Sweet Caroline(24)

Since Mrs. Atwater cleaned and spiffed up the carriage house and left most of Jones’s wood and leather furniture, all I have to do is haul over my clothes, personal items, and the antique armoire I promise I’m going to restore someday. We load Mitch’s truck with clothes, books, and stuff, then he and Posey head over while I take one final pass of my room.

“Caroline?” Dad calls upstairs. “I’ve got the armoire roped to the truck bed. You ready?”

“Yes, ready.” At twenty-eight, I’m moving out on my own for the first time. It’s a lovely, long-overdue, frightening experience. Perhaps even more than taking on the responsibility of the Café.

Yet, as I take in my faded yellow room, I wish little girls never grew up.

“Your mama promised to paint the room pink with blue clouds, remember? And buy a lacy canopy bed.” Turning, I see Dad in the doorway.

“Don’t forget the pony galloping out of the corner.” I sweep my hand from right to left across the room. “Because all princesses need a pony.”

He smiles. “All princesses need a pony.”

Since she died four years ago, Dad and I haven’t said more than ten words about her. “Why didn’t she do it?”

Crossing his arms, he leans his shoulder against the door frame. “To spite me. Your tenth birthday was coming up, and I pressured her to fix up your room like she promised. Thought it’d be the perfect present. So we sent you and Henry to your grandparent’s for a weekend with the plan of painting your room. But Trudy spent most of the time . . . I don’t know . . . frittering. She was in one of her moods. Late Saturday, I got on her about it, said I’d do whatever she needed me to do to get it done. She exploded, said some choice words, and disappeared. I woke up Sunday morning in the recliner to her banging around up here. She’d painted the room yellow and was putting together that crummy daybed.”

“When we came home and I walked into my room, I knew. No blue clouds or pony would ever happen. I climbed the tree and cried.”

Dad clears his throat. “I’m sorry, Caroline. Your mom and I fought for weeks about it, but I had to let it go. Blue clouds and ponies didn’t seem worth the price of our relationship or what it was doing to you kids. I would’ve painted it myself if I had the talent. Trudy could work wonders with a paintbrush.”

I look over at him. “I’ll take my yellow room any day as long as you’re my dad. Talent or no talent. You stayed when she didn’t.”

“I wasn’t the best dad, but I did love you kids.”

“It was obvious.” I check the closet one last time. Empty. “So, Dad, on another note, do you have any idea why Jones left me the Café?”

He absently shakes his head. “Wish I did. When I was growing up, Dad and Mama didn’t socialize with him. But after she died, Dad started his regular Friday nights down at the Frogmore.”

“I wonder if I’ll ever know. Ready? Mitch and Posey are probably there by now.”

Dad stops me in the hallway. “Caroline—” He presses his fist to his mouth, clearing his throat. “I want you to know, you were a source of comfort to me, and to your granddad. I never said thanks.”

Behind my eyes, a bottle fills with unshed tears. “No need. I only did what I saw my daddy doing.”

Moving my armoire into the carriage house is like wedging Drizella’s fat, corny foot into Cinderella’s glass slipper.

Ugly. Impossible.

“Caroline, are you sure you want this thing?” Dad mops his brow with the edge of his T-shirt sleeve. “Looks to me like the bedroom has a big closet.”

Mitch peers around the beat-up, dried-out oak armoire from outside the carriage house. The large wardrobe is stuck in the front doorway. “We could leave it here and hope someone steals it.”

Propping my hands on my hips, I sigh. “Bunch of whiners. Just move it in, please.

”

Meanwhile, Posey works in the kitchen, putting away the glasses and dish towels she had left over from combining her life with Dad’s. “All this avocado and rust decor is giving me seventies flashbacks, Caroline.”

“Well, Mitch,” Dad says, with a sad, sorry twang of resignation, “let’s do this. One last shove.”

“All right. Like birthing a baby.”

With a low, growling grunt, Mitch shoves the wardrobe through the door, scraping off the sunflower antique-brass doorknobs. They fire like shiny bullets across the room.

“Hey, those cost me $9.88.”

Dad doesn’t call whoa, so Mitch just keeps driving forward.

“Mitch, Mitch, Mitch . . .”

Dad stumbles. The armoire tilts. I dart to catch it, but it crashes to the polished hardwood floor.

Posey scurries in from the kitchen. “What is going on in here? Land sakes.” She anchors her fist against her hips, a dish towel dangling from her grip. “Why didn’t you bring it in through the French doors?” We look beyond the kitchenette. “Open them up and you can drive in a tank.”

Well, a-hem, now we know.

It’s late. A tick or two before eleven o’clock. If I had known pizza tasted this good in my own place, I’d have moved years ago. At least considered it.

But today I’ve taken the first steps toward becoming the person I’m meant to be. And contrary to my lifelong belief, I’m not the Elmer’s Glue of the Sweeney family.