Chapter Twenty-Five
The night that follows is long and lonely. Every time I turn over in bed, I expect to find the warmth of Hale’s body next to me, but the sheets are untouched. It’s just me. It’s bizarre how quickly I got used to having him sharing my space, how comfortable I was waking up next to him – and yet it’s been, what, two nights? Three?
And now it’s over. That stings. My God, does that sting.
Around eight o’clock, long after the sun has risen and begun peeking its way around the drapes, I decide I can’t deal with it anymore and head to the bathroom. When I look in the mirror, I can see the angry scrape from the rock that Scanlon threw at me screaming full-volume at the side of my forehead, red and puffy and sore. I should have paid more attention to it last night, when I was busy tending to Hale’s cuts and scrapes – but of course, isn’t that always the way? Have I not always been the kind of person who’d put everyone else first, rather than looking after myself?
And look at where it got you, the little voice in my head says with a bite. How did that work out in the end, Carrie? How’s your Happy Ever After looking now?
I find an old bottle of iodine in my medicine cabinet and dab it on the cut, wincing as I do. It’s not much, but with any luck it will do the trick. The scratch is small but looks fierce; I hope against hope that it heals up neatly, without leaving a scar. The last thing I need is a permanent reminder of last night whenever I look in the mirror.
Last night.
Is that really all it was? Just a few short hours ago? I know it’s the truth, but it’s still almost impossible to believe. I’ve played that final scene out in my mind so many times since then, it feels like I have thousands of hours of watching Hale drive away from me etched into my memory. I remember when I as a kid, I had Beauty and the Beast on a VHS that my Mom and Dad bought for me one Christmas. I used to play the ballroom scene over and over again, watching and rewinding and watching and rewinding until the tape warped and buckled. By the time it came off the spool entirely, the picture was pretty much unwatchable – but this is different. No matter how many times I replay that image of Hale, I get the feeling it’ll be crystal clear.
Every time I close my eyes, there it is. Every time I find a moment of silence, I hear his voice echoing in my head: Come back to New York with me. For good. Move in with me. Get out of here at last. Start living your own life.
What if I had? What if I’d gone along with it, taken him up on his offer? I’d be there with him now, on the road to a new life. Eden would be a speck in my rear view mirror, and in front of me… well, who could know? It’s not as though I hadn’t been longing for something like that. I had wanted it. Hale had offered it to me on a plate, and I had said no. I had been too scared – or maybe too sensible, too burdened with responsibility.
But the decision has been made, now. I press my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. Better luck next time, Carrie, I think. Try again later. If you’re lucky.
I’m not sure how long I stay there, my eyes scrunched tightly closed, trying to convince myself that if I focus hard enough, maybe – just maybe – I can convince the universe to let me have a do-over of the last twenty-four hours, but it comes to a halt with the buzzing of the doorbell.
Hale.
My heart leaps into my chest for an instant, the way a lottery winner must feel in the moment they realise that they have the winning ticket right there in their hands. Am I that lucky? Has he really come back?
Thank you, Universe, I think as I run to the door. Come on, come on, come on…
‘Hello?’
It can’t be. Surely not.
Could it?
‘Caroline?’ a voice says.
… and there I am, right back to earth where I belong.
‘Hello, Mom.’
‘Well?’ she says. ‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’
‘I’m not really…’ I pause. ‘If you’re here, who’s running the diner?’
‘No one,’ she says. ‘I haven’t opened up. Not yet.’
That’s unusual. No, not unusual; absolutely unheard of. My mother hasn’t taken so much as a sick day in the past thirty years. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Would you open the door, please? Or do we have to have this whole conversation through this tin box?’
I sigh. The only thing I’m feeling less in the mood for than a chat with my mother right now is a chat with my mother through my intercom. I buzz her up, take a deep breath to steel myself, and wait.
‘I heard what happened,’ she says as she reaches my apartment. ‘At that awful bar, I mean. Pete told me all about it.’
