Standing at the French doors leading out to the deck, Carolina stared out into the backyard. The sky was a dark, angry gray; large, heavy raindrops fell down from it at an amazing velocity, striking the ground with the force of a stampede of horses. The surface of the koi pond rippled and shuddered. The leaves of the Japanese maples quivered in the wind.
“Mommy, how do I look?”
Behind Carolina, Alexis’ sweet, little-girl voice called out to her, and she turned around in response, her arms wrapped around one another for warmth. She drew her sweater a little further closed around her shoulders as she regarded her youngest child, almost thirteen years old now, decked out to brave the storm outside: pink raincoat, hood up; pink rubber boots with multicolored hearts printed all over them; a tall, cane-handled umbrella in her hand. With her backpack full of school books underneath the coat, she looked like a miniature hunchback. Carolina couldn’t help laughing a little at her, and that made the young girl smile.
“You like it?” Alexis asked, doing a dramatic little curtsey.
Crouching down to her daughter’s level, Carolina smiled warmly as she reached to adjust the raincoat’s hood, to push it back a little. “You’re beautiful,” she said, then kissed Alexis’ forehead. “You’re growing into a really lovely young woman.”
Alexis giggled. “Mom, I’m a girl, not a woman! I’m only twelve!” Then she skipped out of the kitchen in search of her older siblings.
Standing up straight again, Carolina wandered over to the kitchen table, where she had left her cell phone. Glancing at it—not picking it up; not wanting to rush things—she saw that it was 7:45. Just a few more minutes until everyone would be gone from the house. For a second, she let her mind wonder what Michael was doing, picture him in his own kitchen, talking to his own children…for what might have been the last time. But then, squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she erased that image from her mind.
Stay focused, she told herself. Remember what you have to do here. Remember everything that happens.
“Mom, do you have the car keys?” Patrick came bursting into the kitchen, his energy turned up to high, as usual. Carolina had always marveled at how her oldest child jumped out of bed in the morning, raring to go. He’d always been ambitious, always full of life. She’d admired that about him, but she wondered if she’d ever told him so.
“Uh, yes, I do,” she replied, going over to her purse and retrieving them, then walking over to Patrick to hand them over. As she placed the keys in his hand, she reached up and smoothed back a stray lock of hair, then put her hand gently on his cheek. The light stubble along his jawline almost moved her to tears—her boy was becoming a man.
“I love you, baby, you know that,” she told him, smiling and trying not to tear up.
Just as Alexis had, Patrick laughed at her words, though Carolina took no offense; they were children, after all, and had no idea what was really going on in her head.
“Mom, I’m almost eighteen,” he said. “I’m not your baby anymore.” He paused, though, and seeing the almost sad look on his mother’s face, he relented. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Okay, you can call me your baby, just make sure you don’t do it in front of my friends, alright?”
Tossing the car keys up into the air a bit, Patrick caught them in his hand and then bolted out of the room again, calling to his sisters that it was time to get out of there. Rooted to the spot where she stood, Carolina simply listened as the rest of her clan came barreling down the hallway stairs and into the kitchen, the girls followed by their father as well. His spirit seemed just as high as the children’s for some reason.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, pecking Carolina on the cheek as he passed by her, en route to the coffee pot. He poured himself a cup and swallowed half of it in one shot, then let out a loud, satisfied sigh. “Now,” he announced loudly, “I am ready to start my day!”
Briefcase in hand, trench coat thrown over his forearm, David came back and gave Carolina another swift kiss—a rarity that made her wonder just what had gotten into him.
“Have a good day, dear,” she said faintly as he headed toward the door leading into the garage, patting each of their children on the head as he passed them. She raised her hand in a weak wave as he turned to close the door, and he smiled brightly at her.
As if nothing at all is different about today, Carolina thought. As if all of our lives aren’t about to change.
And then, none the wiser, he was gone.
“Mom, are you okay?” Lindsay asked, standing at the table, stuffing books into her schoolbag.
“Yeah, honey, I’m fine,” Carolina said. “Do you have money for lunch today?”
Pausing, Lindsay felt the pockets of her jeans, then her coat. Finding what she was looking for, she smiled. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I do.”
“Good.” Leaning back against the counter, Carolina regarded her sixteen-year-old, noticing not for the first time how much alike they looked. Lindsay had Carolina’s same long, blond hair, her sparkling green eyes, her tall, thin frame. “Make sure you eat something that’s good for you,” she added. “Try to get some fruit, okay?”
Looking up at her as she hoisted her book bag onto her shoulder, Lindsay smiled. “I always do, Mom. You know I love fruit.”
“Alright, girls, time to jet!” Patrick announced as he came back into the kitchen, straightening the collar of his coat. “In the car, in the car! Mom—” He gave her a crisp salute. “I shall see you this afternoon. Over and out.”
Saluting him back limply, Carolina pursed her lips closed to fight back the tears once again. Letting her hand fall back to her side, she watched her troops lining up and marching toward the door.
“Love you, guys,” she said to them.
“Love you, too!” they responded in unison. And then, they were out the door, and they, too, were gone.
Alone in the kitchen at last, Carolina bowed her head and let the tears come, filling the silence of the house with her sobs until she had nothing left.
And then she picked up her head and made herself keep going. She had a plan, and she had to see it through to its completion. It was the only way she could ever be with Michael.
