Chapter 21
A Broken Wing
Duke
Hearing her voice crack talking about her wedding flowers guts me. I don’t know where she’s going with this story or what happens at the end, but I have a feeling I’m going to fill in a lot of blanks today and answer my own questions.
“My daddy gave me away, and the day was stunningly perfect. I could not have done anything better; the sun was shining, it was warm. The reception was fun. We danced, we enjoyed our families. As the night wore on, Roger got more and more drunk. By the end, he was completely out of it. When we got back to the rooms we rented for the wedding night, it was set up for the beginning of our honeymoon, but Roger was too drunk to care or even notice. I figured out how to get out of my dress all alone, while Roger drank the champagne that was left on ice for us.” She takes a few calming breaths, building up to something.
I’m tense. On edge. Afraid of where this is going.
“As I climbed in bed, Roger joined me and—” Her voice breaks again, fat tears starting to fall from her lashes.
I reach out to grab her hand, but she keeps it firmly in her lap.
“Let’s just say, he wanted more than I wanted, considering his state.
He did not accept my refusal. He made it clear that I was his wife, and therefore his property and that was that.
The next day, he was back to his loving, doting self.
He acted like it never happened. We never mentioned it.
I thought maybe he didn’t remember it. It was like he was a demon, and now the demon was gone. ”
Fury burns in my chest, white, hot, fury with no outlet. I’m radiating with restrained anger at how a man, any man, could have hurt her. The betrayal of her wedding night. I feel the soft touch of her hand on mine, pleading with me—to calm down, to listen.
“The next four years passed in a series of incidents where Roger made it apparent that I was his. I would do as he said, I would follow his lead, I would walk behind him, always have food available for him and his friends, and my body was his whenever he wanted it. I was so ashamed that I wasn’t good enough.
He told me I was too fat, too unattractive, too undesirable for anyone to want me.
I didn’t even tell my family. I withdrew from my friends. I let him isolate and control me.
“When my parents were both killed, I inherited their estate. It wasn’t a great sum of money, but it was enough.
That was two years ago. They left me a note with their will saying they knew something was wrong, but I was an adult, and they trusted me to make my own decisions.
The estate was in a trust and if I chose it, Roger would never have to know about it.
And that’s what I chose. I bought my little car, and told Roger it was the only money they left, and I let the money sit.
“I got pregnant in November.” She wraps her shaking arms around her middle as she says the words.
A baby. “I naively thought it would fix things. That we could fix things. In February, I was thirteen weeks pregnant and ready to tell the world. I was going to have a little baby, someone for me to love, someone who would love me back.” The tears flow more freely down her face, and my eyes fill.
Fuck, I wish I could sew up the hole in her heart.
No one deserves to feel this way. I try to reach out, but she doesn’t accept it.
“Let me finish, okay? In February, I also found out he was cheating on me.” God dammit, this man is the worst kind of human. Abusive, manipulative, and a cheat. I swear, if I knew where to find him, I would hunt him down. “When I confronted him, he blew up. I told him I was leaving.”
Her tears have turned to sobs now, and she tries to talk though them but it’s getting more difficult for her to weave sentences into coherency.
“As I tried to leave, he pushed me, and I-I-I fell down the stairs.” Her baby.
The sweet baby she wanted. A tear rolls down my cheek and I swipe it away.
I haven’t cried in, longer than I can remember, and now I cry for the sweet girl in front of me and the life she lost. “Anyway, after a short hospital stay, I put what I could in the car and left. I criss-crossed the country for a year before I landed in a ditch in Inspiration, Montana, and a grumpy not-cowboy gave me a blanket that smells like comfort and sandalwood.”
I’m lost. This is so much bigger than me. Than us. Than Inspiration.
Reaching over, I grab her chair and pull it toward me. I bracket her knees with my own, our bodies facing each other.
Reaching up, I wipe away a few tears lingering on her face before holding her cheeks and pulling her to me. I kiss each of her eyelids, her nose, her slightly sweaty, damp cupid’s bow before a gentle kiss on her lips.
“Caroline, I— My mom was like you. She married a difficult man and spent the rest of her life regretting it. She brought her baby into the world, she stayed. And it breaks my fucking heart to know you lived through the things I saw my mom live through. I would have killed my dad if the farm hadn’t done it first.” She stares at me, openly and with curiosity.
“You were always good enough. You were too good for him. And you’re too good for me. ”
“Duke, I’m not ready to give myself to someone again, completely.
I have such strong feelings for you, already, but I’m not ready to face them yet.