‘If you came around here just to snipe at me –’ I begin, but before I can finish my thought she’s got her arms wrapped around me and is pulling me into an undersized hug that lasts and lasts. Well, that’s it, I think. I really must be still dreaming. My mother hasn’t hugged me in years, not since I was a little girl with skinned knees. As I’d got older, it seemed less and less like she knew what to do with me. Even when Dad died, I don’t think she ever hugged me – not properly, at least. It was like that part of our relationship had just stopped in the meantime, as though it was something to be grown out of. As though it was something that an adult just wouldn’t need anymore.
As it turns out, I never grew out of it altogether. I lean in close, smelling the shampoo in her hair. It’s a familiar scent, but not recently so; a long-forgotten mix of raspberries and orange blossom that I remember from when I was little. I still remember how my Dad smelled, even today – a blend of fryer grease, of Old Spice aftershave, of books and tree bark – but until this moment I couldn’t have described what scent my mother has.
Has it really been so long since I was that close to her?
‘Don’t be silly, Caroline, she says into my shoulder. ‘All I care about is that you’re OK. You are OK, aren’t you?’
I nod mutely.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘And Hale?’
‘He’s…’ Gone, Mom, I think. He’s gone. And I don’t think he’s ever coming back. ‘He’s not here.’
‘I see,’ she says. She slips her skinny frame past me and into the hallway of my apartment, and before I can say much in the way of protest she’s in the kitchen, busying herself with a tea kettle I haven’t used since I moved in. Two minutes later, there are two steaming cups on the table in front of us.
‘Sit,’ she says. ‘We need to talk.’
Just what I need right now, I think, but I do as I’m told regardless; I slide myself into the hard wooden chair across from her like a kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office.
‘Why are you here, Mom?’
‘Is it a crime to want to talk to my daughter?’ she huffs.
‘No. Just…’
‘What?’
Hugely out of character? Yeah, a little.
Ever the diplomat, I choose not to finish my thought.
‘I’m worried about you,’ Mom says eventually. ‘You haven’t been yourself lately.’
‘You’ve got other things to worry about. More important things.’
‘Than my daughter?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Oh, really?’ she says. ‘Because you’re not acting like you’re fine.’
‘And that’s all that matters? How I’m acting?’
Mom sighs. ‘Caroline…’
‘Look, just save it, Mom. OK? I’m not in the mood for this today.’
She sips her tea and looks at me over the rim of the cup. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m just here to give you a hard time?’ Mom pauses. ‘Pete saw you coming back home last night,’ she says. ‘Alone.’
‘How? It was past midnight.’
‘He was waiting for you. After the business at the bar, he wanted to check up on you.’ Her eyes dart up to the red swelling on my forehead. ‘And to tell you the truth, I’m extremely glad he did. What on earth happened?’
So much, I think. Far too much, in fact, and none of which I particularly want to talk about. I’ve done enough going over it for one night. Hell, I think I might have done enough dwelling on it for a lifetime, but I’m sure that’s not going to stop me.
‘Ask Pete,’ I say.
‘I’m asking you.’
‘It was nothing. Just a… misunderstanding.’
‘Misunderstandings don’t usually involve the police.’
‘The police were there?’
‘Someone beat up three men in the parking lot, Caroline. Of course the police were there. They must have shown up just after you ran off.’
‘I didn’t run off. I went to help Hale.’
‘Where is he?’
I shrug. ‘I told you, I don’t know.’ Dallas? Little Rock? Memphis? Nashville? Halfway to New York, most likely, depending on how fast that bike of his can go. ‘What happened with the police? Are they looking for him?’
Mom shakes her head. ‘As it happened, there were no witnesses. Can you believe that? There must have been eighty or a hundred people in the bar that night, and not one of them saw a thing. Even though they were outside when it happened. Funny, that… don’t you think?’
‘Hilarious.’ I wonder just what caused that sudden, collective blindness – but that’s not enough. There’s no way Scanlon would have been willing to look the other way. Hell, he had Hale by the balls, and everyone knew it. ‘What about Aaron?’
