Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(59)
Wilbur kept a sharp eye on Max and a watchful eye on Caroline. When the others went to bed he stayed awake, sometimes for an hour or two, sometimes longer. He waited and listened for footsteps on the stairs. Only after he was certain the house was secure for the night did Wilbur close his eyes and sleep.
With Rose now doing most of the cooking, Caroline returned to writing. She spent long hours in the attic loft, composing paragraphs then deleting them. Although Matthew and Claire were once so vivid in her mind they had now morphed into dull, grey characters, characters without feeling or a sense of purpose. Remembering Peter Pennington’s promise that the desk held many stories, Caroline would at times take her hands from the computer keyboard and place them flat on the desk, waiting for inspiration to come, perhaps spelled out like words on a Ouija board.
On the Wednesday following his encounter with Max, Wilbur sat in the darkened parlor listening for the sound of trouble and waiting for the day to end. From the corner of his eye he caught the movement of a shadow that slid silently through the hall and up the stairs. Wilbur stood and walked to the foot of the staircase, but by then the figure had disappeared. On the second floor there was a bath and the bedrooms of four people: Harriet Chowder, Rose Smith, Doctor Payne, and Wilbur himself. Up the second flight of stairs was the attic loft where Caroline slept and worked.
Without waiting Wilbur started up the stairs and continued to the attic. From inside Caroline’s room he heard the sound of her voice, soft, low, muffled almost, and thick with a sorrowful undertone. He rapped on the door and without hesitation eased it open.
Caroline was sitting at the computer staring at an almost blank screen.
“I heard voices,” Wilbur said. “Are you okay?”
Caroline answered with a smile and a nod. “I was talking to myself.”
“Well, if you need somebody to talk to, I’m here.”
“Thanks.” Caroline laughed. “I wasn’t actually talking to myself; I was going over the dialogue in my story.” She paused a moment, then sighed, “At one time I thought this was the most wonderful story, but now…”
“Now what?”
She shrugged. “Now it sounds so silly. Fake almost. Matthew and Claire are like plastic dolls trying to pretend they’re real people.” Caroline gave a weary sigh. “Maybe I’m not meant to be a writer.”
“I doubt that’s true,” Wilbur said. “My understanding is the Lord hands out talent based on where a person’s heart is. You’ve got a heart for storytelling, so maybe you just need to search for the right story.”
“But this is the right story,” Caroline replied. “It’s exactly the way I imagined Greg would act if he wasn’t so egotistical and self-centered.”
Wilbur chuckled. “Oh, I get it. You thought you were in love with this Greg—”
“I was in love with him,” Caroline said indignantly.
“No, you weren’t.” Wilbur laughed. “You were in love with the image of who you wanted him to be.”
“Well, sure, I wanted him to be different, but that’s only because I could see—”
Wilbur interrupted her with another chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Caroline asked.
“You thinking you were in love,” Wilbur answered. “You might have been infatuated, but you weren’t in love.”
Caroline sputtered a few words of objection but before she could get going, Wilbur began. “Love is blind. It doesn’t see faults. The man married to a fat woman doesn’t see her as fat; he sees her as just right for his arms. The woman married to a drunk doesn’t see him as a drunk; she believes he’s a man under pressure who simply needs a drink every now and then. That’s how love is.”
He continued to speak, but as Caroline listened she thought back to her conversation with Rose. Although Joe was mean and abusive, Rose never stopped loving him. She was fearful of him, and yet she made excuses for his behavior and turned a blind eye. It was only because of the great love for her daughter that Rose allowed herself to leave. The sorry truth was, if Joe were to show up at the door Rose, or Rowena as he would call her, would most likely allow him to take her in his arms. However foolish or irresponsible that might be, it was the blind love Wilbur spoke of.
Caroline could not say the same about Greg. She saw his faults. They were as obvious as the nose on his face. Although it had taken time for her to come to this conclusion, she knew when she saw the Philadelphia skyline fading from the rearview mirror of her car she had already stopped loving Greg.
“I see what you mean,” Caroline said. “I guess a person who hasn’t known love shouldn’t be writing about it.”
Wilbur’s voice softened. “You’ve known love. Maybe it wasn’t the soulmate passion of a man-woman romance, but love has a lot of different faces. You loved your Grandma and she loved you. She loved you so much she wanted you to have the most-loved thing she had to give—this house. The house has its faults, but she loved it just as she loved the man who built it. The thing about love is, a person or thing doesn’t have to be perfect for you to love it. It only has to be perfect for you.”
Caroline’s eyes began to fill with tears. “I see what you mean,” she said wistfully. “I saw plenty of faults with Greg but I didn’t see any with Grandma. Everything she did was generous and kind and wonderful.” She stood, walked over to Wilbur, wrapped her arms around his waist, and hugged him. “Thank you,” she whispered.