8. Carrie
— ? —
Carrie
The workshop is all sawdust and linseed oil, low light and the smell of raw wood.
It’s been a week now, and I’ve started following Tom out here in the mornings, watching him work.
There’s a hypnotic rhythm to the way his hands move over the wood, patient, precise, coaxing the material instead of forcing it into shape.
The rocking chair he’s building is taking form slowly, curve by curve, and I find myself wanting to touch it, to feel the smoothness he’s creating.
“Can I try?” I ask, surprising myself.
Tom looks up from the sandpaper. There’s sawdust in his hair and a smear of wood stain across his cheek. “You want to sand?”
“You make it look peaceful.”
“It is. Here.” He hands me a block of sandpaper and positions my hands on the arm of the chair. “Go with the grain. Feel the direction of the wood. Don’t fight it.”
I try. The first few strokes are too hard, too aggressive, and Tom laughs softly behind me.
“Easy. You’re not punishing it.”
“Maybe I want to punish something.”
“Then punch a pillow later. Right now, just feel.”
I adjust my grip and try again. Softer this time. Slower. The wood is warm under my hands, and after a few minutes, I start to understand what he means about not fighting it. There’s a rhythm to this. A meditation.
“Better,” Tom says. “You’re a natural.”
“I’m terrible.”
“Everyone’s terrible at first. The trick is being terrible long enough that you accidentally become good.” He pulls up a stool beside me, watching my hands. “Ulises ever let you try anything like this?”
The words slip out before I can catch them: “Ulises never let me near his projects.”
The air changes.
I freeze, sandpaper still in my hands. The name hangs between us, thick and impossible to wave away. I’m supposed to not remember him. I’m supposed to be confused and lost and safe in my amnesia.
But I said his name the way you say one you’ve spoken a thousand times before.
Because I have.
Tom doesn’t move. His voice, when it comes, is quiet. Careful. “You recognize that name. Ulises. My brother.”
“I-”
“You’ve tensed every time I’ve mentioned him this week. Not confused. Not curious. Tense. Like someone who knows exactly who he is and what he’s capable of.”
I set down the sandpaper. My hands are shaking.
“Carrie.” Tom turns me gently to face him, his hands on my shoulders. “You remember everything, don’t you?”
The lie is right there. I could swallow it, double down, claim confusion and slip back into the safety of pretend. But I’m so tired. So tired of carrying this alone, of watching every word, of pretending to be someone I’m not.
And he’s been so good to me. He’s earned the truth.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I remember everything.”
For a second his face changes, and it is not into the calm I expected. It is hurt.
He lets go of my shoulders and stands. Walks to the workbench. Puts his back to me.
“A week.” His voice is low. “You have been in my house a week. I gave you my bed. I lied to my own family for you, to that doctor, to everyone. And the whole time you knew exactly who you were. You let me think you couldn’t remember your own name.”
“Tom.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” He turns his head, just enough to look at me. “Or was I the next mark?”
The next mark. He thinks I ran a con on him. The accusation knocks the air out of me.
“You’re his brother.” My voice shakes, but I don’t look away.
“I woke up in a hospital with a man who owns me standing over my bed, and the only person in that room who didn’t make my skin crawl was a stranger I had met twice.
I didn’t lie to use you. I lied because it was the only thing keeping me alive.
I didn’t know you yet. I couldn’t afford to. ”
He turns all the way around.
And I watch the anger go out of him. Underneath it is shame.
“No,” he says quietly. “You couldn’t. I know that.” He comes back to me, slower this time. “I’m not angry that you lied. I’m angry that you had to. That someone could make you that afraid, and you are the one standing here apologizing for it.”
He takes a breath.
“Tell me. All of it. I’m not going anywhere.”
So I do.
I start at the beginning, the fertility clinic, the cold doctor with his statistics and his pity.
The way he said at your age, we have to be realistic, already burying me.
The walk home, practicing my smile, practicing what I’d say to Ulises because I still believed, stupidly, desperately believed, that he might hold me. That he might care.
I tell him about the thong on the living room floor. The trail of clothes up the stairs. The sounds from the bedroom.