‘He was… well, apparently he decided that it would be in his best interests not to press charges for what happened. Or it was decided for him, one or the other. You know what Willie’s like. He can be extremely persuasive, when it comes to it.’
Well… that’s something, at least. There’ll be no police chasing after him, no warrant for his arrest, no reports in the papers for Meredith to clutch her pearls over – and with me finally out of the picture, Hale will have a clean break from Eden. Just like he always wanted.
Lucky him. No reason to come back. Not ever.
‘How do you know about all this?’ I ask. ‘If Pete saw me last night, after midnight, how did you hear about it already?’
‘Hmm?’
‘You said you haven’t been to the diner yet. When did you see him? It’s too early for him to have been out and about.’
She sniffs; apparently it was easier for her when she was the one asking the questions. ‘That,’ she says, ‘is neither here nor there.’
‘Did he call you to tell on me?’
‘Caroline…’
‘Well? Did he?’
She sighs again. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Then what?’
‘I would have thought that after your recent dalliance, I wouldn’t have to explain it to you. I mean, really, Caroline. I’m sure you can figure it out.’
It’s as if someone’s thrown a coin in the air, a silver dollar tossed at the start of a football game: the thought spinning around and around, head over tail in slow motion – because as long as it stays in the air, I don’t have to accept the outcome and I can stay in a state of blissful ignorance – but then gravity has its way and the truth drops, slapped hard onto the back of my mental referee’s hand, and the game has to begin.
My mother, and Pete.
My mother.
And Pete.
It would explain a lot, certainly. The spring in her step recently. The constant smile on his face – and the changes to the menu at the diner. That’s why Mom was so open to the idea after so long. I wonder how many times they’d had dinner together, him testing out new recipes with her, learning each other’s tastes. Learning the taste of each other, even. I shudder. Now there’s a thought I don’t need.
But through it all, I was none the wiser. I didn’t have a clue. Not the faintest idea.
‘How long?’ I ask.
‘About six months.’
‘Six months?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe a little longer, maybe a little less. It wasn’t as though it was some big event or anything. It just sort of… happened.’
‘Six months, and you didn’t tell me? Either of you?’
‘It wasn’t quite as easy as that, dear.’
‘Oh really? “Hey, Carrie. How are you doing today? By the way, me and Pete are totally a thing now.” Boom. Simple.’
Mom gives me a look that could churn butter. ‘We’re not a thing,’ she says. ‘And it’s a little more complicated than that, in practice. Things don’t always work out so neatly in real life.’
Tell me about it, I think. If it did, I’m sure Hale wouldn’t be halfway home by now. Then again, maybe he never would have come back in the first place. Maybe he never would have left. Who knows? The only thing I’m sure of is that I didn’t expect to wake up alone this morning to find that my mother had found herself a friends-with-benefits with her line cook.
‘Caroline?’ she asks. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘I don’t know. I wish you’d told me.’
Mom sighs. ‘I wish I had too. Just… believe me when I say that there was never really the perfect moment. What with us all working together, we just decided that we’d keep it to ourselves until we figured out what exactly it all was, and then… well, then it just became habit.’ She pauses. ‘And you don’t deal particularly well with change, historically speaking. We just didn’t want to upset you, that’s all.’
‘What do you mean, I don’t deal well with change? I’m not a child, Mom.’
‘I know, I know. But I haven’t dated anyone since Walt di… since your father passed on, I mean. I didn’t know how you’d react.’
To be perfectly honest, neither did I. It still seems a little like a dream, fuzzy and indistinct around the edges. My Mom and Pete. Who would have thought? ‘So you’re dating, then?’ I ask. ‘Officially?’
She nods. ‘I mean, if you can call it dating at our age. But yes. That would definitely be one way to put it.’
‘But he’s so… old.’
‘He’s sixty-one, Caroline. Your dad wouldn’t have been far off that now – and I’m not exactly a spring chicken myself, if you hadn’t noticed.’ She pauses. ‘He makes me happy,’ she says. ‘And at my age, that’s a pretty wonderful thing to happen. It’s rare enough to find it once, let alone twice. I hope you can understand that.’