As if on cue, her cell phone, still sitting on the table across the room, began to buzz and vibrate. Walking calmly over to it, Carolina put a hand up to her face and wiped away the tears that soaked her cheeks. Her eyes felt puffy and sore; she was sure she looked like a mess.
Flipping open her phone, she saw there was a new text message from Michael.
I’m ready, my love. Just waiting for you to come and get me.
Looking at the words, Carolina felt the pressure behind her eyes once again, but she refused to give in this time. Clearing her throat and shaking her hair back from her shoulders, she took a moment to clear her head, to get rid of the doubts that were threatening to overtake her.
Almost ready, too, she typed quickly. Be there soon. Can’t wait to be with you.
Going to her purse again, Carolina dropped the cell phone into it and took out a plain white envelope, one that she had been carrying around with her for days. She hadn’t thought it would be safe to leave it at home or even at her office, where someone might have seen it. She couldn’t have risked letting anyone know about her and Michael’s plan.
“David,” the envelope said on the outside in red ink, in the small letters of Carolina’s own handwriting. Opening it now to take one last look, to make sure that everything was in order, she took out the single sheet of paper it held and unfolded it. Standing by the table, one hand on the back of a chair to steady herself, she ran her eyes across the words written on the page:
Dear David,
I know this will come as a surprise to you, and I hope that you will understand, first and foremost, that the last thing I want to do is hurt you and the children. I love you all dearly; there is nothing more important to me in life than my family.
However, I have had a lot on my mind lately—things that I haven’t talked to you about, things that I’m not sure you would truly understand. Things that I have to work out for myself.
So, that is what I am going to do. I am going to go away for a while—all alone, just to clear my head and try to sort things out. I don’t want you to look for me. I will get in touch when I can to let you know that I am okay but, please, do not come after me. I will come back when the time is right, and when I am able to give you some more answers for all of this.
Please tell the children that I love them so much.
Carolina
Reading it now, she remembered the agonizing hours she had spent writing this letter, the many crumpled-up versions she had tossed into the trash can in her office. It had been so difficult to explain why she was leaving without revealing too much, without giving any clues about her relationship with Michael. Though she longed to be out in the open with all of it, she knew that this was not the right time for that.
Someday, she told herself, still looking down at the letter, her eyes lingering on the words that she wished could say so much more. Someday soon.
And then she put the paper back into the envelope and sealed it, and left it there for David on the table.
***
On the freeway, Carolina leaned forward in the driver’s seat of her SUV, bringing her chest close to the steering wheel. Between the tears in her eyes and the still-raging storm outside, her visibility was next to nothing. She switched the windshield wipers onto their highest setting, hoping that it would help, but thinking that it probably would not.
“Get yourself together,” she told herself quietly, dragging the heel of her palm underneath her eye to catch the tears that fell so freely to her cheeks. “This is what you want. This is what you want to do. What you are meant to do.”
She sobbed again, almost uncontrollably, and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Her eyes welling with hot tears, she squinted them shut for a moment and then opened them.
“Oh, God!” she cried, her foot pressing hard on the brake pedal. Tires screeching, the SUV came to a slow, skidding halt mere inches from the car in front of it, which was stalled in traffic. All around her, horns blared and high beams flashed.
“Okay, okay!” she called back to them, even though she knew that no one could hear her. Sitting up straighter in her seat, she took a deep breath and blotted her eyes one last time with the sleeve of her jacket.
“You can do this, Carolina,” she whispered to herself, looking intently out the front window, being sure now to keep a careful distance between her car and the vehicles in front of her. “You can do this. Think of Michael. Think of your life with him. Think of everything you have together.”
And for the moment, those thoughts were able to comfort her. Instead of ruminating on the guilt she felt over leaving her family, she focused on the future and what fate might have had in store for her and Michael. She imagined how blissful it would feel to finally be able to be with him as she wanted to. As soon as they stepped off the plane, she thought, she would throw her arms around him and kiss him—and she wouldn’t care who was there to see them.
Holding this image in her mind, Carolina felt more anxious than ever. She had to see Michael, had to touch him, had to hear him say that everything would be alright. Speeding up a little in the SUV, she began to weave in and out of traffic, winding her way toward the exit that would take her to his house. Rain be damned, she had to get there as fast as she could. Before something happened to make her change her mind.
Winding through the local streets, getting closer and closer to Michael, Carolina began to feel that old familiar pull toward him, the intimate, vibrational harmony that they shared. She’d experienced this with him before; they both had. It was just part of the phenomenon of their love, a sign that what existed between them truly transcended the plane on which they both lived. Somehow, as she turned the last corner onto his block, she knew that he would be standing outside waiting for her. In her mind, she could see his black suitcase, his soaking-wet coat, before she even pulled up to the curb where he stood.
Shoulders hunched, collar turned up against the wind, Michael grabbed his luggage and tossed it into the backseat of the SUV, and in a moment he was sitting next to Carolina. He shook out his dripping hair, brushed the chilly droplets off his sleeves and then rubbed his hands together, blowing on them to create a little warmth. When he was done with this routine, when he had adjusted to coming in out of the storm, he stopped, and he looked at Carolina as if it were the first time he was seeing her. They looked into one another’s eyes for a long time, the trance overtaking them.
And then Michael reached a cold, damp hand over and touched Carolina’s face. And then he smiled, and it lit up the car, the street, the whole city, as if the clouds had parted and the rain had suddenly ceased its campaign against them.
“Everything’s alright,” Carolina said. And in that moment, she knew that it was true.