Seasons of Sorrow (7 page)

The woman noticed her staring and smiled. “He’ll be three months old tomorrow.”

“He’s beautiful,” Charlotte whispered, her throat constricting so tightly that she almost couldn’t get the words out.

The woman seemed to sense something was wrong because the smile slowly faded from her face. “Thank you.” She glanced at Brandy, clearly alarmed at Charlotte’s distraught expression.

Unable to stand it any longer, Charlotte wheeled around and walked away quickly. Her heart was pounding and she could barely catch her breath. It was the first time since Adam’s death that she had been in the presence of an infant. Vaguely, she heard Brandy saying something to the woman. A glance over her shoulder showed the woman staring after her with sympathy written all over her expression.

Charlotte couldn’t face it and turned down the first aisle she came upon. Blindly, she stared at rows upon rows of wine bottles and wrestled with the urge to start grabbing them up one at a time and smashing them to the ground. Panting, she jumped when a gentle hand touched her shoulder.

It was Brandy.

“Just breathe, Charlotte. In and out slowly.”

Charlotte nodded and tried to control her breathing, which was difficult considering her chest felt as though it were being squeezed with a steel vise.

Brandy put a hand on her back. “Do you want to leave?”

Slowly, Charlotte shook her head. She knew this first time would be the hardest but she had to do it. Brandy was right. There wouldn’t be someone around to do things for her forever. Already the phone calls and people coming by with food were occurring less and less. Charlotte knew it was because no one wanted to face that it could happen to them, that their children were mortal too. And she couldn’t blame them. It was a hard lesson.

“No, let’s get the rest of what we need and get out of here,” she said.

After selecting a couple of bottles of wine, which she knew she would need after today, she followed Brandy around the store but the small enjoyment she experienced earlier disappeared. Charlotte caught a glimpse of the woman with the baby a few more times while they shopped and she looked away quickly.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, their shopping trip was finished and they were at the checkout line. After the cashier rang up the groceries, Charlotte stepped up with her debit card. She hadn’t thought before but she realized that Brandy had been paying for her groceries for the last couple of months. Guilt pierced her. Sure, Brandy drew a good salary at the law firm where she worked, but she needed to spend her money on things for herself. Charlotte decided to figure out how much her friend had spent and try to pay her back.

She ran the card through the machine. It beeped and the screen said
Transaction Declined
. That was strange. She tried again at the cashier’s prompt, but the same thing happened.

“It happens sometimes,” the cashier said. “That reader is touchy. Let me try it on my computer.”

Charlotte handed her the card. Again, the screen read the same. Anxiety rose within her and, after seeing the baby earlier, Charlotte didn’t know how to respond. Brandy stepped up and ran her card through the machine, a neutral expression on her face. She didn’t say anything and neither did the cashier. Charlotte just stood mutely as they completed the transaction, then followed Brandy out to the car like a puppy.

After they loaded the bags and climbed into the car, Brandy started the car but didn’t put it in gear. When Charlotte looked at her, her friend was gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. Suddenly, Brandy cut loose.

“That motherfucking, cocksucking son of a bitch!” she screamed, pounding the steering wheel with her palms.

Charlotte flinched at the outburst. Brandy had a bad temper but rarely lost it. When she did, it was usually ugly.

Brandy twisted and looked at her. “Do you realize what just happened?” she asked.

Charlotte shook her head.

“That asshole, Derek, took all the money out of your account.”

“What?” Charlotte whispered. It never occurred to her that Derek would do something like that. They had been married for eight years, together for ten. “Why?”

Brandy threw herself back in her seat. “I suspect because he’s getting ready to serve you with divorce papers and he wants to be sure you don’t have the money to hire a decent lawyer. Or he decided to cut and run,” she said darkly. “It’s a typical practice during a divorce process, especially if one of the spouses is unemployed.”

“He can’t do that, can he?” Charlotte asked.

“Oh, he’ll have to give it back to you, but it would be after going before a judge and getting the judge to order it. That could take months.”

Charlotte remained silent.

“Let’s get back to your house and find out what’s going on,” Brandy said.

Charlotte nodded.

Charlotte sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Derek had taken all but fifty dollars out of their joint checking account. He’d left one thousand in their joint savings. When they discovered what he had done, Brandy had Charlotte open a separate account in her name only and transfer all of the money into it. When they called the bank that handled what was left of her mother’s life insurance policy payout, they discovered he had tried to withdraw that money as well but wasn’t allowed since Charlotte had, on her father’s behest, set up the account in a way that Derek could only withdraw money with her approval or in the event of her death.

When Brandy heard, she immediately had Charlotte start the process of having him removed from the account completely. Brandy explained that since Charlotte had those assets before she married Derek and that no deposits had been made into the account, only withdrawals, she was entitled to keep the account unless a judge declared it community property in court.

