Chapter 7 Caroline
CAROLINE
There’s a desk in the spare room, and I set my laptop up there. The office chair’s too high, and when I adjust it, I find a tag attached to the lever. The chair’s brand new.
Just like the poppy-patterned bed cover and the matching curtains. This whole room has been redecorated recently, and I’ve got a nagging suspicion as to why.
The thought of Tony being so bold as to get a room ready for me makes me angry. Is it that obvious that I was going to fail in LA? Did he know my marriage wouldn’t work, or was he hoping it wouldn’t?
My mind is yo-yoing all over the place with Tony.
I don’t know whether to be thankful that he has done all this for me or angry that he knew I couldn’t look after myself.
I decide on thankful. There’s enough negativity in my life at the moment and having an ex who’s looking out for me is a good thing.
I open my laptop and stare at the screen.
Today there’re thirty-seven unread emails from angry customers.
“WHERE’S MY ORDER,” screams the first subject line in all caps.
I think about the customers on the other end of the line. Customers I’ve nurtured through attending events and holding local workshops. People who trusted me enough to buy my products. And I’ve let them down.
I close the laptop and push away from the desk. I’m not ready to face them yet.
Wandering through to the kitchen, I find a fresh pot of coffee but Tony’s nowhere to be seen. He must have popped out, and I’m grateful he’s given me some space.
I pour a second mug of coffee and take it into the living room.
There’s a giant TV hung on one wall with a comfy corner couch opposite. A coffee table is in front of the couch, but that’s all. It’s sparsely furnished, which was always Tony’s way. He’s a military man through and through.
Some photos hang on the wall, and I walk over to take a look. There’re lots of Amy. When she was a baby, Tony holding her in his military uniform the first time he met her, his smile as wide as the ocean.
There are military photos, the guys from his unit, grim-faced in their uniforms.
I look to the next photo, and my breath hitches in my throat.
It’s our wedding photo.
The wide-eyed kids staring out at me look like different people. I’m in a simple dress I found at the charity shop, and Tony is in his new, and slightly too big for him, military uniform.
I’ve got my hand on my stomach, which protrudes in the tell-tale baby bump. But my eyes are on Tony. We’re gazing at each other with such adoration, the way only teenagers in their first love can look at each other, so sure that this was forever and nothing could ever get in the way of our love.
The week after we married, Tony was deployed. I didn’t see him for another six months. And by the time he came back, we had a daughter.
The sound of the doorbell pulls me out of my memories.
I don’t know where Tony is, so I tentatively open the door. There’s a bunch of flowers so big they’re taking up the entire doorframe.
“Are you Caroline Leveson?” asks a man from behind the flowers.
“Yes.”
He hands them over and turns away before I have time to protest.
“There must be a mistake…”
But he’s already down the driveway.
The fragrance of lilies fills my senses. They’re my favorite flower, and these ones are large, orange and vibrant pink alongside the pure white.
I take them through to the kitchen and put them on the table, searching for the card.
LA doesn’t know your worth.
Welcome home.
Tony
The heaviness in my chest lifts as I read the message. How does Tony always know the exact words I need to hear? He has this way of picking me up and making me feel like less of a failure.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I squeeze them shut. I won’t cry now. I can’t cry yet. There’s work to do.
I find a vase under the sink, and I put the flowers in water, then I head back to my room. Feeling fortified by the message in the flowers, knowing that there’s someone in the world who values me, I open my laptop, ready to face my customers.
A few hours later and any good feeling has drained out of me. For every email I reply to, another one comes in.
My phone’s been ringing all morning, and after the first customer shouted at me, I turned it off.
I know I should come clean to my customers, tell them I’m shutting down the business, but I can’t bring myself to do so. Not yet.
My eyes are scratchy from staring at the screen, and I run my hand over them, massaging my temples. It’s time to take a break.
As I head to the kitchen, Tony comes in the front door. He’s whistling to himself and stops abruptly when he sees my face.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
Tony thought the world of me when we were together. He always told me I could do anything, and the thought of him knowing what a failure I am makes my heart sink into my toes with shame.
I open my mouth to tell him I’m fine, but if I speak, I’m going to cry. Instead, I just shake my head.
He holds up a brown paper bag with the logo of the local cafe.
“I bought you a chicken wrap and a donut.”
It’s this little act of kindness that’s the final straw. All morning I’ve been dealing with irate customers, and here Tony is, sending me flowers and buying me lunch.
My eyes sting, and this time, I don’t try to stop the tears.
