Seeking Carolina (9 page)

“I’m sorry, Dad.” Words fell out of Will’s mouth like water rushing down a mountain. “I don’t know why I got so mad. I wasn’t…it just didn’t occur to me that you’d ever want…”

“Another woman?”

Will nodded.

“I’m only thirty-eight, son. Your mom didn’t die. She left me for another man.”

“She left us!” Another long exhale. “Sorry. This is just hard, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“I ruined your big moment back there.”

“A little bit.” Charlie laughed. “I’ve done my share of ruining things with Johanna.”

“She was your girlfriend before Mom, right?”

“Yup.”

“Why’d you break up?”

Charlie’s chest tightened.
Because I was an idiot. Because sometimes you make mistakes, son, and there’s only doing what’s right.
“Just a high school thing that didn’t work out,” he lied.

“I guess you can say the same about you and mom.”

“I guess you can. We tried though. And we got you kids. No regrets, kiddo.”

Will’s eyebrow quirked, but he met Charlie’s gaze and, slapping hands to his knees, got to his feet.

“Since I ruined pizza at the Coco’s, I’ll take care of dinner.”

“That’s not necessary, son.”

“It’s no big deal to call for takeout.” He smiled and they laughed together as they hadn’t in a long time. “Chinese okay? I’m kind of tired of pizza.”

“Sounds good. Don’t forget egg-drop soup for Millie.”

He headed for the kitchen. “Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Johanna gave me and Caleb twenty bucks each the other day for shoveling.”

“I know. Caleb already told me.”

“Snitch.”

“You know he is. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Charlie sat in the quiet family room, listening to the distant noises in the rest of the house: Will on the phone with the Chinese take-out place, Caleb and Tony playing video games in their attic room, Millie singing to whatever dolls hadn’t been wrapped up in plastic garbage bags and quarantined out in the garage. The boys never complained about sharing the big attic room. When Charlotte left for college and told Will he could borrow hers while she was gone, he hadn’t taken her up on it.

Your room is too girlie.

But Charlie knew better. Since Gina left, his kids stuck together as ferociously as the Coco girls always had.

He knew little about their parents, only that Nina and Johanna arrived in Bitterly years before Emma and Julietta did. Something about a car crash and a psychiatric ward escape. He thought there was a fire in there someplace too. Or it could have all been gossip the small town thrived upon. Over the years, he did figure out that Adelina and Giovanni Coco must have adopted the girls officially. Though they all had the same parents, they bore their mother’s last name. At least, it was what he decided during those years after Johanna left Bitterly, fantasizing about her when life as an eighteen-year-old father and husband got to be so hard.

“Hey, Daddy.”

Charlotte’s soft voice didn’t startle him, but chased his thoughts away nonetheless. She sat down on the sofa beside him, put her head upon his shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You looked so sad when I came in.”

“I was just thinking.”

“About Johanna?”

He nodded. “I really like her, Daddy.”

“So do I.”

“I don’t think we like her in the same way.” Charlotte nudged him. “You okay with me going to work for her this summer?”

“You don’t need my permission.”

“I wasn’t asking it. I just asked if you were okay with it.”

He put his arm around his daughter, kissed the top of her head. “You’re going to have to see your mother sometime.”

“No I don’t.”

“Char, she’s your mother. And she loves you.”

“But she loves Bertie more.”

“It’s not like that—”

Charlotte sat forward. She turned to face him. “I don’t want to talk about mom. And why are you always defending her? But I don’t want to talk about her. Okay? Let’s just go back to talking about you and Jo and how you’re going to go over there and make something magical happen for her on Christmas Eve.”

Charlie sighed. “Is that what we were talking about?”

“We were getting there.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know. Sing outside her window?”

“You’ve heard me sing, Charlotte.”

“True. How about…oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“I have the perfect thing.” Charlotte bounced on the sofa, clapping her hands like a little girl. “What’s Dan Greene’s phone number?”

* * * *

She had such different visions for the evening. After a day of baking cookies, and an evening of pizza, more cookies, and Christmas specials with the kids, Charlotte would have taken her siblings home, leaving Charlie to watch
It’s a Wonderful Life
with her, her sisters, and their men. As it turned out, after yet more pizza and the beer Gunner brought with him, he and Nina curled up on one sofa, Julietta and Efan lounged on the floor, and Johanna sat with a pillow hugged to her chest, feeling like the fifth wheel on a hay-wagon.

