Chapter Eight
CARSON’S TYPICAL SUNDAY routine included going for a run and then working for most of the day. Occasionally he’d join his brothers to watch a game, as he and Tawny were doing later that afternoon, but for the most part, weekdays and weekends blended together. Enjoying a leisurely day with Tawny had shown him what he’d been missing. Not the downtime—the woman. They binge-watched The X-Files, snacking on Junior Mints and popcorn, tossing them into each other’s mouths until they tumbled over in fits of laughter. Tawny curled up beside him, just like old times, looking sexy and adorable in a pair of black leggings and an oversized white sweater that refused to stay on her shoulder. Carson took full advantage, tasting her shoulder as often as he liked and earning the sweet smiles he adored.
Now it was midafternoon, and they were taking a break from the television to go through the last two boxes from the storage unit.
Carson sat on the couch, and Tawny sat between his legs on the floor as he rubbed the tension from her shoulders.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” She pointed to the boxes as she said the words.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Tabs, it doesn’t matter where the tiger hollers. You’ll open the one you want to open first anyway.”
She wrinkled her cute, upturned nose. “You’re right.” She patted one box. “This one is from college. It’ll be easier.” She pushed it away and tore the tape from the other box, the one marked with her mother’s name, in her father’s handwriting. She flatted her hand over the flaps and glanced at Carson with a nervous expression.
He moved to the floor beside her and draped an arm over her shoulder, bringing her closer. “You sure you’re ready for this?”
“No, but I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Can I ask you something that you don’t have to answer?”
“That’s a loaded question. Sure.”
“We didn’t really talk about the fundraiser or your family, and I just realized that I kind of blew into your life and the most important thing about this weekend got pushed aside.”
His mind spiraled back to a few weeks earlier, when he and his brothers had decided to honor Lorelei by making her the focus of the fundraiser and he’d gone to share the news with his mother. Overwhelmed with the freeing feeling of bringing memories of his baby sister into his life again, he’d fallen into his mother’s arms like a giant child, and years of repressed emotions had come tumbling out. She’d said it was a feat of magic that it had finally happened. He’d argued that it was a coming together of the minds, a rational decision between brothers. His mother had shaken her head with a knowing smile and said, I know you don’t believe in magic, sweetheart, but Lorelei did. She’s probably been sitting up in heaven wondering why her smart big brothers were taking so darn long to realize she’s been with you all along. Sometimes all the rational thinking in the world won’t get you what you need. It takes a little magic, and magic exists right here. She’d patted his chest, over his heart.
“The fundraiser was important, but it wasn’t the most important thing. You coming back to me on the night of the fundraiser? That is important. A sign even.”
Her smiled warmed him. “You don’t believe in signs.”
“I never did.” But he was starting to. Tawny was the only person he’d ever opened up to about Lorelei. Wasn’t that a sign of how deeply he’d trusted her? The fact that she’d reappeared in his life on the night they’d chosen to celebrate Lorelei’s life after all these years had to mean something.
A shy expression came over her. “Me, either. But can anything be more of a sign than what my father said to me?”
“Some would argue that he was the catalyst for change. And the sign was the sold-out hotel.”
She rolled her eyes. “This is why we don’t do signs. Because everything can be interpreted differently. I wanted to ask about your family. When you first told me about your sister, you said your parents had split up after she’d passed away and that your father had turned angry and bitter. I’ve always wondered if things had gotten better for your family.”
Carson sat up a little straighter, putting a few inches between him and Tawny, a typical reaction when someone mentioned his father, which wasn’t often. At six foot four, Gerard Bad had a commanding presence, and he used it to his advantage in the courtroom. He was a leading criminal attorney, as manipulative and devious as they came. Before Lorelei had gotten sick, their father had been a typical overworked attorney, but he’d been a good father. After they’d lost Lorelei, he’d turned hateful toward everyone, most of all his family. Two years later their father was still storming through the house, raging at every little thing and arguing with everyone. Carson’s oldest brother, Mick, had stood up to their father and finally gotten him to do what he’d already mentally done. Leave his family for good.
“We don’t have to talk about him.” Tawny reached for his hand.
She had such a big heart. She should be worried about herself, gearing up for what he was sure would be an emotional ride when she saw her parents’ belongings, but instead she was thinking about him.
