Chapter Three
Charlotte
I wish I could have slept later the next morning, but just as I always did, I was up when the sun had barely lightened the horizon. I laid in the narrow wooden bed and stared at the ceiling for several minutes before I moved. I didn't want to climb out from the warm cocoon created by the quilt. The frost creating a beautiful sparkling pattern across the window panes told me that the temperature had dropped overnight. I dreaded emerging into the chill of the cabin, but even more, I dreaded facing my family. Even though they had spent the rest of the evening acting as though the argument had never happened, I knew that I needed to make my apologies. I had overreacted to the situation and I knew that my sisters didn't deserve to have their joy dampened by my sensitivity. Finally, I braced myself and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My toes touched the wooden floor and I felt them recoil. The planks were like ice and sent a sharp, stinging shiver through my body. I held my feet up for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and jumped out of the bed. I immediately scurried over to my slippers and bathrobe and wrapped myself tightly in them. I knew that the rest of the family was still sleeping. Unlike me, their bodies weren't unshakably tied to their sleep routine. If they didn't have a specific reason for getting up early, they didn't. I knew that the little ones would be waking up soon enough and that would mean the domino effect of wakening for the rest of the adults, so I cherished the few moments of solitude that I had.
Grasping my toiletry bag and clothes for the day to my chest, I scurried out of the room and rushed to the nearby bathroom. A long shower thawed me out and by the time that I had dried and styled my hair, dressed, and done my makeup, I felt as prepared as I could for the day. I went to the kitchen and explored the cabinets until I found a coffee maker and supplies. Soon the smell of fresh, dark coffee filled the cabin. Filling a cup, I walked out of the back door onto an enclosed porch. It was colder out here than it was inside the cabin, but the walls did provide some protection from the chill outside. I stood close to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared out over the peaceful morning. The sun had just risen, and rays of golden light were glowing in the rich hues of red, yellow, and orange of the foliage. These colors stood in bold contrast to the green of the towering pines. I took a long sip of the coffee and let out a sigh as the hot liquid seeped through my body. I heard footsteps behind me and I turned to see Madeline step out onto the porch with me. She, too, was holding a steaming mug in one hand, but the little paper label hanging over one side told me that she had opted for herbal tea rather than the coffee.
She smiled at me as she stepped up beside me and looked out over the woods as I had been doing. She took a sip of her tea and sighed. I smiled. Even though there were so many things about us that were so different, it was nice when I noticed the ways that all us sisters were alike.
"Listen, Madeline, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the way that I acted last night."
"Oh, Charlotte," she said, turning to me and shaking her head so that her thick ringlets bounced around her shoulders. "You don't have to say that you're sorry."
"Yes, I do," I said. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. That was your moment and I was horrible about it."
Madeline looked back at the window and gave a little shrug.
"You did kind of steal my thunder," she said.
I made a big gasp of mock horror and gently nudged my sister. She laughed and then shot me a playful glare.
"Hey, be careful. I'm pregnant, you know."
"I know," I said. "And I'm so happy for you. I know that this is what you and William have wanted since you got married."
"We have," she said, suddenly looking dreamy and whimsical, almost like she was looking through me into some vision of her future. "I still can't believe it's true." She pressed her hands to her belly and looked down at them. "I've never been happier."
I wished that I knew what to say to her. I was happy for her. I truly was. But I couldn't connect with the sheer joy that was on her face. Madeline looked up at me and I saw her expression change. She looked slightly drawn, as if she was worried about me.
"I guess that you and Miranda will have a lot to talk about this week," I said, hoping to distract her and push past the look she was giving me.
"We will," she agreed. "But I'd like to talk to you, too."
"What do you want to talk to me about?" I asked casually, taking a sip from my coffee.
"Charlotte, you know that they don't mean any harm. They only want what's best for you."
"That's what they say," I said.
"You don't believe them?"
"It's hard to believe that someone wants the best for you when all they do is criticize you and imply that you've somehow ruined their lives by not getting married and having children."
"I don't think that they think that you've ruined their lives," Madeline said. "But you have to admit, it is strange."
"What's strange?"
"How much you've changed."
I looked at my sister, surprised by the comment. There were many things that I expected her to say, but that wasn't one of them.
"I've changed?" I asked incredulously. "That's what this is all supposed to be about? How have I changed?"
"Well," she said, her voice quieter now as if she were trying to keep me calm. "We all thought that you would be the first one to get married. You and Daniel have been together forever."
