8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Caroline
Caroline cleared a place for her laptop between a stack of grocery flyers, two chipped mugs, and a bowl holding three soft apples.
The table was small enough that opening the laptop took most of the free space.
Her charger stretched toward the nearest outlet, crossing the path to the kitchen.
Jemma stepped over the cord on her way out and promised she wouldn’t sue if it killed her.
“If you sue me, you’ll have to accept payment in old portfolio sketches,” Caroline said.
“I could use some art.” Jemma kissed the top of her head. “Just don’t sit here until your back gives up.”
Her mother stood by the door in her diner uniform, watching Caroline with the careful expression she’d worn since bringing her from the airport.
“I won’t,” Caroline promised.
It was an easy promise to make before the first job application.
She began with interior-design positions.
Junior designer. Design assistant. Project coordinator.
Each listing wanted experience she didn’t have, software she knew but hadn’t used outside school, or a polished record of completed work.
Caroline opened her portfolio anyway. The hotel lobby with the curved seating still looked good.
Warm, useful, like a place where an exhausted person could arrive and feel that somebody had expected them. She attached it to three applications.
Then she searched for administrative work, customer service, hotel reception, and restaurant jobs that didn’t require standing through a full shift. She changed the first paragraph of each letter until all the words began to feel like pieces she was sliding around without improving anything.
Organized. Reliable. Quick learner. Available immediately.
That last line wasn’t quite true. She was six months pregnant, had no car, and had slept badly in a bed she shared with her mother. But immediately was what her bank balance required.
She checked it again. The bank balance. The number hadn’t changed since the last time she’d looked at it.
It was enough for groceries and a few necessary things, if she was careful.
It wasn’t enough to solve where she would live, how she would support the baby, or what happened if nobody hired her before she gave birth.
Her phone screen lit up beside her laptop. Hayden. She let the call stop on its own. Another message appeared below the ones he’d sent after finding her gone.
Hayden: I know I made things worse. I’m sorry. Please tell me where you are.
Caroline read it twice. Then she placed the phone facedown and returned to a customer-service application that asked her to describe a time she’d calmed an upset person.
She almost laughed. Instead, she wrote about handling an angry hotel guest at the bar after his room had been given away.
She left out the part where she’d eventually made him a drink with a paper umbrella because he’d declared his ruined vacation required one.
The application form froze before she could submit it.
“Of course,” she whispered.
She started again.
When her mother returned later in the day, Caroline had moved her laptop and chargers to the narrow strip of floor in the bedroom so Hank could eat at the table.
He sat in front of the television with a plate balanced on one knee.
The noise reached every room, even with the bedroom door mostly closed.
Her mother came in and sat on the edge of the bed.
“How’d it go?”
“I applied for nine jobs,” Caroline said.
“Nine?” Her mother’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s wonderful.”
“It’ll be wonderful if one of them pays me.”
“One of them will.”
Caroline looked at the automated acknowledgments in her inbox. Every company was grateful for her interest. None of them had shown any interest in her.
Her mother rubbed her palms over her knees. “Hayden called me,” she said.
Caroline’s fingers stopped above the keyboard. “Did you answer?”
“No. He left a message.”
“What did he say?”
“That he needed to know you were safe.”
“He knows. I told him.”
“He sounded worried.”
His call returned in sharp pieces. Hayden telling her she couldn’t disappear. Hayden demanding that she let him explain what he meant. His anger rising because her pain hadn’t accepted the shape he wanted to give it.
“I know he’s looking for me,” Caroline said. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Are you going to tell me why?” her mother asked.
“I will.”
“When?”
Caroline closed the application she’d been pretending to read. “Not yet.”
Her mother studied her, worry deepening the lines around her mouth. “All right. Not yet.”
The kindness made Caroline feel worse. She took a breath and searched for something she could offer in return.
“Could you ask at the diner if they need somebody?”
“For what?”
“Anything. Washing dishes. Kitchen help. I can prep food, clean, work the counter if they need it.”
Her mother’s gaze dropped to Caroline’s stomach.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Caroline groaned. “I worked restaurant shifts for years.”
“You worked behind a bar before you were this pregnant.”
“I can still wash a plate.”
“You can barely bend over to put on your shoes.”