“It’s okay. Mick got married a few months ago, to Amanda. She’s terrific. You’ll meet her later at Dylan’s. My father attended their wedding, and he was less angry, but still bitter. He’d never shown up for the fundraisers in the past, and we didn’t expect him to be there this year, especially since this was the first time we’d honored Lorelei with posters, as you might have seen at the hotel. For us, honoring her was a really good thing.”
“I remember you mentioning that your family hadn’t really talked about her.”
Carson was eleven when Lorelei died, and he’d retreated from life, holing up in his room to deal with the devastation of losing the sister he adored. Lorelei had been a shining star in their house. As the youngest of five, she had a zest for life that put them to shame. She was inquisitive as hell, and inserted herself into her older brothers’ lives every way she could. She’d shared Carson’s love of science fiction and insisted on watching all the scary movies with him. By the end of them she’d be curled up beside him peeking out from a quarter-sized hole in a blanket. She claimed it made the shows less scary. After she died, the house had felt colder, their lives had felt emptier, and Carson hadn’t been able to put words to the emptiness he’d felt. With his father’s bitterness, he wouldn’t have risked it anyway. In his despair, he buried his thoughts in trying to understand why Lorelei had died so quickly. That was the year Carson learned to hack computers. He’d needed answers, and he’d hacked into the hospital database to find them. He’d quickly learned that tests and medical conclusions weren’t answers that could help him with his pain. He’d disappeared from the world for months on end, save for attending school, but Mick had finally dragged his ass out into the world again and helped him find his footing.
“We didn’t,” Carson finally responded. “I talked to you about Lorelei, but no one else. It was too hard, and talking about her was a trigger for my father’s anger. We learned to keep our mouths shut. But Dylan’s new girlfriend, Tiffany, convinced him it was time to reopen the doors we’d closed and honor her. As hard as it was to see Lorelei’s pictures on the posters, we all desperately needed it. Anyway, our father showed up at the event. I didn’t see him. He was only there a few minutes. But Dylan said he’d told him he did a good job by honoring Lorelei. I think he’s softening around the edges. Talk about regrets. That’s a man whose bed is made of them.”
“I hope you can mend that fence at some point. At least you and your brothers are talking about your sister again. That’s good, right?” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “And your mom? Is she doing okay?”
“She’s doing great.” He knew she was fishing now, buying time before going through her parents’ things. “How is Tawny?”
“Nervous, but good.” Her eyes shifted to the box. “What do you think he saved from my mom?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“Thank you for being here with me,” she said as she lifted the flaps.
“It’s my house,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood.
She gave him a saucy look, then peered into the box. “Oh my gosh.” She withdrew a handful of crayon drawings on the type of oversized paper kids used when they were learning to write with dashed and solid lines on the bottom and space at the top for pictures. An expression of happiness and longing washed over her. “I can’t believe he kept my drawings.”
Carson took in the crayon drawings of people, a house, and things he couldn’t discern, and he read the words scrawled on the bottom. “My family. Tawny Faith Bishop.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I still think you have the most beautiful name I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you. I always felt like having my mom’s name as my middle name made her an even bigger part of me.”
“I know. I remember you telling me that.”
She looked at the drawings with a small smile. “I used to confuse my teachers, because I told them my mom lived with us until I was in the second grade. They must have thought I was crazy since she died the year before. But at home? She was everywhere. My father didn’t empty out her closet for the longest time. I was always getting into her things. Wearing her scarves, traipsing around in her high heels. I don’t know how he stood it.”
“I do,” Carson said softly. “Seeing glimpses of his wife in his daughter must have made it easier. I would have done anything to have those kinds of reminders of Lorelei after we lost her, instead of the darkness we all fell into.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you and your family. Why don’t you have any family photos anywhere?”
He pulled his wallet from his pocket and opened it, showing her the picture of his family he’d carried for as long as he could remember. He was sitting cross-legged on the grass, shoulder to shoulder with his brothers. Behind them, their parents stood arm in arm. Lorelei was perched on their father’s hip, beaming at the camera.
“You still carry it?” She looked at the picture, running her finger over the ragged edges. “Even though I saw this in college, I still can’t get over how different you looked. You were all elbows and knees, and that hair? It’s so long.” She touched his cheek. “You still had the soft cheeks of a boy. You were all really cute. You were eight in this, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But this doesn’t tell me why you don’t have other pictures. I have pictures of my mom and dad all over my place.”
