Chapter 34 Taste the Rainbow Cara #2
“You know, I appreciate that Carter lets me keep my natural hair color each year,” he says, smoothing his hands over his straightened blond strands. “But could he at least give me a bit of wiggle room with my skirt? I’m practically free-balling it!”
Jaxon joins us in a hot-pink sweater, his brown hair set in loose curls.
“Not me.” He gives us a little twirl, flipping up the front of his brown plaid miniskirt when he spins to a stop, revealing a pair of stretchy shorts.
“He got me a skort! It has built-in shorts with pockets, and there was even a Toaster Strudel in one of them. I think it was part of the costume, but I ate it. Don’t tell Carter. ”
“Oh my God,” Olivia murmurs, hand over her mouth as she looks between the boys like she’s just figured out who they all are.
“No, but if Adam’s Cady Heron, and Garrett’s Karen Smith, and Jaxon’s Gretchen Wieners, and…
and… okay, but, there’s only one Mean Girl left, and there’s still Carter and Emmett, so maybe—”
Olivia shuts her mouth. Opens it again. Shakes her head as Emmett emerges from the basement in skintight black spandex, wearing a pink board over his chest and back, BURN BOOK pasted to the front of it.
“No,” she whispers. “No, because if Adam’s…
and if Garrett’s… and-and-and… if you’re… then that means…”
As if that’s his cue, tires squeal in the near distance. Like, from the dining room. An engine roars—more like squeaks—and Ireland’s pink ride-on car slides into the hallway, skidding to a halt before us.
Carter struggles to get out of it, hiking one hairy leg over the door, the other jammed beneath the steering wheel.
“Ow, fuck, shit,” he mutters, then seems to reconsider, or maybe he just accepts his fate.
He stops fighting with the car and lets his leg hang over the door, his leather miniskirt riding dangerously high up his thigh.
Beneath his pink cardigan the words A LITTLE BIT DRAMATIC stretch across his skintight white T-shirt, and I’ve never seen anything quite so accurate as he flips his long blonde wig over his shoulder and says, “Get in, losers, we’re going shopping. ”
Abel looks Carter over with so much curiosity, but it’s the absence of all surprise that does me in. Instead, his gaze slowly slides away, and he spins into my side, tugging on my hand. “Can we leave Uncle Carter here and go trick-or-treating without him?”
We don’t, of course, even though Olivia insists it’s a wonderful idea.
Instead, we head out twenty minutes later, after a photo shoot on the front porch, with our entire crew in tow.
Instead, we have to deal with every single person we meet on the street who wants a picture of their favorite Vancouver Vipers dressed up as Mean Girls.
Instead, we’re subjected to an hour of Carter’s nonstop gloating after a stranger remarks that their costumes are more iconic than the movie itself.
And perhaps worst of all? We have to sit through two rounds of Karaoke with Carter after we’re done trick-or-treating, all because Abel, Lily, and Connor said I’m not tired yet.
And when it’s all over, and Emmett and I sit at the kitchen island while Abel talks with Catharine on FaceTime, I’m certain I wouldn’t change a minute of it.
“And then she, um, she said, ‘A dinosaur? I scared of dinosaurs!’ and I went like this, I went, roar!” Abel makes claws with his hands, roaring as loud as he can, teeth bared as he tells Catharine about the old lady down the street who pretended she thought Abel was a real dinosaur.
He shrugs. “But then I say, ‘It’s okay. I not a weal dinosaur. I just pwetending.’ ”
Catharine laughs, and it makes me smile, the way it always does these days, because it’s so much lighter than anything I’d ever heard from her while she was still living in Vancouver. “I’m so glad you had such a great time trick-or-treating. You know, I’ve never been.”
“What?” I lean into the frame, a look of what must be pure horror on my face. “That can’t be true.”
“We had to abstain from all appearances of evil, Cara,” she tells me very matter-of-factly, then sighs. “Even then, most of my friends’ parents still let them dress up and trick-or-treat.”
“Oh my God. This is new information. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Okay, it’s okay.” I flap my hands, not sure how to process this. I snap my fingers at Emmett. “Baby, my ideas book. Please.”
He opens the drawer that used to be filled with sex toys, now filled only with various notebooks to record my brilliant ideas whenever the mood strikes. He finds the purple one titled Parties and tosses it across the counter to me, along with a pen. “You’ve brought this on yourself, Cat.”