"Had," I emphasized. "Had been together forever. We aren't together anymore."
"You had been together forever," Madeline corrected herself. "You two had been together for years even before Miranda met Seth. All of us thought that the two of you were just going to run off into the sunset and have this absolutely amazing life together. There were pools to see when you were going to drop out of college so that you could go ahead and get married." She took a breath. "But you never did."
"Nope," I said my emotions suddenly feeling dulled as I looked at her, feeling as though she were just another of the people looking down on me. No longer my little sister, she was part of the wall that I felt had formed between me and some semblance of a life. "We never did. And you know what? You're right. I have changed. I've changed so much. But all for the better. I'm stronger now. More confident. I feel like I've finally found myself. And while it might be hard for you and the others to believe, and it's difficult to really experience sometimes, I'm happier, too."
"How could you be happier?" Madeline asked. "It's only been a few months since the two of you broke up, and you won't even talk about what happened. You've spent so much of your life with him, Charlotte. How can you be happier now that he's not here?"
Because it was feeling strong and confident that gave me what I needed to actually leave him.
I opened my mouth to say it, but I couldn't. I didn't know how much of my history with Daniel, Madeline knew. With as dismissive as my mother was when I told her that I was unhappy and even afraid of Daniel, even going so far as to tell me that I was being too dramatic being so upset the night that he slapped me hard enough to bring the taste of blood to my lips and a faint bruise to my cheekbone that made my application of makeup thick for several days. That night I ran home to my mother, wanting her comfort, wanting to tell her what happened, only to learn that Daniel had already called her. He wanted to make sure that I was alright, Violet told me. He said that I was in a fit and stumbled on the steps and he tried to catch me. She believed him. I went back to my apartment, waiting for him to show up, and cried.
Madeline had seemed so young when that happened. Far too young for me to confide in her about what I was going through. I would never blame anyone but Daniel for what I had gone through with him. The only thing I could blame myself for was how long I stayed. There were times, though, when I wondered how my parents could have missed it. How they couldn’t have seen how a relationship that had begun when we were young teenagers had gone so quickly from doting to jealous to controlling to abusive. That word still felt bitter and out of place on my tongue. Though I had finally come to a time when I was able to accept that that was what it was, what it had always been, I felt strange putting voice to it, or even thinking it. Confidence had come to me slowly and gradually, but once I found it, my self-awareness had come quickly, explosively, and the relationship had crumbled. There were days when I felt like I was still pulling myself out of the rubble. But I was there. I was surviving.
My little sister wasn't so young now. She gazed at me through the eyes of a wife and soon to be a mother. I hoped that those eyes would be different than the ones that had looked at me. I hoped that they would see if her child needed her. For now, they were eyes that stared at me as though they were searching for the person I used to be. I wanted to tell her why my relationship with Daniel had ended, but I didn't know if she would believe me. I didn't know if she would be capable of accepting it as reality. I had seen that so much. People wanted to believe in love. They wanted to believe that the beautiful, well-bred couples who had been together their whole lives would continue on for the rest of them. They didn't want to think that there was so much more to the relationship when doors closed, and smiles faded.
I knew that it wouldn't do any good to tell Madeline what had happened between us. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday there would be a time when I would tell each of my sisters. For now, I just wanted to put it behind me. I wanted to let the holiday happen and then go home and continue to move forward. I knew that the harder I pushed back against any of them, the more unpleasant it was going to become, and that wasn't what I wanted from this week.
"Right now, I'm happier because I'm here with my family," I told her.
Before she could say anything else, we heard the sound of four little feet running down the steps followed by the slower, less enthusiastic steps of the other adults in the house. The sun was fully risen now. The morning had really begun.
We spent the rest of the day together, playing games, sharing memories, and going through the packets of food that the cook had sent along with my parents, along with detailed instructions on how to prepare the Thanksgiving meal. They couldn't understand why I found this so hilarious, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I started to feel like the family was really coming together and I was able to relax. I was lying across the bed in my room reading in the late afternoon, enjoying the peaceful quiet that had fallen over the cabin when both of Miranda's children had gone down for a nap when I heard my mother's voice from the front of the house.
"You're here!" she exclaimed happily.
I thought that one of the children might have woken up and snuck downstairs to try to surprise her, but then I heard her calling for me. I reluctantly put down my book and slipped my feet back into my slippers so that I could shuffle out into the rest of the house. I was coming around the corner, starting to ask when we would eat dinner, when my blood ran cold and my steps halted beneath me. I felt my hands trembling and a tightness in my throat that made it hard to breathe.