“Why do you ask the questions no one else ever has?” He put the picture away, trying to figure out how to admit the truth. Talking with Tawny had always helped ease the emptiness his little sister left behind, but she had a knack for getting to the heart of things.
“Because I see you in a way no one else ever has. If you’re still the same way you were in college, then to your friends, you’re a quiet, private guy. It wouldn’t seem odd for you not to have pictures. But the Carson I know would think he was protecting his family in some way. But why? That’s what I want to know.” She gazed into his eyes as if she were looking for the answers. “Or am I way off base? Lord knows it’s been a long time. You could have changed a lot.”
A laugh fell from his lips. “You’re gifted, Tabs. In a sense you’re right. I’m protecting someone, but it’s not them. My family includes Lorelei, and it always will. I had pictures of her up when I first moved in, but it stopped my family cold, so I took them down. But now that we’ve all started opening doors to our past, maybe it’s time to put them back up.”
He pushed to his feet and went to a chest in the corner of the room, retrieving a few framed family photos. His pulse kicked up at the sight of his family as a unit, inclusive of both Lorelei and their father. His sister had long brown hair and big, inquisitive eyes, too wise for her age. His father wore an actual smile, and Carson’s throat thickened at having lost not just his sister, but his father. He was thankful the rest of them remained close, though they’d all changed. He and his brothers were harder, more closed off, and his mother poured her heart into nurturing plants, as if they were her children.
He set the frames on the mantel, and Tawny pushed to her feet.
She looked thoughtfully at the photos. “These are all from when you were kids.”
“That’s all I’ve got that have my whole family. Lorelei died when I was eleven,” he reminded her. He reached up to the top shelf and retrieved a frame that had been facedown. “Maybe I can put this one up again, too.”
He handed her the picture of the two of them hugging. Her hand moved over her gaping mouth. “Where did this come from? Who took it?”
“Brett took it on his phone when he came up with my parents our junior year, and I had it printed. I think you were leaving to see your dad, and you came by to pick up a book—”
“Notes. I came by to pick up my notes. I remember now.” She blinked up at him with a tenuous smile. “When did you turn it over?”
“It never made it to the mantel in this house. I just couldn’t stand to put it away for good. In my other house, I turned it over right after I tracked you down, a couple years after you were married. I’d just started my business, and I was in Chicago meeting with one of Mick’s clients who was considering using our firm. I just had to see you with my own eyes, to see that you were happy. You weren’t on social media, so I looked up Keith. I have no idea what I was thinking. I went by your house and saw you two kissing in the driveway, and I knew I’d crossed a line. Some part of me had hoped you might be divorced, but…I’m sorry, Tawny. I shouldn’t have breached your privacy that way, and I never did it again.”
“It’s okay. I get it, Carson. I showed up at your family’s fundraiser uninvited and unannounced. There’s really no difference. I think the universe was telling us something.”
She wiped the dust from the picture and set it on the mantel. “I think you should definitely put this back up. Things between us are moving so fast, it’s a nice reminder that we aren’t a new couple. We have more history than most people could ever dream of.”
THEY SETTLED IN on the floor again, and Tawny began going through the box. They looked at a photo album from when she was a little girl, and she couldn’t believe how much she’d looked like her mother, even then. They found a few of her father’s work journals and Tawny’s sixth-grade science notebook. Even then she’d been meticulous about note taking.
“I remember trying to get out of doing homework so I could go read,” Tawny said as she put the notebook down beside her. “I told my father that my brain could only hold so much information in one night and that I wanted it to have room for whatever book I was reading.”
Carson smiled. “How’d that go over?”
“He heated up a pot of water and handed me a cup of sugar. The water represented my brain, the sugar was knowledge. He told me to pour in the sugar, and we stood at the stove as I poured and he stirred. Sure enough, the sugar dissolved, which he likened to the brain’s endless capacity to absorb knowledge. But he took it further, because that was my dad, always teaching. We did the same experiment with cold water, and of course the sugar dissolved slower and hit a saturation point. My father said if I didn’t continue feeding my brain, it wouldn’t react as efficiently.” She smiled with the memory. “I never tried to outsmart him again.”
