol dragged her hands over her face. “I wish I could, but her distance hurts me. She makes me feel unloved. Unworthy of her time. Why have I spent my entire life being punished because she wasn’t loved enough as a child?”

  “You’re not being punished, Carol. I’m sorry it feels that way. You know that she loves you, don’t you?”

  She laughed softly. “I know, but I want better for us than this habit we have of showing affection by tearing each other apart. Is that wrong?”

  “No, it’s not. Just remember things can’t always be on our terms, Carol. If you could forgive John and learn to be at peace with him, you certainly can find the same ground with your mother. You simply have to give a little more than you may want to. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  The sound of light footfalls headed toward the kitchen signified the end of the conversation. Ellen pushed herself up and grabbed a loaf of bread as Judith entered the room.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you up this early,” she said.

  Carol sipped her coffee before answering. “I don’t like to sleep in.”

  Judith tilted her head as if considering what she’d said. “Is that because of… Because you blame yourself for not getting out of bed that morning?”

  That morning was clearly a reference to Carol’s confession to wishing she’d been with Tobias when he’d been killed. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said quietly. “I think when I sleep in, I tend to feel more stressed, so yeah, I guess it is.” She almost laughed at how surprised she was at her mother’s insight. “Sleeping in is a reminder that I wasn’t with Tobias.”

  Judith frowned. However, it wasn’t the judgmental scowl Carol usually saw. She looked frustrated, but not at her daughter. At the situation, perhaps. But not at Carol. “You can’t change what happened. Depriving yourself of sleep won’t help.”

  “I know. I’m working on accepting that, Mom.”

  Judith took an apple from the fruit bowl and cut it into slices before sitting at the table. “Do you have plans for today?”

  “I think today’s the day,” Carol said.

  “The day for what?”

  Carol hoped this wouldn’t lead to another battle but braced for one all the same. “I want to take Katie to Disney.”

  As she anticipated, the air felt as if it had been sucked out of the room. Judith stiffened. Ellen turned, wide eyed, waiting for her reaction.

  “I’d like you to be there,” Carol said, not waiting for the bomb to go off. “I know you don’t agree with spreading her ashes, but I think you’ll be surprised how cathartic it can be.”

  Judith shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Carol finished the last of her coffee, letting the conversation linger before continuing. “The first time John and I released her ashes was at the Grand Canyon. Neither of us knew what to do. I’d done a ton of research, of course, because that’s what I do. But when the moment came, I was at a loss. We sat on this overlook, staring at this huge canyon, and all I could think about was what Katie would be doing if she were there with us. I could almost hear her talking a mile a minute, asking about everything. So, I asked John to tell her about it. That became our thing. Every stop, he would try to answer all the questions she might have had. How was it made? Why was it made? How big?”

  Judith smiled slightly. “She never stopped asking questions, did she?”

  “No,” Carol said. “You don’t have to go, but I want you to know that I would like for you to be there. You can say something if you’d like, but you don’t have to.”

  She pushed herself up and carried her empty mug to the sink. As she passed her mom on the way out of the kitchen, she stopped and put a kiss to the top of her head. “Think about it.”

  Katie was three weeks old. Three weeks. And Caroline’s parents still hadn’t come to see her.

  For some reason, she had expected the birth of her child to be the thing to mend her strained relationship with her parents. She thought they would come to their senses and realize that being disappointed in her wasn’t worth holding on to any longer. That hadn’t happened. They hadn’t called or visited. They hadn’t even acknowledged they were grandparents. Caroline tried to blow them off as they had done to her. Tried to brush away the hurt. However, there was a storm brewing inside her. When she woke up after another long night of changing diapers and soothing Katie while John did his best to avoid any responsibility, she was ready to unleash it.

&
nbsp; This wasn’t about her anymore. She had a child. An innocent baby. Their grandchild!

  Yet they couldn’t set their pettiness aside long enough to even visit her? No. That was unacceptable.

  Marching toward their house with her infant daughter in the carrier, Caroline told herself to be calm. She was a mother now; she couldn’t act like a child, despite the urge to stomp her feet and cry out at the unfair treatment she was getting from her parents. That would play into their mentality, anyway. She wasn’t going to prove them right. She wasn’t going to sink down and play their stupid games anymore. However, she was going to call them out on their behavior.

  She reached the door, but instead of walking right in as she’d done all her life, she knocked.

  When her mother opened the door, her brow creased with confusion. “Why are you…” Her words faded as she looked down, noticing her granddaughter. The slight quirk of her brow gave Caroline hope that, for once, she had the upper hand.

  “Her name is Kathryn. Kathryn Elizabeth Bowman. She was born June fifth. Three weeks ago. We use Katie because Kathryn sounds too proper for a sweet little baby. She sleeps most of the time, but when she cries, she sounds like a kitten. She lets out these high-pitched squeaks and her face turns red. Sometimes we call her kitty cat because that’s what she sounds like, a little kitten. She is your grandchild, and she is amazing. If you would like to meet her, call me to schedule a visit at my home. The one I share with my husband and my daughter.” With that, she turned and walked away.

  “Caroline,” her mother called.

  She didn’t stop. Her parents had made their point. Now she was making hers. They could be cold and aloof and uncaring. So could she. She’d learned from the best.

  She was securing the carrier to the car seat base when she sensed her mother behind her. Turning, she glared as bitter tears stung her eyes. “You don’t deserve to know her, but I want you to and you should want to. She’s your granddaughter.”