She tried not to sulk. Until coming home for her grandmother’s funeral, Johanna had spent years actively avoiding Charlie McCallan. He hadn’t exactly ditched her this time. Will had gotten upset seeing his father about to kiss someone who wasn’t his mother. He had to come first. She’d have been disappointed in Charlie if he brushed off his son’s feelings for the sake of a kiss. Every rational bit of brain matter told her it was childish to pout, but Johanna found herself doing so anyway.

“Will you quit it?”

Johanna glanced down at her sister on the floor. She and Efan sat foot-to-foot, the only contact between them her plaid Christmas socks and his black ones.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“What did I do?”

Julietta threw herself back against the pillows stacked behind her, sighing dramatically.

“I am not doing that.”

“You’re not as loud,” Gunner said. “But you are doing a lot of sighing over there. Sounds like a tire leaking.”

Efan and Julietta snorted, then laughed at one another. On the screen, Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart were dancing the Charleston.

“What is it about this house that turns otherwise mature adults into children?” Nina scolded, but snorted in her effort not to laugh. “You know, Jo, you could go over to his house. He’s probably sighing like a leaky tire over there, too.”

“Now who’s being childish? I’m going to bed.”

Tossing the pillow at Julietta, who caught it and put it behind her head, Johanna pushed out of the sofa and headed for the stairs. At the front door, she hesitated. Her boots sat on the rack. Her coat hung on a hook. The keys to Gram’s old Explorer were still in the brass bowl on the breakfront. She picked them up. Gripped them in her hand.

Her belly fluttered.

Johanna touched fingers to the place and found the locket beneath her shirt. Static sparked, nicking her fingers and coursing up to her scalp. For a split moment, she smelled summer. Hot air. The woods. The stream there. And it was gone.

She opened her eyes, only then realizing they’d been closed, and found herself outside beside the old Explorer, keys in hand. She looked to the house. Back to the SUV. When had she put on a coat, or stuffed her bare feet into fuzzy boots? She even wore mittens and a hat. A scarf wound ‘round her neck.

“Damn…”

She leaned against the car door, staring at the keys. This was all too much. Being home, facing ghosts she’d been successfully avoiding for years, Gram’s death, finding the locket. And Charlie. After so many years, Charlie McCallan. Johanna bowed her head and took deep breaths, wishing for something of summer to make her promises she was too afraid to ask for.

The jingling of bells picked up her head. The sound got louder, now accompanied by hoof beats on pavement. Johanna started towards the road. A carriage and two came to a stop at the foot of the driveway.

“Merry Christmas, Jo.”

“Hey, Dan.” She glanced to the passenger in the carriage bed. Bundled against the cold, there was still no mistaking him, or the summer scents suddenly rushing at her. “Hey, Charlie,” she managed to say. “You gentlemen out for a night on the town, Colonial style?”

“My sister and her kids are home waiting for me to play Santa,” Dan answered. He gestured over his shoulder. “He’s the only one I’d do this for, on Christmas Eve, no less. But when Charlie McCallan says he needs a favor, there’s not one person in this town who’d say no. Not even grouchy-me.”

“When have you ever been grouchy, Daniel?”

“Daniel, huh? When my sister calls me Daniel, it means trouble.”

“Am I going to get a word or two into my attempt to sweep her off her feet, Dan?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Forget I’m here. I’m invisible. A deaf-mute. Honest.”

“You’re still talking.”

Dan motioned a zipper across his lips, his eyes going skyward as if he would count the stars. Johanna leaned on the carriage door. “Are you here for me, then?”

“I thought a Christmas Eve carriage ride through Bitterly would be a romantic way of apologizing.”

“You did, huh?”

“He’s lying. It was Charlotte.”

“I thought you were a deaf-mute.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Another zip.

Johanna laughed softly, shaking her head. “Keep the heat in,” she said as Charlie started lifting the mounds of blankets. “I can climb up myself.”

“You sure?”