"Hello, Charlie."
My name isn't Charlie. My name is Charlotte.
I couldn't bring the words to my lips. I felt like my voice had died in my throat and there was nothing that I could do to force it forward.
"Charlotte?" My mother said, a hint of urging in her voice like she was trying to cajole a child into saying thank you for a gift from a distant relative. "Don't you have something to say?"
"What are you doing here?"
The perfect, cultured smile on Daniel's face didn't change as he took a step toward me.
"I came to see you, Charlie."
"Isn't it sweet?" my mother asked, fairly gushing as she stepped up beside Daniel and put a hand on either shoulder, giving him a squeeze as she guided him forward another step.
"What are you doing here?" I asked again. "Why are you here?"
"Well, Charlotte, what a silly question," my mother said.
"Daniel got in touch with us," my father said, stepping into the entryway from the living room. "We've been talking over the last several weeks."
I turned to look at my father, not believing that I had really heard what I thought that I had just heard.
"You've what?" I asked.
"Daniel called us," my father continued. "He has been so worried about you and he wanted to make sure that you were doing alright."
"Worried about me?"
I felt like I had been reduced to just repeating what people were saying around me, not able to fully form a thought of my own.
"Yes," my mother said. "He's just been sick with worry."
Did people actually say that?
Daniel took another step toward me and I fought not to take a step back from him. I didn't want him to see me back down from him or to show the fear that was creeping up the back of my neck.
"Why?" I asked.
"Why?" Daniel asked, manufactured concern making his voice high. "Charlie, you don't need to lie. You don't need to pretend. You're safe. We're your family. It's alright to talk about what's been bothering you."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't worry, honey. It's OK," my father said. "Daniel told us that you've been going through a lot of stress with work and that you might have gotten into some situations that you haven't known how to handle. That's what caused you to end your relationship so hastily."
"But it's alright," Daniel said, taking another step closer and reaching for my hand. "I understand. I know that things can get difficult when you are trying to have it all, but you don't have to impress anyone."
That was the moment I noticed that there were snowflakes on his shoulders and melting in his hair. It had begun to snow outside, but what I would have usually found magical was lost on me in that moment.
"Daniel reassured us that he has no hard feelings," my mother said. "He's not angry with you. He loves you and wants you to know that he's here for you."
"Violet and Greg were gracious enough to invite me to come up here and spend Thanksgiving with the family. It will give us time to reconnect."
Violet and Greg.
I knew that Daniel had known my parents for most of his life, even before the two of us started dating in high school, but the familiarity with which he talked about them made my skin crawl. I looked at my parents, both of whom were gazing at me with hope in their eyes, and then at my sisters, who stood just inside the living room, watching cautiously.
"You invited him here?" I asked.
I managed to keep my voice steady, but I could feel the trembling in my throat and the pain in my jaw as I struggled to maintain it.
"We thought that it would be a nice surprise," Violet said. "You've been so tense recently and after your explosion last night...I thought that seeing Daniel again and hearing that he forgives you and still loves you would be just the thing that you need to have the most wonderful holiday season."
I felt like I had suddenly found myself in a movie. Nothing was real. Everyone around me was looking at me with wide eyes and urging smiles, but I could only feel horror filling my belly. I was so angry that I couldn't speak. I didn't know what I was supposed to say to any of them. In seconds the anger filled my belly until it ached, and I turned on my heel and rushed back into the bedroom that my mother had chosen for me as her opening salvo. I could hear Daniel reassure my parents and my sisters and then come after me, but I ignored him. I burst into the bedroom, grabbed my suitcase out from under the bed and began to shove clothes into it. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, grabbed my toiletries, and stalked back into my room, finding Daniel already standing there. I walked around him to the bed and forced the toiletry bag inside. Finally, I whipped around to face him.
"What do you think you're doing here?"
"Exactly what I said," Daniel said, the sweet, innocent smile that he had been wearing in the entryway gone now. "I'm here to see you, Charlie."
"Stop calling me that," I demanded. "I told you that I hate that."
"Why? It's what I've always called you."
"And I've always hated it."
As a final thought I grabbed the book that I had been reading when my mother called me and forced it into the corner of the suitcase, slamming the top down and pulling the zipper around.
"I can't believe that you have the balls to come here."
