8. Chapter Eight #2
The next morning, Caroline worked from the end of the table while the damp rug hung over the balcony rail. Her inbox held more automated replies and no interview requests. One company had rejected her before she finished breakfast.
Hayden called twice, and she let both calls go. A message arrived after the second.
Hayden: I won’t argue with you. I just need to talk to you.
She didn’t open the one that followed.
Her mother’s answer from the diner came when she returned from her shift. Jemma was home too, sorting clean clothes on the couch. Caroline knew the moment her mother set down her bag without meeting her eyes.
“They don’t need anybody,” Caroline said.
“Not right now,” her mother confirmed.
“Did you tell them I can work any shift?”
“I told them everything you said.”
“I can do prep. I can answer phones. I don’t have to be out front.”
“There isn’t a job, honey.”
Caroline pressed her lips together and nodded. “Fine.”
“It isn’t fine,” Jemma said from the couch. “You’re allowed to be disappointed.”
“Being disappointed won’t buy groceries,” Caroline said.
Her mother sat down next to her. “We’ll manage.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.” Caroline pushed the laptop away. “Do you know what my account looks like? Do you know how much a baby costs? There are five people in this apartment now, and four of us are already struggling.”
“Then there are four of us to help the little one,” Jemma said.
“That’s not how money works,” Caroline said.
“It’s how family works,” her mother said.
Caroline stood too quickly. The chair legs scraped across the floor, and the baby pressed low enough to make her brace one hand under her stomach.
“I don’t want to be another person you have to carry.”
Her mother rose with her. “You aren’t.”
“I sleep in your bed. My suitcase blocks the floor. My things cover the table. I eat food I can’t replace.”
“And you think washing dishes until your feet swell would make me happier?”
“It would make me useful.”
“You don’t have to earn the right to sleep beside me.” Her mother’s voice broke at the edges. “You never have to earn a place with me.”
Caroline looked away before the words could undo her.
Jemma crossed the room and touched her shoulder.
“We’ll manage,” she said. “You can hate hearing it. We’ll still do it.”
Caroline nodded because speaking was dangerous. She picked up the laptop and carried it into the bedroom, where she could balance it on her knees and continue applying. She was halfway through another form when she heard her mother’s voice in the kitchen.
“Yes, this is Caroline’s mother.”
Caroline’s hands went still. The bedroom door was open. Her mother had lowered her voice, but the apartment had no real privacy.
“She’s here. She’s safe.” A pause. “Yes. I understand.”
Caroline put the laptop aside and stood. By the time she reached the hall, her mother was giving Hayden the address.
“Mom.”
Her mother turned. Guilt crossed her face. “I have to go,” she said into the phone, and ended the call.
“You told him where I am.”
“He needed to know.”
“I told him I was safe.”
“He sounded desperate,” her mother countered.
“So that means he gets whatever he wants?”
“No.” Her mother took a step toward her. “But I couldn’t keep ignoring him when I didn’t even know what happened between you.”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“I did. You weren’t ready.”
“Then you should’ve waited until I was.”
Her mother’s face tightened. “You’re right. I should’ve told you before I gave him the address. But he’s your husband, and you’re carrying his child. He’s calling me from across the country, begging to know where you are, while you won’t tell me what he did.”
Caroline folded her arms over her stomach. The gesture didn’t protect anything.
“He accused me of planning with you to take his money.”
Her mother stared at her. “With me?”
“His ex, Dasha, told him she heard us talking on the phone at a family dinner. She said we laughed about how easy he was to persuade. She said you called him a fool.”
“I wasn’t even on the phone with you that night.”
“Exactly.”
“And Hayden believed her?”
Caroline tried to answer, but her throat closed. She forced the words through it.
“He said I got pregnant on purpose. He said I knew he wouldn’t leave me if I was carrying his baby.”
Her mother’s lips parted. No sound came out.
“Then he said if I wasn’t pregnant, he’d divorce me.”
There. The whole ugly thing finally existed outside Caroline’s head. Her mother reached for her. Caroline stepped back on instinct, then saw the pain on her face and stopped.
“Oh, baby,” her mother whispered.
Caroline shook her head. “Don’t.”
“Come here.”
“If you hug me, I’m going to cry.”
“Then cry.”
That was all it took. Caroline folded against her mother, and the control she’d carried through packing, airports, applications, and unanswered messages broke apart.
She cried for the man in Vegas who’d looked at her as if finding her was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him.
She cried for the husband who’d made their daughter sound like a chain around his life.
She cried because she still loved them both, and they were the same man.
Her mother held her as best she could around the baby. One hand stroked Caroline’s hair while the other pressed firmly between her shoulder blades.
“You didn’t trap anybody,” she said. “Do you hear me? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He was there,” Caroline sobbed. “He knows what happened. He was there.”
“I know.”
“I thought he wanted us.”
“Maybe he does.”
Caroline pulled back enough to look at her. “How can you say that?”
“Because nobody sounds that desperate over something he doesn’t want.” Her mother wiped tears from Caroline’s face with her thumbs. “That doesn’t excuse what he said. It doesn’t mean you go anywhere with him. But when you’re ready, maybe you should hear him out.”
“Mom…”
“Whatever happens between the two of you, he’s this baby’s father. You won’t be able to make him a stranger forever.”
Caroline pressed a hand to her daughter’s steady curve. She couldn’t think about Hayden arriving. She couldn’t think about divorce, forgiveness, or raising a child with a man she still loved and no longer trusted.
Her mother waited.
Caroline couldn’t answer.