Carson leaned over and kissed her. “You did better. You decided to be smarter than him.”
“You remember that story, huh?” She’d forgotten she’d already shared it with him. She’d read after finishing her homework that night, but not the fiction novel she’d intended to read. Instead, she’d gone online and researched saturation points, absorption rates, and everything she could find about the brain’s capacity to learn. That night had sparked her love of all things chemistry related.
“You’re pretty unforgettable, Tabs. Remember when I used to tell you that there was more to life than good grades and you needed to save room in your head for fun?”
“That was the pot calling the kettle black, Mr. I Won’t Settle for Less Than a 4.0 Average.”
He barreled in to her, tickling her ribs and making her squeal with delight.
“Kettle?” he said. “You were right there with me, competing for the highest grades, and you know it.”
“So?” She laughed. “Remember what I said when you made those comments?”
“Let’s get the sugar,” they said in unison, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
She pushed playfully at his chest. “We’ll be late for Dylan’s if we start messing around.”
“Who needs football?” He waggled his brows as he sat up. “I get a kiss for every touchdown.”
“From which team?” She didn’t even know who was playing, but she didn’t care. She’d never watched a whole football game, and she was looking forward to getting to know the brothers who meant so much to Carson.
“Both teams.” He peeked at his phone. “We’d better get a move on so we’re not late. Let’s finish going through your dad’s stuff.”
“If you’d stop kissing me,” she teased, withdrawing a shoe box from among her father’s things. Inside were dozens of letters addressed to her father, dated from before she was born until a month before her mother was killed.
She sat back against the couch with the open shoe box on her lap, her heart banging out a troubled beat inside her. “They’re from my mother. These letters could tell me more about her.”
Carson’s arm circled her shoulder, and he kissed her temple, remaining silent. That was his way, giving her time and space to get her thoughts out.
“My father said she’d written love letters to him, remember? These are private. I shouldn’t read them.” She met Carson’s thoughtful gaze. “Why would he have left them for me when he could have gotten rid of them?”
“Maybe he didn’t want your mother’s memory to die with him,” he suggested. “Or maybe there’s something in the letters he wanted you to discover for yourself. To see your mother through her writing, instead of through his interpretation of her.”
Her pulse went crazy as she lifted out a letter and peeked into the envelope.
“A picture,” she said, taking it out. It was a photograph of her parents in front of Biology, the café where they’d met in New York City. “Look at their big eighties hair, and those clothes!”
“Your mom was beautiful, Tabs. It’s like looking at you,” Carson said. “You have her hair, her almond eyes, even her pretty nose.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I love your nose.”
She smiled, warmed by his sweetness. “That’s good, because it’s the only one I have. I wonder when this picture was taken. They met in seventy-eight, when they were attending separate graduate schools. I told you this story, right?”
“You did. Your mom was in the city with friends when they met, and every year after that, they had lunch at that café on the anniversary of the day they’d met. They got married on that same day, three years later. And after you lost your mom, you and your father carried on the tradition at the café.”
“I love that you remember.”
“It’s part of you. I’ll never forget.”
He leaned in for a kiss—he was always leaning in for kisses now, which was new and wonderful, and she knew she’d never tire of it.
“Now it’ll be me and you having lunch at the café. We won’t let that tradition die,” he promised.
“I’d really like that.” She gazed at the picture of her parents, trying to suppress a wave of sadness and wishing not only that she’d had more time with her mother, but also that her mother could have met Carson. She hoped her father was watching over her and knew that she was finding her own skin again—chasing happiness instead of trying to become someone she wasn’t.
“I wish I had known my mother better so I could remember more about her,” she admitted. “I’m thankful that through my father’s stories, she always felt like she was present in our lives. I think some people might find that creepy, but my father adored her until the day he died.” She pressed the photo to her chest. “Do you think it’s weird that I grew up with a father who showed me what true love was, even in my mother’s absence, and I ran off and married someone I wasn’t really in love with just to escape feeling out of control?”
“Not at all,” Carson said, pulling her in closer. “Your father taught you how to love endlessly, the way he loved you and your mother. Fear might have driven you in a different direction, but your heart never forgot. You came back, Tabs, and if I have my way, we’ll never be apart again.”