I was terrified, extremely aware that we were alone in the small room. But I wanted him to see my anger. I wanted him to see that I was stronger now and that he didn't have the same effect on me that he used to.
"I was invited."
"I don't know what you said to them, but I don't want you here."
I started to walk towards the door, but Daniel reached out and took my elbow, pulling me back into the room. Just that touch was enough to twist my stomach and make my throat tighten.
"Don't be that way, Charlie," he said. "Aren't you at all happy to see me?"
"No."
"Please, Charlie. Just give me a chance. I've told you how sorry I am."
His voice had changed. Gone was the hint of arrogance that had been there when I first came into the bedroom, replaced now by the slick tone that I had learned to recognize as being purely manipulative. This is how he had drawn me back in so many times before. He had stared at me with the eyes that he knew I had fallen in love with when I was just a young teenager. He would tell me that he was sorry, admit that everything he had done had been so wrong and that I didn't deserve any of it. He would beg for my forgiveness, promising me that everything is going to be different and that we were going to be so happy together. Sweeping, dramatic claims of love and devotion, extreme statements of not being able to survive without me were enough to pull me away from the anger, hurt, and sadness that I was feeling and draw me back to him. It happened countless times before. Too many times for me to remember each individually. They blended together until all I remembered was the sound of his voice and the cloying, repetitive words.
"Get away from me," I said.
I pushed past Daniel and stomped through the house toward the front door. My father tried to step in front of me, but I pulled my suitcase in front of me, creating a blockage that seemed to push him back.
"Where are you going?" my mother nearly shrieked from the living room as I pushed through the door and out into the beginning of the sunset.
"Madeline, I'm borrowing your car," I called by way of a response.
I knew Madeline well enough to know that she and William would have come in two separate cars. Several years older than her, William was already a highly sought-after surgeon and would often receive urgent calls requiring him to rush back to the hospital. After this had resulted in her sitting in the waiting room for several hours or calling one of us to come get her, Madeline learned to travel separately from her husband so that if he did get a call summoning him to the hospital, she could stay wherever they were and still be able to go wherever she needed to. I also knew her well enough to know that, despite warnings and urgings from all of us, Madeline always left her keys in her ignition.
I tossed my suitcase into the backseat and climbed behind the wheel, slamming the door closed just as Daniel rushed up to the side of the car. Squinting into the snow that was falling steadily, I slammed on the gas and sped away from the cabin. I quickly realized that I didn't know where I was going. I had been too busy staring at the passing trees and feeling the texture of the road change beneath me to pay attention to the twists and turns that we had taken as we arrived, and the snow was falling harder and faster with each passing moment, making it almost impossible to see in front of me. I found myself on a road that seemed to be spiraling upwards along the mountain and I knew that that wasn't what I wanted to be doing. I needed to get to the bottom of the mountain where I could make my way home. I promised myself that I would never again allow anyone to pick me up from my house to bring me anywhere. I was going to follow in Madeline's lead and always have my own car with me.
The snow outside seemed to have followed my mood, turning from a gradual fall to a raging storm in moments, and the windshield ahead of me was nearly solid white. I slowed the car until it was creeping along the road, pressing forward as far as I could until I could see the slight change in color along the side of the road that I was following that told me there was another access road. Confident that this was the road that would lead me down the mountain, I turned onto it and headed down.
I knew that I shouldn't. I knew that the snow and ice were covering the road and making every narrow inch more treacherous. But the anger that was flowing through me was enough to take away all reason and I pressed steadily on the gas, increasing my speed and pushing me faster until I felt the car leave my control and become at the mercy of the slick surface of the road. I hadn't been listening to the radio that afternoon at the cabin or the evening when I climbed into Madeline's car and sped away. If I had, I might have heard the warnings about the storm. If I had, I might have heard that the storm had already taken down a tree that was now laying across the road ahead of me.
My foot pressed hard against the brake pedal, trying desperately to get the car back under my control. I fought to hold the wheel straight so that it didn't turn wildly and so that I had some chance of moving down the road in a direct path rather than weaving. Ahead of me the snow was falling in a thick blanket, the individual flakes almost imperceptible in the sky. Suddenly I could see something dark looming across the road. It completely blocked my way and there was nothing that I could do. In the brief instant that I had, I considered my options, then took a breath and turned the wheel as hard as I could. The back of the car swung around, smashing into the tree. The jolt caused my head to snap forward into the steering wheel and I felt a sharp pain go through my forehead, then everything went still.