Chapter Thirteen #2
I stand in my kitchen holding the phone, and my throat aches, because I’m leaving a man who asks what I need to go back to a house where nobody ever asked.
This step feels like ending a relationship before its begun, and I remind myself it’s a temporary relocation.
Four or five months, at most. Alec will be waiting when we return.
I call Marnie. She picks up on the first ring, just like she did yesterday, when I called her after speaking with Sterling. I was still undecided at that time.
“You’re going back to Charlotte,” Marnie says. It isn’t a question. She’s already guessed. She probably knew I would agree when we spoke yesterday.
“I don’t have much choice right now.”
There’s a bite in her voice. “You don’t owe him squat. He threw you out while you were pregnant.”
“It’s not for him. It’s for his bone marrow, which my daughter might need. I don’t get to pick which version I deal with.”
“Casey...” There’s clearly something on her mind.
She’s been my best friend for six years.
She talked me through morning sickness over the phone at midnight.
She drove three hours from Charlotte when Sienna’s first treatment failed because I called her crying, and she didn’t ask whether I needed her, she just got in the car.
Marnie has earned the right to say what she wants.
“Tell me,” I say.
“You’re walking back into the house you crawled out of. The house hasn’t changed. The people in it haven’t changed. The only difference is that you’re bringing a four-year-old this time.” Her voice drops. “Sienna doesn’t deserve that. Neither do you.”
“I know. I know all of it.”
“Then you also know that you’re stronger than you were when you left. You know more. You have Danielle. You have me. You’re not the same person they threw out.”
“I know that too.”
“Good.” Her voice is stronger now. “You’re not making a mistake.
You’re making a trade. Those feel the same, but they’re not.
Don’t let the Hollingsfords grind you under their heel.
” She clears her throat. “On the plus side, I’ll be close by, still in my one-bedroom apartment.
The folding couch is always available to you and Sienna if you need it. ”
I blink back tears. “Thanks, Marnie. You’re the best.”
She laughs, though it sounds a bit damp, like she wants to cry. “I know. See you soon.”
After we hang up, I start getting things together.
Her meds go in a cooler bag with ice packs and cyclosporine, the antifungal she takes because her immune system can’t fight off what healthy four-year-olds shrug off.
The dosing schedule goes in my purse in a zippered pocket because I’ve learned to keep critical documents where I can reach them without digging.
I pack Sienna’s clothes, her bear book, and the pajamas she doesn’t really like but make it easy to access a central line if she has to have another one. I don’t pack Bart. He’ll be carried and in her arms the whole way.
I pack another suitcase for myself of essentials.
I can buy anything I might forget when I’m back in Charlotte, so I keep it simple.
When I carry my suitcase to the living room, I pause to look around the apartment at the photographs on the wall, the books on every surface, and the kitchen window that faces the mountains on clear days.
I’ve lived here for more than four years.
I built this life from a sublease, a nursing license, and the stubbornness of a woman who refused to ask the family that threw her away for help.
I call Hettie. “Can you keep an eye on the apartment? Water the plants, grab my mail?”
“Already planned on it. How long will you be in Charlotte?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” It’s mostly true. Hettie has been watching Sienna for two years. She knows the difference between Casey-fine and real-fine, but she lets this one go.
“I’ll hold things down here. Call me if you need anything. I mean anything, Casey. I still have a driver’s license and a Cadillac that likes the open road.”
I laugh, picturing the elderly schoolteacher undertaking a rescue mission and driving frantically to reach me in her silver Cadillac. “Thanks, Hettie. That means...everything.”
We speak for a few more minutes before I hang up.
It feels like goodbye, but I’m only leaving temporarily, on my terms. I’m choosing the lesser of two evils for Sienna’s sake.
There’s no need to be melodramatic about a brief hiatus from the apartment.
I’m going to keep paying the rent, and it will be here when we get back.
I load the car and strap in Sienna. She has Bart in a headlock, wearing the purple shirt she insisted on because it matches Bart’s bow tie, which Bart doesn’t have, but Sienna has decided he does.
The drive is three hours. I take I-40 East, the same road I drove west four years ago with a bag, a pregnancy, and a sentence I never got to say. The mountains shrink behind me in the rearview mirror. Charlotte grows ahead.
Sienna sings to Bart for the first twenty minutes.
She makes up songs about elephants who live in trees.
The songs have no melody or structure, and the lyrics keep changing.
They’re perfect. Listening to them makes my chest hurt, not because of Sterling, not because of Charlotte, but because my daughter is four years old, she’s sick, and I’m driving her toward something I can’t fully control.
We stop at a rest area outside Morganton.
Sienna needs the bathroom. I carry her because the parking lot is wet.
She weighs almost nothing, a fact that registers every time I pick her up, reminding me how much eighteen months of illness have taken from her.
In the bathroom, she asks me to hold Bart so I do.
She goes into the stall alone, which is something she’s been doing for months now.
When she comes out, she washes her hands twice like I taught her, since her immune system is compromised.
She looks at herself in the mirror. “My purple shirt is the best shirt in the whole world.”
“It’s,” I tell her. “It’s the best shirt.”
“You should get one, and we can match, Mommy. You, me, and Bart.”
I don’t tell her purple clashes with my hair. If it makes her happy, I’ll wear purple every day for the rest of my life.
After grabbing snacks from the vending machine, we get back on the road. We’re forty minutes from Charlotte when she asks the first question. “Mommy, why are we moving?”
“We’re not moving, baby. We’re staying in Charlotte for a little while. There’s a doctor there who can help make you better.”
“Like Dr. Murphy?”
“Like Dr. Murphy, yes. Do you remember meeting Dr. Osgood on my iPad?”
“Yes.” She sounds doubtful though. She might remember Nadine Osgood when she sees her in at the first appointment though.
“You’ll be seeing her in person for now.”
“Okay.” She’s quiet for two miles before she asks, “Is the man from the door going to be there?”
My stomach drops. “Yes.”
“Who is he?”
The road is I-40 East, the same interstate I drove west four years ago with everything I took with me in the back seat. The mountains are behind me. Charlotte is ahead. I blot out thoughts of this trip in reverse four years ago. “He’s your dad,” I say.
Sienna takes a while with that. She holds Bart tighter and looks out the window at the trees going past. I can see her face in the rearview mirror.
“Is he nice?” she asks.
I drive several miles before I answer, past two exits, a truck stop, and a billboard for a personal injury lawyer, searching for the right answer. Sienna waits with surprising patience and doesn’t ask again.
“I don’t know yet,” I say finally.
Sienna nods and hugs Bart, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “Okay. We’ll find out.”