“I opened the door,” I say, my voice cracking. “And there he was. With her.”
“Her?”
“Martha.” The name rots on my tongue. “My sister.”
Tom’s hands tighten on my shoulders. “Your sister?”
“She was in his shirt. In my bed. In my sheets.” I can feel the tears coming now, hot and sharp, and I don’t try to stop them. “I asked for a divorce. I begged for one. And he said no.”
“He can’t just say no.”
“He can when he’s Ulises.” The laugh that comes out of me is ugly, broken. “He said Martha was better than me. Younger. Warmer. He said I was old. Barren. That I couldn’t give him children, so what was the point of me?”
“Carrie.”
“He said I belonged to him. That I’d never get the divorce. That there was nothing out there for me.” I’m crying in earnest now, the words tumbling out between sobs. “And I believed him. That’s the worst part. I believed every word he said.”
“What happened next?”
“I ran.” I wipe my face with my sleeve, but the tears keep coming. “I ran down the stairs and I tripped and I fell and I woke up in the hospital with blood on my pillow and my husband standing over me, owning me with his eyes. Because he does. He does own me.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He said.”
“I don’t care what he said.” Tom’s voice has gone hard, not at me, never at me, but at a thing distant and dangerous. At Ulises. “Look at me, Carrie.”
I look.
His eyes are blazing. His jaw is tight. And his face holds a fury I’ve never seen there before, raw and righteous and burning.
“He told you that you were old? You’re fucking gorgeous, Carrie.
He told you there was nothing out there for you?
You’re smart and sharp and you survived something that would have broken anyone else.
You walked out of that hospital with a fake amnesia story and a plan, and you made me play along without even asking. That takes guts. That takes strength.”
“I lied to you.”
“You protected yourself. There’s a difference.”
“I used you.”
“You trusted me. Even if you didn’t know you were doing it, you trusted me. And I’m glad you did.” He takes my face in his hands, gentle now, his thumbs wiping the tears from my cheeks. “He’s the one with nothing, Carrie. He’s the one who’s empty. Not you. Never you.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it hurts.
“What do I do now?” My voice comes out small. Lost. “The amnesia was supposed to buy me time, but I can’t fake it forever. Eventually someone’s going to figure it out, and then.”
“Then we end it before they do.” Tom’s voice is certain. Final. “I’ll destroy him. I’ll get you the divorce. I’ll make sure he never touches you again.”
“How?”
“I know people. A PI I went to college with. If Ulises has been doing this for years, if Martha wasn’t the first, there’s going to be proof. And we’re going to find it.”
I stare at him. This man who barely knows me. This man who owes me nothing. This man who’s promising to burn down his own brother’s life because I cried in his workshop.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why would you do that for me?”
“Because you deserve better. Because he had you and he wasted you. Because.” He stops, his jaw working, biting down on whatever comes next. “Because I’ve wanted to take something from him my whole life. And protecting you is the first thing that’s ever felt worth it.”
I should say thank you. I should say yes, let’s do it, let’s burn it all down.
But there’s one more thing. The thing I haven’t told him. The thing I haven’t told anyone, the thing I’ve been carrying in the hollow of my chest since the clinic.
“Tom.” My voice breaks on his name. “The divorce isn’t... that’s not the real loss.”
“What do you mean?”
“The baby.” The words cut on the way out. “I wanted a baby. My whole life, that’s all I ever wanted. To be a mother. To have someone who was mine, who I could love, who would love me back. And the doctor said.” I can’t finish. I can’t say it.
“What did the doctor say?”
“That I’m running out of time. That my eggs are failing.
That I have less than five percent chance of conceiving naturally.
” The tears are falling again, but I don’t care anymore.
“I’m thirty-six years old, and my body has given up on me, and Ulises spent six years letting me blame myself while he slept with everyone except his wife. ”
Tom doesn’t answer right away. The workshop is silent except for my ragged breathing and the distant call of a bird outside.
Then he kneels.
Right there on the sawdust-covered floor, he drops to his knees in front of me and takes my hands in his.
“Carrie.” His voice is rough. Raw. “If you want a baby.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are burning with a thing I’m afraid to name. “I’ll give you one.”