Harder (Caroline & West #2)(23)

“I can’t,” she pleads, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I just can’t.”

“What do you want me to do? Everything? While you sit here on Joan’s couch and cry?”

“Joan will let me stay.”

“Joan’s his mom, not yours. He didn’t marry you. He didn’t stand by you, he didn’t treat you good, he didn’t respect you or love you or even stop himself from kicking your ass whenever he felt like it. Why are you doing this? Why cling to this sick f*cking memory when Frankie needs you?”

She blows her nose and lowers the tissue. Her mouth is hanging open a bit. She looks wrecked.

My hands mash the pillow. I want to do violence to something, but it’s not her. Her body is the first soft thing I remember, her smile the one I’d work for when I was a kid. Her radiance was the treat I’d earn if I made the right jokes and read her mood correctly.

I’m a dick to keep pushing at her when I know she’s not exaggerating—she really can’t do this.

“Frankie doesn’t need me,” she says. “She’s got you.”

She says it so matter-of-fact, it sounds like the clang of a cell-block gate swinging shut.

Frankie’s got me.

I had Caroline.

Not anymore.

I stand up. Pace back and forth in front of her. Jam my hands into my pockets, take them out, cross my arms, rake my fingers through the stubble of my hair.

I know where this conversation is headed, and I’m not ready for it.

“You want me to take care of her,” I say. “Until when?”

“Until I’m feeling up to it.”

“When’s that gonna be?”

She shrugs and looks at her lap. “Until I can work. Get a car, save some money up for a place.”

I bite back a laugh.

Never. That’s when she means. She’s never going to feel up to it.

I turn and look at her, wishing I could feel more tenderness—some of the friendship we used to have, if not actually love.

I do love her.

I just don’t like her or respect her or trust her anymore.

And I can’t carry her. If she’s giving me my sister to carry, I’ll take that weight on, but I can’t handle my mother, too. Not if she won’t help me.

“Fine,” I say. “But if we’re gonna do that, we’ll make it official. You give me power of attorney for Frankie. I need to be able to make decisions.”

Her eyes are huge. “I’m still her mother.”

“I’m not trying to steal her from you. Power of attorney isn’t the same as custody. It just means you’re giving me permission to do shit like enroll her in school, sign her up for health insurance, that kind of thing.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve looked it up.” A dozen times since I was twelve.

“Will we need a lawyer?”

“No, it’s pretty simple if both adults are willing.”

“Both?”

“You and me.”

“Oh.” A shadow crosses her face. “You’re only twenty.”

“I turned twenty-one a couple weeks ago.”

“I missed your birthday.”

“Yeah.”

And for whatever reason, that’s the thing that crumples up her face, sets her off crying for real.

I sit down again, letting out a slow exhale and holding my arms open so she’s got something to fall against. She sobs and tells me how much I look like him.

Just like him, just like him.

It’s breaking her heart.


Three weeks later, Dr. T shows up at my work right when I’m climbing into the truck to get Frankie from school.

Bo told me to keep it. Said he doesn’t need it and implied he knows I do.

Nothing quite like charity to make you feel like a worthless sack of shit.

I pull the door closed and throw Dr. T a wave. The idea is to pretend he’s here to check out the water features in the showroom or buy a new garden gnome.

Hands on the wheel. Eyes on the rearview. Put the truck in gear.

It doesn’t work. His arms are waving in my peripheral vision. He’s jogging over, and then he’s right beside my door making that gesture that means Roll down the window, so I have to.

The window sinks away, and shame crawls over me. It leaves slimy trails up and down my arms, hollows my stomach, snatches at my breath.

It’s always like this with him.

When I first met Dr. Tomlinson, back before I graduated high school, we were friends. Maybe I’m fooling myself to remember it that way, but that was how it felt. Like we had things in common, stuff to talk about, ideas we would kick back and forth as we worked our way through eighteen holes in sync. Fucking simpatico.

Then he introduced me to Rita.

I can’t look at him anymore. It takes a monumental effort just to meet his eyes. Every time, I’m waiting for him to say it.

You f*cked my wife.

“I wasn’t sure where else to catch you,” he says. “Your phone’s disconnected?”

“I changed to a different carrier.”

“You’re supposed to be able to keep your same number these days, even when you switch.”

“Yeah, there was a mix-up.”