“Good thing plates usually live above the floor.”
Her mother’s mouth twitched, but the worry stayed. “I’ll ask.”
“Really?”
“Really. But you aren’t going to turn working yourself sick into the price of staying here.”
“I know.”
She didn’t. Not really. Staying without helping felt like taking money from women who already had too little. She knew her mother wouldn’t call it a price, but groceries still cost money. Rent still had to be paid. Kindness didn’t make those facts disappear.
Caroline returned to the table after Hank wandered out. She sent two more applications, refreshed her inbox, and tried not to look every time Hayden’s name appeared on her phone. She read a message that said only, I love you. She left the next two unopened.
***
That night, she woke to Jemma whisper-shouting Hank’s name in a low, furious voice.
For a moment, Caroline couldn’t move. Her mother slept beside her, one arm tucked under the pillow. The bed sagged toward the middle, and the baby had settled hard against Caroline’s bladder. Then something struck the living-room floor, followed by a wet cough.
Caroline pushed herself upright.
Her mother stirred. “What is it?”
“Go back to sleep,” Caroline said. “I’ll help Jemma.”
“You need rest.”
“So do you.”
She eased out of bed and turned sideways to fit between the mattress and her suitcase.
In the living room, Hank lay on his side on the rug, one arm flung over his face. Vomit stained the faded carpet near his mouth and spread across the edge of the rug.
Jemma was crouched beside him, trying to put a folded towel under his cheek.
“Don’t come near this,” she told Caroline. “Go back to bed.”
“You can’t lift him.”
“Neither can you.”
That was fair. Caroline brought a pillow from the couch instead. Together, they shifted Hank enough to get it under his head and make sure he could breathe easily. He muttered something neither of them understood, then went limp again.
Caroline fetched water, old towels, a bucket, and cleaning supplies. Jemma removed the worst of the mess while Caroline knelt on a folded cushion and worked on the rug. The smell caught in her throat. She breathed through her mouth and scrubbed until her lower back began to ache.
“Stop,” Jemma said. “You’re turning green.”
“I’m blond. Green adds contrast.”
Jemma gave a tired snort. It was the only laugh either of them managed.
Hank slept a few feet away while they worked around him. His jeans were stained at one knee. One shoe was missing. Caroline spotted it under the television stand and wondered how two women could spend so much effort cleaning up after one man who wouldn’t remember most of it.
“Why do you put up with this?” she asked.
Jemma’s hands stopped over the bucket. “Caroline.”
“He drinks all your money. He sells things you need. Now we’re cleaning his vomit while he sleeps. Why?”
“He’s not a bad man,” Jemma whispered.
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You were thinking it.”
Caroline sat back on her heels. “I’m thinking this is bad. Doesn’t that matter?”
Jemma looked at Hank. The anger had gone out of her face, leaving plain exhaustion behind.
“He used to bring me coffee before work,” she said. “Didn’t matter how early I had to leave. He’d get up and make it too strong, then act offended when I fixed it. If we had one good piece of anything, he’d save it for me.”
“What happened?”
“Life kept disappointing him, and he never learned how to put anything down. Every job that went wrong, every plan that failed… He carried all of it. Drinking made him forget for a while.”
“And now you carry him.”
Jemma flinched.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said quickly.
“No. You’re right.” Jemma squeezed dirty water from a towel. “That doesn’t make it simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because I remember him. I still see the man who saved things for me. Sometimes he’s still there.”
Caroline looked down at the dark stain left in the rug. She understood too well.
For six months, she’d held the man from Vegas between herself and every lonely dinner, every night Hayden stayed in Manhattan, every insult he’d asked her to ignore.
She’d remembered the stranger at the bar who’d laughed when she called him a swindler.
The man who stayed another night because he wanted more time with her.
The husband who touched her like nothing in the world could matter more.
Sometimes, he’d still been there.
That hadn’t stopped him from looking at their daughter and calling her a trap.
“Remembering doesn’t clean the rug,” Caroline said.
“No.” Jemma looked older than she had at dinner. “But sometimes it’s what gets you through cleaning it.”
Caroline had no answer. They finished in silence. Before going back to bed, Jemma covered Hank with a blanket. The tenderness of the act hurt to watch.