Tony sets down the bag on the kitchen table and, without a word, wraps his strong arms around me. I lean into him, his sturdy chest and familiar smell. It’s like returning home after being lost in the wilderness, and it undoes me completely.
I’m a grown woman. I’m not meant to cry, but in Tony’s arms, I sob like a baby.
All the hurt from the last few weeks comes out, and I ugly cry, snot catching on his tight white t-shirt.
“Come here, honey.”
Tony gently leads me into the living room, and we sink onto the couch. He produces a box of tissues from under the coffee table and gently dabs at my eyes.
“You wanna talk about it?”
I find that I do, and once I start, I can’t stop.
I tell him about how Paul took over the supply end of the business and how I discovered a few weeks ago he’d been siphoning money off the top.
How when I confronted him, he gaslighted me, talked sweet and made me think I was imagining things. How that uncertainty gave him time to empty our business account, as well as our personal account.
How he must have moved the shared warehouse space because when I went there, all my products were gone. How I have orders outstanding and no access to our supplies.
When I get to the part about confronting Paul, Tony gets agitated.
“When I said I was calling the police, that’s when he threatened me. And not only me, Tony. He threatened to hurt Amy.”
At the mention of our daughter, Tony jumps off the couch.
“I’ll kill that fucker.”
I believe he would too, so I place a calming hand on his thigh.
“Don’t, please. I have a lawyer who’s tracking him down. When I find him, I can go through the correct channels, through the courts.”
Tony sits back on the edge of the couch, his body rigid with anger.
“How about your business?”
I shake my head slowly. I don’t care about the money. It’s the business that breaks my heart.
“I can’t fulfil my orders. He’s taken all my goods, I guess to sell off cheaply somewhere.
I’ve shut down the website already, but there are a lot of angry customers with stuff on backorder that I can’t fulfil.
I kept hoping he’d turn up, that he’d see sense, but now I’ve realized that’s not going to happen.
” I give a long sigh and slump back on the couch.
Thinking about letting my customers down makes my chest sore.
“I have to shut the business, Tony. All those years of hard work... But I can’t go on like this with no product and no capital. ”
Tony gets off the couch and paces the room, his fists clenched and his neck red with anger.
“I’m sorry this has happened to you, Caro. I know how hard you worked.”
I shrug. Now that I’ve had a good cry, I feel strangely optimistic.
“LA didn’t suit me anyway. I’d much rather be here.”
He turns and kneels before me, his gaze intense and angry. He’s angry on my behalf, and that comforts me, having someone to share my hurt. “I’d much rather you were here too. But you worked hard for that business, and fuck if I’m going to let that asshole take it away from you.”
“Tony…” I’ve seen that wild look in his eyes before, and it doesn’t mean anything good. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
His hands rest on my thighs, and he brings his head close to mine.
“The only stupid thing I did was letting you get involved with that scumbag.”
“It wasn’t your decision, Tony.”
“I know. But I vowed to love and protect you as long as we both shall live, and I let you down.”
He bows his head, and I press my forehead against his.
I can feel the heat from where our skin is touching. His familiar scent engulfs me, and for the first time in months, I feel safe. I feel accepted.
“No, you never let me down, Tony. I let us down.”
A wave of sadness washes over me when I think about how hasty I was to end our marriage.
How I couldn’t handle the lonely days when Tony was deployed.
How I yearned for him to be back. But when he came home, he wasn’t the youthful boy I’d fallen in love with.
He was a man, with hurt inside of him and a distance that I couldn’t bridge.
I wanted to share his hurt, share his darkness, but he wanted to shield me from it. I wanted to know why he had nightmares and called out in his sleep. He didn’t want to talk about it.
Now, he cups my chin in his palm and tilts my head up so I’m looking into his deep brown eyes. A shiver runs through my body and curling heat travels down my spine.
“I’ve always loved you, Caroline, and I always will.
You didn’t let us down. You did what you had to do, and I don’t blame you.
I was a miserable bastard most of the time when I came back.
I put up barriers because I didn’t want you to see what the military had done to me.
But I should have let you in. I should have laughed with you.
I should have taken you out dancing. I should have been a better husband. ”
I search my heart and find no resentment there, only sadness for what could have been. Whatever Tony did in his military years, I’ve forgiven him.
“We were kids when we got married. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
“I know what I’m doing now.”
His lips press into mine. The feeling is so familiar I almost cry. It’s like we’re kids again, kissing for the first time behind a storage shed at school.
Tony’s hands slip to my waist, and I let him pull me toward him until our bodies are pressed together, fitting together in a familiar pattern.
A sigh escapes me because it feels so right. It feels like coming home.