Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(44)
The woman kept her face lowered and gave no answer.
“Why don’t you leave?” Although there was still no answer Caroline didn’t give up. “Are you waiting for him to kill you or maybe your daughter?”
The woman gave a sorry shake of her head. “We’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Come home with me,” Caroline suggested. “I’ve got room enough and—”
“Thanks,” the woman said, “but that’s not a good idea. When Joe finds us, he’ll just take it out on you.” She told how three years earlier she’d left and gone to her sister’s house.
“Evelyn ended up in the hospital. Joe warned if she told who did it me and Sara were good as dead, so Evelyn never told.”
“Men like that are crazy,” Caroline said. “If you stay with him, you and Sara could both end up dead!”
“Joe wouldn’t kill us,” the woman replied. “He loves me and Sara. It’s just that—”
Caroline slapped her hand to her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”
After more than a half-hour of discussion the woman, Rowena, agreed to go with Caroline. The convincing argument was that Caroline lived forty-five miles away, and Joe had no way of connecting her with Rowena.
Rowena and Sara remained in the shadows while Caroline pulled the sheets from the dryer and loaded the baskets into the trunk of her car. Once she’d finished doing that, Caroline looked up and down the street. Not a soul in sight. She raised her arm and waved.
Rowena and Sara dashed out of the Laundromat and scrambled into the back seat of the car.
“Duck down until we’re clear of town,” Caroline said as she closed the door.
~
The nervous fluttering in her stomach urged Caroline to floor the accelerator and get away as quickly as possible, but she kept her hands locked onto the steering wheel and held the car steady at the speed limit. No one saw them leaving, and she was determined not to do anything that would garner unwanted attention now. Although unwilling to admit it, the tale of what had happened to Evelyn was stuck in Caroline’s thoughts.
When the lights of the town faded into nothingness, Rowena sat up. “You’re sure no one saw us?”
“Positive,” Caroline answered.
When they arrived at the house, it was nearing midnight. Caroline made sandwiches and sat mother and child at the kitchen table. Five-year-old Sara ate two sandwiches and four cookies. Rowena nervously nibbled at a single sandwich. Although she had agreed to come, the fear in her eyes was apparent. Twice more she asked if Caroline was absolutely certain no one had seen them.
“Absolutely certain,” Caroline confirmed, but even as she spoke the words, fear tugged at her thoughts. What if…What if…What if?
After they’d eaten, Caroline took Rowena and the child to her room. “You can stay here,” she said and offered a nightgown for Rowena and a tee shirt for Sara.
Caroline gathered her own things and moved to the loft where Ida had slept. It was small but filled with sweet memories. For a long time she remained awake, thinking through the things that needed to be done. It was nearing daybreak when she decided Rowena Mallory would become Rose Smith, a friend from back home.
Although she had never noticed clothes at Previously Loved Treasures, she knew Peter Pennington would have them. Tomorrow she would buy different clothes for both and a box of hair dye for Rowena.
Rowena Mallory
Caroline is a real sweet girl, but I hope to God she hasn’t bit off more than she can chew. She doesn’t know Joe, so she don’t know what he’s capable of doing. Unfortunately, I do.
She’s right about me being a fool. Looking back you see things a lot clearer than when you’re smack in the middle. Being married to a man like Joe is never easy, so you start fooling yourself into thinking that’s how life ought to be. It’s not. There was a time when I loved Joe more than life itself. That’s fine when you haven’t got a baby to care for, but now I’ve got Sara and things are different. It’s not that I love him less; it’s just that I love her more.
Up until now Joe never hit Sara, not once. Oh, often enough he’d come home drunk, smash things around, and start yelling so loud we were afraid to blink an eyelash. Times like that I was scared to death he’d start in on poor little Sara, but he didn’t. That’s not to say next time he won’t. Joe is plenty mean, and meanness has a way of spreading itself around. Today it was me; tomorrow it could be her. I’m not willing to chance it.
I know you’re questioning why any girl would marry a man like Joe, but he wasn’t always this way. When we met I was sixteen years old, and he was twenty-three. That night when I left the bowling alley with Evelyn she said I ought to watch my step, ’cause Joe had the look of trouble. I didn’t say anything ’cause I didn’t want her to worry, but by then we’d already made a date for the next night. We got married a month later. I was starry-eyed in love and sure didn’t see trouble. All I saw was the handsomest man who ever walked.
That first year Joe treated me like I was a precious baby doll. He never even said a cross word. He didn’t turn ugly ’till after Sara was born. The first time he hit me, it was just after I’d been nursing her. He was stomping around like a bad-natured bear, and I started teasing him about being jealous of the baby. I was laughing when he hauled off and slammed me upside the head. Less than a minute later he was on his knees begging my forgiveness. Knowing how much Joe loved me, I forgave him. I figured it would never happen again, and we’d go right back to being happy.