Authors: Karen Rose
Dana smiled. An incredibly gentle smile that made him want to swear and cry at the same time. He did neither and she gave him another. „Self-control. I admire that in a man. As long as it’s within reason, of course. Max, what do you think you should see when you look at Caroline?“
„A strong woman who’s survived. I should admire her.“
She lifted her brows. „But?“
Max closed his eyes. „But I don’t see that. I see her lying at the bottom of those cellar stairs. Broken and hurting.“ His lips trembled and he pursed them. „Scared.“
„I forget that imagination goes along with your chosen field. History,“ she added when he opened his eyes to frown at her. „Evie tells me how you make her classes come alive. You couldn’t do that if your mind didn’t paint pictures. Sometimes those pictures can be liabilities.“
Max laughed bitterly. „Yeah. So what?“
„So you’re right. She was lying on that cellar floor, broken and scared. Tom found her like that. He was the one to call 911.“
Max winced, able to see that picture all too clearly as well. No wonder the boy acted like his mother’s bodyguard.
Dana’s hand came to rest on his wrist, initiating a soothing human contact. „But she isn’t there now. She isn’t lying on any cellar floor.“ One corner of her mouth turned up. „She doesn’t even have a cellar floor anymore.“
Max stared, stunned. „How…“
„Can I joke about such things?“ she finished. „Come on, Max, what’s the alternative? Depression that eats at you until you wish you were dead? You want to know who taught me to laugh when I wanted to do violence to the bastard of a man who hurt her? Caroline did. She came into my life seven years ago when I’d already been divorced from my own abusive spouse for years. I’d gotten my degree in counseling to make a difference, but I was so discouraged. One day the old director of the House told me to pick up a new client. I met Caroline at the Greyhound station, frightened but determined, holding the hand of the bravest little boy I’d ever met. I haven’t met any braver since. Tom drew that courage from his mother. Caroline taught me what true perseverance really meant. What true courage really meant. When I met her she still wore a back brace and walked to the bus stop with a cane. Did you know that?“
Max shook his head.
„She worked in a warehouse and she’d come home so tired… But she always had time for Tom. She’d tell him funny, cute little stories that kept him giggling long after she turned off his light. That was how she made it through. Indomitable will, the sense of humor of a troop of vaudeville comics, and more courage than a platoon of soldiers. That’s the woman she wants you to see. That’s the woman she is.“
„How long did she stay with him?“ The question came out before he could stop it and he could only be grateful Caroline wasn’t sitting here to hear it.
Dana didn’t flinch. „You’ll need to ask her that question, Max. I will tell you that women stay with abusive men for many different reasons. Many of them were probably true for Caroline during the years she was with Rob.“
Rob. A name to put with the virulent hatred that bubbled up from some dark corner of his heart. His hands clenched into fists.
„Women stay with men for many reasons,“ Dana continued, and Max watched as her eyes dropped to his fists. He immediately relaxed them, flattening his palms on the table. She lifted her eyes back to his and nodded. „They tend to leave for only a few.“
„Their children.“
„That’s number one. In Caroline’s case there never was a time when a child didn’t factor in.“
„She had Tom when she was sixteen,“ he remembered.
„Yes.“ Dana covered the back of his hand with her palm. „Max, you’ve told Caroline you love her. Is that true?“
Max nodded, his throat constricting once again. „Yes.“
„Then you’ll need to realize first that this discovery isn’t something you package all nice and neat and file away under ‘E’ for ‘experiences you care not to remember.’ Caroline is more than a former client. She’s my best friend. I want her to have a normal life more than I want to breathe. If you’re the right man for her, I’ll support you in working through this. Get some counseling, but not one-on-one. Join a therapy group with other men whose wives or girlfriends have been abused. The others in the group will not allow you to feel sorry for yourself. Ever.“
It was a suggestion he could live with. „Okay.“
„And secondly? When you think about her lying bruised and broken and scared, picture her getting up and getting away. Because that’s what she’s done.“ She picked up another french fry, and studied it intently as if she were weighing her next words with care. „And Max? Don’t fall into the trap of treating her like spun glass. Especially when the situation is an intimate one.“ She abandoned the french fry and slid from the booth. „It’s the absolute worst thing you can do.“
Chicago
Saturday, March 17
8 p.m.