It's still a sort of a shock to know that it was going on under my nose this whole time, but I get it. I really do. I know what it feels like to spend years of your life on your own, waiting for someone to come along who fills that particular gap. I figured that Mom just wasn’t looking, that her missing piece would always and forever be Dad, but of course she was. She’s flesh and blood, just like the rest of us.
I think Dad would have approved, even. He wouldn’t have wanted her to be lonely, and Pete’s a good guy – a great guy, in fact. She could do a lot worse.
She deserves not to be alone.
I nod. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I understand.’
Mom puts her finished cup of tea down, and for a second I almost expect her to put her hand on mine, the way mothers do in Hallmark movies to punctuate a particularly emotionally resonant scene. Instead, her hands go straight into her lap. That’s better, somehow – more us. More honest.
Baby steps, I suppose. One day at a time.
‘As long as you’re OK with it,’ she says. ‘That’s what matters. In fact, that’s sort of what I came here to talk to you about.’
‘You and Pete?’
‘No. Not quite.’ The silence that follows is tangible enough that I almost expect it to pour out its own cup of tea. ‘Caroline, tell me something. Are you happy?’
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘A straightforward one, I would have thought. Are you happy?’
‘I don’t know. Are you?’
‘Yes. I think so. I just worry, that’s all.’
‘You don’t need to.’
‘I know that. You’re doing fine on your own. Anyone can see that, but worrying is a mother’s prerogative. Just accept it.’
‘What about?’
‘You. You’ve been… different, these past few days. With that boy around.’
So that’s what this is, I think. Just like when I was a teenager, she’s just worried about me getting myself involved with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks: either getting my heart broken – or, perhaps even worse in her mind – living happily ever after with someone like Hale. Someone with a reputation.
‘You don’t need to worry about that anymore, Mom,’ I say. ‘Hale’s gone. For good.’ No more turning up late to my shift. No more mooning over him. No more moping around – well, once I get it out of my system, anyway. I wonder how long that will take. I’m not sure it’s a question I want an answer to.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she says.
‘You are?’
She nods. ‘I might not always have been the most supportive of the two of you,’ she says, picking her words like a soldier trying to cross a minefield. ‘With good reason, I think. But I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’
‘Why?’
‘It was something Pete said, the other day. How much happier you’ve been this last week or so. How much more lively you’ve seemed. I didn’t see it at first, but he’s right. There’s no doubt about it. You’ve got a certain glow about you.’ She stops abruptly, and a worried frown crosses her face. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
‘No, Mom.’ I mean, I hope not. God, that’s all I’d need – but we were careful, every time. It’s not a baby that’s given me a spring in my step. It’s just Hale. Always Hale.
‘Well… good,’ she says. ‘But I think the point stands. I haven’t seen you this happy since… well, since I don’t know when. A long time, anyway.’
Isn’t that just the question? When was the last time I was truly happy? Before Dad died, for sure. Before I started working fulltime at the diner. Before I realised that I was going to be staying in Eden for the foreseeable future – back when I still had a future.
But it was after Hale left, the first time. I know I’ve been happy since then, definitely. I remember times with my Dad, times we spent together just the two of us, before he got sick. I remember hanging out with my friends, before they all left for college. I remember realising I was young and free and being too dumb to realise just how fragile the world was, how easily things could come crashing down. I remember all of that, hazy though it might be.
I remember the girl I was, once. A lot of things happened to wear me down over the years, but Hale was just a part of it. I’ve been going down this path for a long time, and for most of it I was the one doing the steering.
‘I think it’s time you followed what makes you happy, Caroline,’ she says. ‘I really do. And I should have told you that years ago.’ Her voice is small and a little guilty, and I notice she’s suddenly not looking me in the eye; her gaze is focused firmly on the bottom of her empty cup. ‘It was easier to have you here, close by,’ she says quietly. ‘That’s the truth of it. In those early years, after your father died, when we were dealing with the insurance and the medical bills and the diner was only just about getting by… I don’t think I could have done it on my own. I don’t think I would have coped without you. Perhaps it was just selfish of me to encourage you to stick around.’