I want to meet people. Try things out. Decide what’s right for me on my own schedule.
I can’t continue to see you just to hurt you.
You deserve better than that. You deserve a woman who will give you their entire self, without reservation. ”
Standing, I bring her with me. Wrapping my arms around her, I look down into her face. “Caroline, it’s okay. I know I’m intense and I shouldn’t have put that on you, back at the bar. I want you to become the person you deserve to be, and I want to be a person who deserves you. Don’t give up yet.”
“I’m seeing someone else, Duke.” The words land like a bullet to my chest. I drop my arms. It’s like she has slapped me.
“What?”
“I’ve met someone else during my time here too. And I, well, I’m not ready to settle yet. I’m sorry.” I back up. I know we haven’t had any talks about the two of us, so it’s selfish but I’m angry and jealous.
“You’re choosing him? I thought, what we have, what we were creating…the stockroom.” I can’t even put what I’m feeling into words. The sex, the feeling of finally sinking into her; I thought she felt it too.
“I’m not choosing anyone, Duke. I’m choosing me. I’m choosing to figure it out. I want to casually date, find the right thing at the right time. It might be you, it might be him, it might be someone different, but I don’t know.”
The words sound so selfish but the honest way she says them, the pleading look in her eyes, I know this is about more than just dating, especially after what she just told me.
“I’m sorry, Caroline. I don’t think I can do this. I’m sorry.” I turn and walk toward my stuff, sliding my feet into my boots and setting my hat on my head, the brim pulled low across my brow.
“No, I’m sorry, Duke. I just don’t want you to get in any deeper with me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
It’s too late for that.
Walking down the stairs, I hear her sobs grow louder. Closing the door behind me, I walk to my truck, my heart bleeding in my chest. I never deserved her anyway.
Driving around aimlessly for a while, I reflect, and it’s well past time I did.
This thing with Caroline was new, and exciting, but I wanted to fit her.
I wanted to be enough. Indie messed me up so bad at the end, I never felt smaller or more insignificant than I did when Indie walked out.
I met Indie when we were so young, and stupid.
We didn’t know who we were, or what we wanted.
By the time we figured it out, we couldn’t change what we were, or what we became.
I want Indie to be happy in the path she’s chosen.
But it has been time for me to move on and decide what I want for a while now.
And I want Caroline. I don’t know how to get or how to keep her.
She’s thirty-two years old. She has done things, experienced life, and is ready to decide for herself what she wants.
We won’t have to grow up together to figure out what we want—we can grow together, a life together.
I don’t spare any time considering who she might be with besides me. We are adults; I don’t need to know.
My mind moves back to Roger. This coward of a man—who forced himself on his brand-new wife, who abused her, and killed their baby. Thinking about him makes me sick to my stomach. If I ever got my hands on him, I can’t promise he would be safe from me.
Driving into Inspiration Cemetery, I navigate toward the row where I know I’ll find ‘Williams’ engraved on the stones.
Walking through generations of my family, I arrive in front of Phillip and Jennifer Williams. Phillip Williams, loving father, devoted husband.
I roll my eyes. He doesn’t even deserve to be in the ground next to my mother, much less to be called her devoted husband.
“You’re a fucking coward, you old abusive drunk.
I was so relieved when you died. I thought we would finally be free of you.
But Mama spent her whole life under your thumb, and didn’t even know how to be free.
You’ve been a dark cloud over my life for thirty-seven years, and now your ghost is haunting me through the memories of the girl I think I’m in love with. ” I spit on the dirt below my feet.
Moving to the right a few steps, I sink to the ground.
Jennifer Williams
She stayed when it was hardest.
She loved when it wasn’t easy.
And she gave me everything good in me
“Hey, Mama. God, I miss you so much. I need you today. I’ve needed you for a while now.
I know you spent many nights hiding your fear from me and that once I got married, you were worried I was like him.
You were too strong for your own good. You were too good for us.
We never deserved your unconditional love, and I’m grateful every day.
” I bow my head, my tears dripping into the dirt.
“She’s perfect, Ma. She’s everything you wanted for me. But she had a man like Phillip, and she’s a little lost. I want to be worthy of her. I want to earn her love, the way he never earned yours. I want to deserve it. I wish you were here to tell me what to do.”
I sit in front of the granite stone until the air starts to cool and the sun begins its descent below the horizon. Standing, I brush my pants off and lay a hand on her name, rubbing it with my fingertips.
“I love you, Mama. I will be a better man, for you. For her.”
Turning, I walk away, newly resolved to endeavor to earn her love.