Sitting on the sofa where they’d made love not twenty-four hours before, Caroline watched Max kneel at the fireplace and poke at the kindling fire with the old poker that had belonged to his grandparents. There was proof of his family and their ongoing legacy everywhere she turned. It made telling him the whole truth even more daunting. She now had so much more to lose if he turned her away.
„It’s nice that we can have a fire this late in the year,“ Caroline commented, more to break the silence than for any other reason. The silence during the day had been excruciating. They’d picked at their dinner when she’d returned from her twenty-minute visit to the ladies’ room. Dana had been there, talking to Max. Caroline didn’t even need to ask to know it was true. A) because Dana had promised she would and B) because Caroline found mounds of ketchup-soaked french fries on her plate. Dana was a fry-dunker. Always had been. Especially when she was nervous or agitated.
Max had tried. Really tried. But it was an incredible shock to a man like him – a man whose parents had loved one another and their children openly and without restraint. Caroline hesitated over telling him the rest. If he became so upset over the abuse she’d told him about that morning, how upset would he become when he heard the rest of the story, including the little matter of falsified documents and her ongoing marital status? Little problems, those.
Max looked up from the fire. „Yes, it is nice. I remember my grandmother letting us roast marshmallows over the fire way into the early summer. We’d make s’mores and drip the chocolate onto the floor.“ He ruefully looked down at the ancient carpet. „I’m wishing now we’d been a little more careful with Grandma’s things.“ He smiled, but it never really reached his eyes.
Caroline smiled with him, then drew a deep breath and patted the space on the sofa next to her. „Come sit down, Max. We need to talk.“
Slowly he pulled himself to his feet, using the cane to keep his balance. „It’s time?“ He met her eyes as he crossed the room and in his she saw real fear. But he sat down next to her nonetheless. „I’m ready. Let’s have it.“
Caroline reached up to caress the hard line of his jaw. „It will change how you think about me,“ she began and he abruptly grabbed her wrist, his eyes blazing. He didn’t grab hard enough to hurt, but she was startled all the same.
„And for that alone I want to kill the bastard that laid his hands on you. Does that change the way you think about me?“
Caroline blinked. „I guess I never thought about it that way.“
„Then do. This thing will change us both. I swear…“ He dropped her wrist and looked away for a moment. She watched his throat work as he stared into the fire. „I swear, Caroline,“ he whispered now, his voice breaking. „I don’t know if I’m strong enough to listen then go on the way you have all this time. All day long I just wanted to…“
„Howl at the moon?“ Caroline suggested, feeling her own eyes sting.
He looked back, his eyes tortured, but his mouth smiling. „Yeah, something like that.“
„Then do. Nobody’s going to hear you for miles and miles way out here in the country.“
His smile dimmed. „And I’ve also wondered if you weren’t a little afraid of me. I’m a big man and I live in a very isolated – “
Caroline reached up to cover his mouth, to stop the sentence before he finished it. „No. The answer to that is no. Once when you startled me I was afraid, but it was remembering that it was you and not him anymore that made it okay. I’ve never been afraid of you, Max. Never.“
He closed his eyes as his shoulders sagged in relief. „I’ve been so afraid to hear that answer.“
„Do you have any more questions before I get started?“
He opened his eyes and rubbed his thumb against her lower lip. „Yes. Last night, when we made love…“
„It was the first time for me, Max,“ she whispered. „All my life I heard people talk about how wonderful sex was. I never understood until I made love with you.“
This time his smile made it to his eyes. „That’s what I needed to know.“
Caroline drew a breath and settled back into the sofa and gave him a shaky smile. „I’m not sure where to begin.“
„How about at the beginning?“ Max lifted his arm, offering her a place to lay her head.
Caroline nestled against him. „That’s what Dana always says. Okay.“ She paused and hoped for wisdom from above. None came, so she started at the beginning. „Once upon a time I was born to parents who didn’t love each other and they didn’t love me. My father was an angry man with big fists who routinely beat my mother and me. I learned early that if he came home drunk the best hiding place was under the front porch.“ She shivered, remembering. „It was dark and had snakes, but it still was better than what waited above.“ His hand reached out to touch her cheek. She covered his fingers with her hand, holding his hand in place. It helped. Knowing he was there helped her tell the story she hoped she’d never have to remember again.