I point my pen at her before scrawling in the notebook, Cat’s 1st Halloween, underlining it twice.
“Next Halloween. Next Halloween, you’re coming down and you’re trick-or-treating with us.
Who’s your favorite Disney princess? Oooh, or villain.
Favorite animal? A cat would be cute, ’cause, Cat.
Oh, wait, you love to read, a bookworm would be ironic…
” I cackle quietly, though one could possibly perceive it to be a wee bit on the maniacal side, and hold up my notebook, showing Catharine the doodle of herself I just completed.
I point to the devil horns on her head. “Get it?”
She snorts a laugh so loud, so fun, I can’t help but grin.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got a year to plan this. It’ll be spectacular.”
“I’m scared.”
“You should be.” Closing my notebook, I smile down at Abel as he yawns, reaching for Emmett. “We should get you off to bed, huh?”
He nods, laying his head on Emmett’s shoulder before giving Catharine a sleepy, heartbreaking smile. “I love you, Catharine.”
“I love you too, little man,” she tells him, and when Emmett starts up the stairs with him, she wipes a tear from her eye.
“You okay?”
She nods, sniffling. “I am, truly.”
And I don’t doubt that. It’s only been two months since Catharine moved to Kelowna and started school, but she’s flourished so much.
She spent most of the summer panicking about truly being on her own for the first time and whether she could handle it, but when we took the long weekend to drive up there with her and help her get moved in, every anxious thought she’d had vanished.
Watching her step out of the car and look up at her future was like watching someone take their first breath.
She FaceTimes with Abel once a week, and she came down over Thanksgiving and spent the long weekend with us. She works, she studies, and she spends all of her free time reading and writing, and she’s happy. What a privilege it is to be able to see her reach out and take control of her happiness.
“Hey.” I wait for her gaze to come back to mine, and I smile. “You’re doing it.”
Her smile is tentative, like she has to give herself permission to admit it first, but once it starts, it explodes like sunshine across her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” She’s quiet for a moment, lost in thought. “Hey, Cara? Thank you.”
“For what?”
She pulls her lower lip between her teeth, searching for the answer.
When she finds it, she smiles, those beautiful green eyes she passed on to Abel shining with gratitude.
“Peace. Abel has a home he feels safe in, with people he feels safe with. He’s loved, he’s learning, and he’s happy.
And that brings me a peace I never thought I’d find. Thank you.”
I wish I could find the words to describe it, the feeling that moves through me as I weep quietly in the dark kitchen after Catharine and I hang up, hugging Abel’s dinosaur costume to my chest while the laughter of my husband and son bounces quietly off the walls above me.
It feels like I’m wading out to sea again for the first time in ages, since the last time I was here, when I nearly didn’t make it.
It feels like standing on the shore in the middle of a thunderstorm, watching the angry waves toss and turn.
Except this time, I turn my face toward the sky, I close my eyes, and I breathe it in.
The fresh air, the renewed strength. I breathe out what no longer serves me, and I breathe in the knowledge that what’s meant to be will find me, one way or another, in this life or the next.
And when I open my eyes, the storm wanes.
The rain slows to a patter until all that’s left of it is what clings to the salty air.
The clouds part, and the sunshine reflects off those lingering droplets, splashing a rainbow across the sky as the waves die down, until they’re nothing but the gentle lap of the water kissing my toes.
It feels like putting one foot in front of the other, slow but certain, knowing that I am strong enough to survive anything this life lays at my feet, because I have survived what was meant to break me beyond repair.
It feels like water surrounding me in a warm embrace as I step deeper.
It feels like facing my fears as I dive headfirst into the water.
And when I emerge, taking that first breath, so deep it revitalizes every inch of me, it feels like healing.
It feels like loving myself enough to choose healing.
When I finally find myself outside of Abel’s room, peering in on my two favorite boys snuggled up in the window beneath the stars, there are only three things I am certain of.
First, that healing begins with forgiving myself. For the love I denied myself, for the worth I tossed away, for not showing up for myself on the days I needed myself most.
Second, that I would do it all over again if it meant ending up exactly where I am right now.
And finally, that my worth has never, not once, and no matter how much I believed it to be, been tied to my ability to reproduce. My body is a temple. My heart is good and full. My brain is powerful and magnificent. And me? I am fierce. Capable. Worthy.
I’m fucking priceless.