CAROLINE
HER APARTMENT IS NOTHING like I imagined it would be, yet it suits her perfectly. Everything here looks like it would’ve looked better in a different time. Not unlike Caroline herself.
“Well, it’s not much, I know. But it’s home,” she says, slapping a throw pillow into shape on her couch.
“Is this where my mom grew up?”
“No. This is where I grew up. My parents lived here. I bought the place from my father when my mother died.”
“Is he still alive? Your father. My great-grandfather,” I add, hearing how strange these words sound coming out of my mouth.
She shakes her head but doesn’t offer up any further information. I follow her into the kitchen, where she pours two glasses of iced tea from a pitcher—a warm golden brown, with ice and wedges of lemon floating at the top. “Want to sit outside?” she asks as she hands one of the glasses to me.
She leads the way back through the living room to a sliding glass door that opens to a small balcony with a concrete floor and wrought-iron bars that form a fence around it. We look out over a courtyard that has a big, L-shaped inground pool in the center, surrounded by tables and umbrellas and those outdoor lounge chairs that have the adjustable backs. There’s a man skimming it. And when he looks up, he waves at us. Caroline waves back and then turns to me as we sit in two metal chairs that are slightly rusted at the edges, their cushions flattened and well worn. “Pool opens next week. You and the others are welcome anytime. Aaron and Callie,” she adds, like it’s strange for her to say their names as well.
“Thanks, I think Callie would like that.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything else.
“Do you work?” I ask, trying to think of anything normal to talk about.
“I work at the college.”
“You’re a professor?” I ask, impressed.
She laughs hard, then starts coughing like before, hacking like she can’t catch her breath. “No,” she finally manages. “Although, once upon a time I thought I would be. No, it’s administrative. Nothing too exciting. But it pays the bills.”
“Do you live here by yourself?”
“You ask a lot of questions—but that’s a good thing. No, as a matter of fact, I have a boyfriend who lives here too. He’s not here right now, but you’ll meet him another time—we’ll have you over for dinner. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No . . . but I have a girlfriend. Or I did, anyway. I don’t know. It’s complicated.” I wait for her reaction; I know a lot of older people don’t get it. A lot of younger people don’t get it either.
“Good. It’s good to have someone,” she says, not batting an eye. “I’d like to meet her sometime. When things are less complicated, that is.”
“That’d be nice.” I pause and consider how to frame this deli–cately. “Are you sick? I can’t help but notice the coughing. Are you okay, is what I’m trying to ask.”
“I’m old.”
“Yeah, but are you—”
“Dying?” she finishes. “We’re all dying. Most of us just don’t know what we’re dying from.” She pauses, then smiles. “I have emphysema. Some days are worse than others. I have oxygen in there”—she hitches her head in the direction of the sliding door—“if I really need it. Sometimes I do.”
“Do you ever think you should quit smoking?” I ask, gesturing to the cigarette case and the lighter in her hand.
Smirking, she shakes her head, pulls one of those long, slender cigarettes out, and lights it. The tendrils of smoke snake around her head like fingers. “It’s my one remaining vice. My father always said”—she lowers her voice to a deeper pitch—“ ‘You’re allowed one vice in life, Caroline, so choose wisely.’ ” She wags her finger, grinning as she mimics her father, this man I’ll never know.
She looks off for moment before turning back to me. “He told me that when I married your grandfather. At the time I didn’t know people could be vices. But they can. I told your mother the same thing right before she married your father. That was the last time she ever spoke to me. Well, until now.” She sighs sadly. “Of course, I wasn’t the most credible person back then. So I can see why she didn’t listen.”
“But you changed,” I remind her.
“That’s right,” she begins. “I’ve been clean and sober for over twenty years. I quit all that stuff when your mother got pregnant with your brother. Not that she was speaking to me then. But children change things. I knew that firsthand. And I wanted to be able to be there if she needed help. So I kicked her father to the curb for the last time, and then I kicked all the other stuff that was bad for me. Except these.” She shakes the cigarette in her hand above her head.
“That must’ve been hard,” I tell her.
She nods. “It was, but not as hard as it would have been to just keep going. You know, in that way I can understand how your mother could’ve done what she did—but mind you, that doesn’t mean I think it was right. It was obviously wrong, there’s no question about that. It can be hard to figure out the right way to get free sometimes.”
I let a wave of silence wash over us, her words sinking in, and I start to think maybe I understand a little bit too, because after all, haven’t I been doing the same thing—trying to figure out the right way to get free?
“Do you talk to Mom now?” I finally ask.
“Yes, I’ve gone to visit her a few times. I was surprised I was on her visitor list. But I was.”
“Do you think I am? After everything?”
“I know that you are.” She pauses to take a long, deep drag of her cigarette. “Would you like to go with me next time?”
“I think I would, actually.”
“Okay,” she says, swatting a fruit fly away from our glasses.
“I came here to—well, I came here for a lot of reasons, but mainly I came to ask a favor.” I take a sip of my iced tea, trying to clear my throat so that the words come out easier. It’s sweet and sour, sugary and lemony, all at the same time. “It’s hard for me to ask for help, I guess.”
“You get that from me,” she says with a patient smile. “You can ask. Whatever it is, you can ask me.”
“Well, things have gotten kind of . . . bad. At school, they need to meet with my guardian because I have all these absences. But Aaron left. And honestly, I don’t even blame him anymore. And I think I’m probably about to get evicted from the apartment. Callie went to go stay with Jackie. And I know she’d let me stay too. But I don’t belong there. And I’m so sick of being where I don’t belong.” I pause, inhaling deeply for the important part. “And I thought maybe, I don’t know, maybe I might belong here. With you.”
She’s nodding before I’ve even finished my sentence, and I think I see her eyes watering up, just barely. “Brooke, I think you might belong here too. So if you’re asking if you can live here with me, I’m saying yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Your boyfriend won’t mind?”
“Hell no, this is my house,” she shouts, with a laugh. “And you know what else?”
“What?”
She crushes her cigarette in the tin ashtray on the table. “I think I might actually try to kick these damn things after all.”