The account only had about fifty thousand dollars left in it, since the insurance payout hadn’t been very large to begin with, but it would provide Charlotte with a cushion until she found a job. Brandy promised Charlotte that an attorney friend would represent her at a reasonable rate, but, even with the discount, that account wouldn’t last long if Charlotte was both paying the lawyer and living off the money.

She was going to have to find a job. Something that paid relative well. If she didn’t, then she would have give up the house. Charlotte couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t leave. All her memories of her son were here.

It terrified her. She hadn’t been in the workforce for five years, since Derek insisted that she shouldn’t have to deal with the stresses of working and entertaining as much as his business demanded. At the time, Charlotte had been relieved, because Derek threw dinner parties for clients and employees constantly and she always did all the cooking and cleaning in preparation for the events. Or they went out for long dinners at nice restaurants, courting potential clients or celebrating the closing of a deal.

Then, later, when she was pregnant with Adam, she was grateful she didn’t have to drag herself to work everyday. Her morning sickness had actually been all day sickness and the last couple of months had been especially rough. Charlotte had been on bed rest and would have been unable to work anyway.

Now, the thought of job hunting made her palms sweat. Before she married Derek, she had been an office manager for a local business. The business had grown in the time she had worked there, so, by the time she left, she was making good money. Charlotte doubted she would be able to find a job like that easily. With the current job market, she worried she wouldn’t be able to find work at all.

She also couldn’t believe that Derek could do this to her. It was becoming distressingly clear that her husband didn’t care about her at all. He also seemed completely unaffected by the loss of their child.

That burning sensation returned to her middle. It wasn’t anxiety, it was anger, an emotion that was becoming near constant. All she wanted was her little boy back and her soon-to-be-ex-husband seemed to care less. It felt good to let the anger rise up.

Straightening in her seat, Charlotte grabbed up her phone. She clicked Derek’s number and waited while the phone rang. Of course, he didn’t pick up. He never did the few times she had called him since he left. Obviously her husband intended to make a clean break, never mind the eight years that they had been man and wife.

That was fine. If she left it in a recorded voice message, maybe he would listen to it more than once and it would get through the layer of indifference.

“I just got off the phone with the bank, Derek. It seems you’ve been busy. You know, I was willing to give you a quick and painless divorce. Instead, you got greedy. Now, I’m going to fight for every piece of you I’m entitled to after eight years of marriage. You wanted to screw me over, well, now it’s war.”

Charlotte managed to disconnect the call without smashing the phone against the wall, but it was a close thing. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe slowly. What she truly wanted to do was scream her head off. It had been a long time since she had been this angry. In their years of marriage, she and Derek rarely fought, mostly because he acted as though nothing bothered him. When they had disagreed, she usually acquiesced because she hated for him to be angry with her.

Now, she didn’t care. The ire within her burned off the numbness and exhaustion that typically plagued her since Adam’s death. When she opened her eyes, Brandy was standing next to her, watching her closely.

“Are you okay?” Brandy asked.

Charlotte nodded. “Did you talk to your colleague?”

Her friend also nodded. “Yes. She’s expecting your call. She said you could pay what you could for now and then settle up the rest later.”

That was surprising to Charlotte. “How did you accomplish that?”

A satisfied smile crossed Brandy’s face. “Oh, Nora knows Derek. She’s met him a time or two and, I’m repeating her words here, thinks he’s an arrogant, narcissistic twat.”

Charlotte shook her head, in awe of her ballsy best friend. Not for the first time, she wondered what her life would be like if she were more like Brandy; strong, independent, and gutsy. Instead she felt weak, insecure, and lost. She realized that she had been feeling lost for most of her life. It wasn’t until she found out she was pregnant with Adam that she felt that her life had true direction.

For the first time in the last six weeks, Charlotte didn’t feel like crying. She felt like kicking her asinine husband in the face. She didn’t understand his detachment. Not just his disregard for her, but his indifference to the death of his son.

Charlotte looked up at Brandy. “Since my husband doesn’t seem to feel emotional pain, then I want him to feel it where it will hurt him the most; his wallet.”

Brandy’s expression grew sly and satisfied. “I couldn’t agree with you more. I’d also say it’s long past due.”

After all the revelations Charlotte had in regards to her husband, she was inclined to agree. Derek was definitely not the man she’d always believed him to be. She was beginning to wonder if there was more she didn’t know about her husband. If there was, Charlotte decided she probably wouldn’t want to know what other secrets he’d kept from her all these years. The pain she endured now was enough suffering for one decade.

Spring

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn

~Hal Borland~

Chapter Six