„When I was fifteen, I met one of the high-school football players who took me to dinner. I didn’t know anything about sex then. I didn’t know what he’d try after telling me I was pretty and investing a full dollar-fifty in my hamburger and fries. I didn’t even know I was pregnant with Tom until about four months later. My father, of course, was livid. He insisted Rob marry me. In those days, that’s what you did. So I became a mamma myself at sixteen. And a high-school dropout. And a wife.“ She sighed. „And a punching bag.“
She felt Max’s body stiffen. She pressed a kiss into his palm that still cradled her cheek, then released his hand and rubbed his thigh. „His name was Rob and he hit when he drank. Or sometimes when the house wasn’t clean enough, or dinner tasted bad. I found a women’s clinic across the state line and visited whenever he did damage I couldn’t fix.“
Max’s gulp was audible. „Such as?“
„Oh, well, let’s see,“ she answered, too lightly. She couldn’t help the glibness. It was the only way she knew to cope. „A few radial fractures – from twisting my arm. Broken arms“ – she closed her eyes and counted – „five, maybe six times. A broken leg or two. Maybe three. Once he broke my jaw and I had to have my teeth wired. That was an interesting one to explain away. Lots of broken ribs and bruises.“ And burns and cuts, she thought, but those injuries were a lot harder to recount. „I tried to run away.“
„You did?“
She patted his thigh. His tone was one of cautious optimism – as if he’d wanted to ask if she’d tried to get away but had been afraid to do so. „I did. I found out when Tom was about four and a half that I was pregnant again. Rob was overjoyed. I was horrified. I didn’t want to bring another person under Rob’s control. More selfishly, I didn’t want any more responsibility that would keep me from running away. I knew I had to get away before the new baby was born or I’d be trapped until the baby was old enough to walk fast or know how to be quiet if I needed to escape. I waited and waited for the right opportunity, but it never came. My due date kept getting closer so I finally just decided to do it. To run away. When I was about six months along, I scraped up as much money as I could and put Tom in the backseat and drove to my mother’s house – my father had died by that point. I hoped she could spare a little money – just enough to feed Tom until I found help. That was a strategic error.“
„What happened?“
Caroline shook her head, the memory still so crystal clear. „She lectured me. Told me a wife’s place was by her husband. That I should concentrate on being a better wife so Rob wouldn’t be so mad at me all the time. And then…“ She shook her head again, still unable to believe what happened next after all these years. „And then she called Rob.“
„What?“
She looked up at his stunned expression and shook her head. „I couldn’t believe it either. I was in shock. Then I grabbed Tom and we ran. I’d made it almost to the state line, so close to a secret shelter where Rob couldn’t have found me.“ She sighed. „Anyway, I was this close“ – she held up her fingers, measuring – „when I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the flashing lights. He’d found me.“
Max frowned. „He called the police on you?“
Caroline started to frown back and then understood the source of his confusion. „No, Max. Rob was the police. He was a cop.“
He closed his eyes, his expression now haggard. „God.“
„Yeah.“
„So there wasn’t anyone to help you.“
She took one of his big hands between hers and focused on tracing the lines defining his palm. „No. Not really. He pulled me over that night and pulled Tom from the back seat. He said I could go… but I had to leave my son behind.“ Her throat swelled, remembering. „I’ll never forget the look on my baby’s face. He was so terrified. So I went back.“ She looked up to find his gaze fixed on her and she met his eyes, willing him to understand. „He had my baby.“
Max brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek with a hand that trembled. „You did what you had to do to protect your child. You couldn’t have left him alone.“
She shook her head. „No, I couldn’t. He…“ She cleared her throat. „Rob pushed me down the stairs that night.“
He swallowed, his throat visibly working. „And you broke your back.“
„No, not that time. That would have been the second time – after I finally got up the nerve to take out a restraining order. This was the first time I tumbled down the stairs.“ She didn’t miss the way his face tightened, but he didn’t say a word. „This was the time I…“ Caroline felt her lips tremble, her eyes fill. She dreaded me memory of what came next. It was a memory she’d always managed to stuff back down, but tonight it simply wouldn’t. „I… I lost my baby that night.“ She blinked and felt the warmth of her own tears on her face. Max brushed them away. „I felt so guilty,“ she whispered, the emotions all coming back. „I hadn’t wanted that baby and – “