‘Mom, you never made me stay.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘No, I didn’t. You did that all on your own, and I’m grateful for it. But I didn’t push you to go, either, and that’s something Walt would never have forgiven me for. You’re twenty-six now, Caroline. You’re a grown woman. I think it’s time that you spread your wings a little bit. Follow your dreams. See where they take you.’
Sure, I think. Now you tell me. Now, after I’ve just told Hale that I can’t go with him. Now, after I watched the dream I was supposed to follow drive away into the night without me.
Now, once I’m stuck here.
‘What’s so wrong with Eden? I mean, you and Dad did OK here. You both –’
She cuts me off. ‘Your father and I chose to live here,’ she says. ‘We thought about moving, but then the diner came up for sale and it all just seemed to fall into place. We made the decision to stay – and you can make that decision too, if you think it’s the right call. But I won’t let you make it just because it’s the easy choice, and I won’t let you make it just because you’re scared of the alternative. Eden will always be your home, Caroline. I just don’t ever want you to feel like it’s your prison. I don’t want you to wake up one day thirty years from now and come to the conclusion that you wasted your life in a place you hated. You’re better than that.’
‘Do you ever feel like that? That you wasted your life here?’
‘Do I?’ She wrinkles her brow. ‘Darling, I spent years here with the love of my life. Built up a business. Raised a beautiful daughter. No, I don’t feel like I wasted my life here. If I’m perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just want the same for you, that’s all. Here in Eden. Somewhere else. Wherever you’re happy.’
‘And what if I don’t know where that is?’
‘Well,’ she smiles, ‘that’s partly what I came here to talk to you about.’ She reaches into her bag and pulls out a stack of leaflets an inch thick, all with medical logos on: bright red crosses, snakes wrapped around staffs, that sort of thing. Oh, shit, I think instinctively. The last time I saw so many hospital leaflets in one place it was after Dad’s diagnosis. They were all titled things like Understanding Cancer or Helping Your Loved Ones Through Terminal Illness, when they really should have been called Sucks To Be You, No One Ever Said Anything About Life Being Fair, and It’s Just Not Your Year, Is It?
‘I’ve been… I don’t want to say collecting these, exactly,’ she says as she places them onto the table between us. ‘I just thought you might want to take a look at them, that’s all. That they might be interesting to you.’
I pick the first leaflet off the pile and turn it over in my hands. AUSTIN SCHOOL OF NURSING is written on the front cover in bright, bold blue, and then below it: MAKE A DIFFERENCE. There’s a photo of what I can only assume is a diverse crop of smiling nursing students, all significantly younger than I am, and all carrying very neat looking textbooks; underneath that, there’s picture after picture of happy patients, no doubt in awe at the high quality of the medical care they’re receiving.
The others leaflets are all similar in style. The only things that seem to change are the fonts, the colours and the location: Dallas. Houston. San Antonio. El Paso. She’s even gone as far afield as New Orleans.
‘I can’t,’ I say, reflexively. ‘You know I can’t.’
‘You can.’
‘Maybe, maybe if it was a community college nearby. I could afford it then. Maybe I could stay working at the diner, and you could –’
‘You can,’ she says again. ‘If you want to. We’ll struggle along without you somehow, if you go. But this has to be something you do for you. No one else. Not me, not that boy. For you.’
For me.
It’s been a long time since I did something just for myself, without thinking of anyone else. The idea seems almost alien now. Is it really possible?
A week ago, I would have said it was insane, but maybe…
Well, people go back to school, don’t they? I wouldn’t be the first person to start late. And I’m sure there are loans and things I can get to cover the costs. And it’ll be hard work, I’m sure, but since when has hard work been something I’ve been afraid of? The diner wouldn’t still be standing if it wasn’t for me. Or maybe it would. Maybe Mom was right all along, and it would have managed to get along without me.
Maybe I really can go.
Nurse Carrie.
After all this time.
My way out.