Johanna gripped the sides, tried to heave herself up into the carriage, but it was higher than it looked, she was very small, and her coat was too bulky. She heaved once, twice, on the third, she felt two hands pushing her up from behind.

“There you go.”

“Just like in the movies,” she laughed, flopping forward with the momentum of Dan’s heave. “Such chivalry.”

Charlie lifted the blankets and she got under them quickly. “This is not how I planned for it to go.”

Johanna snuggled into him. “Nothing ever has with us, Charlie.”

“True. You warm enough?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I brought you this.” He handed her a thermos as Dan slapped the reins, jerking the horses into motion. “Caleb made it. He says you taught him how.”

Unscrewing the lid released chocolate-scented steam. She inhaled. “Heavenly.” She poured some in the lid, sipped. “This is even better than mine.”

“I imagine it’s because we ran out of milk, so he used half-and-half.”

“No wonder. I’ll have to remember that.”

The night was clear. The moon was bright and riding high. Warm as she was underneath the blankets, her face was soon near-frozen. Winding her scarf higher up on her face, she hunkered lower in the blankets. Charlie pulled her close, drew the blankets higher so only their eyes and noses peeked out.

“I guess the notion of a moonlight carriage ride on Christmas Eve is slightly more romantic in theory than it is in fact,” he said, his voice muffled. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. This is wonderful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes were not quite green, not quite brown and staring intently into hers. Under the blanket, his warm hands worked their way under her coat to pull her closer.

“Is this okay?”

She nodded.

“Not just this.” He gave her a squeeze. “But this. You and me, this. I’m not getting this out very well.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “And yes, it’s okay. It’s better than okay.”

“You have no idea how bad I want us to work out this time, Jo. Is it too soon to say that?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Please stop apologizing.”

“Sorry.”

“Charlie!”

They laughed softly, the sound mingling with the jingle. Johanna leaned her head against the back of the carriage seat. Her hand wormed free of the blankets. She moved the scarf from her face and pulled her mitten off with her teeth. Charlie had tugged the blanket off his face. His beard was so red, redder than his hair gone more to chestnut.

She drew him to her. Holding his face, she kissed him, not the passionate way that would lead them to bed, but the tender way of their past. Once, twice. For now, it was enough.

Charlie’s eyes stayed closed. Under the blanket, his hand jerked, but he did not pull away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I’m afraid to say the wrong thing, to act too fast or too slow. I don’t want to scare you off again.”

“Scare me off?” Again?

Charlie opened his eyes. “Like when we were kids,” he said. “That Labor Day, at the beach down by the lake.”

Johanna remembered. The beach, his sandy hands on her skin, their bodies sticky with sweat and the desire that led them back to their spot in the woods behind her house. Her groin twitched with the memory of almost, of should-have-been.

“I remember the day,” she said. “You broke my heart.”

“I didn’t mean to push you. I was a kid, and crazy with wanting you.”

Her hands fell slowly from his face. “You…you think you broke my heart by wanting me?”

He shook his head. “By being like all the other boys you couldn’t stand, being the guy who just wanted in your pants.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah. But our summer wasn’t about playing a part until I got sex, Jo. It was the best summer of my life. I should have told you that. I should have told you a lot of things. Instead, I was like a stag in rut. I didn’t blame you for running away, not after the initial frustration of it eased off. Then you wouldn’t speak to me and the next thing I knew, school started. The more you ignored me, the worse I felt. I practiced a million different ways to apologize, to get you to like me again. By Homecoming, I found enough courage to ask you to the school dance, but then…” He blew out a long exhale. “You know what happened next. I got roped into taking Gina to the dance instead. I don’t think I ever forgave Tim Grady for talking me into it. We got drunk, she got pregnant, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Johanna could not get her mouth and brain to cooperate. She remembered that Labor Day so clearly, right down to the intoxication of fear mingling with desire. Charlie thought all these years that he’d been a brute and scared her away, when in fact he’d been so tender. The way he touched her, the way he kissed her, said all those words he believed he should have. I love you. I want you. Forever and ever and ever. He made her want to stay in Bitterly, to get married and have children and forget all her plans to flee Bitterly and its ghosts. It was the wanting that made her run.