“I should’ve kept talking to you. I shouldn’t have shut you out. I shouldn’t have shut the girls out so much. I didn’t know what else to do except run away, but I didn’t mean it! I didn’t,” Kasey said, clutching the muffin bag even tighter to keep her hands from shaking. Silas gently undid her fingers and took it from her. She let herself cry and it felt really good after the horror of what she’d seen at Caroline’s.
“Look. I’m not saying you didn’t break my heart. I think I’ve been clear about that, right?” Silas asked. “And I keep telling you I can’t stand to see you cry, but apparently, you don’t give a damn about that, do you?” He touched her shoulder.
Kasey shook her head.
“I don’t want you to think I’ve been mad at you for fifteen years. How could I sustain that, Fritz? It’s poison,” Silas said.
“I don’t know if I’ll see you again before I leave.”
“You’ve got plans with the girls tonight?”
Kasey nodded.
“Maybe I can swing by the hotel later? We can have a drink?”
Kasey nodded again. “The bar there is too nice. That place is ridiculous.”
“Very ridiculous, so let’s do it. I’ll text you,” he said. “Thank you for this and this.” He held up his coffee and the bag. She got on her tiptoes to put her lips against his cheek. “Thanks for the extra sugar too,” Silas said. He put his arms around her.
*
Kasey, Rosemarie, and Basie were in the sunny, soft conversation pit. Rosemarie had started crying when Kasey’d told her what she’d seen, which made Kasey start crying all over again too.
“I’ll cut his dick off, and I swear to you I’m serious. Men ain’t shit! I…I truly hate him,” Rosemarie said.
“What should we do? What can we do?” Kasey said. She was petting Basie’s head, rubbing behind her ears. Rosemarie pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, and she seemed so tired. The week had wrung them all out. Every emotion was turned to high—fifteen years of feelings rushing through the Goldie streets like the dam had broken wide open.
“Convince her to leave him. She has to divorce him—she has to.”
“Right, but that can turn into the worst time for a woman who’s being abused. Trey will go ballistic if she tells him she wants out. He has to control her. If he feels like he’s losing that control, he’ll hurt her even worse,” Kasey said. She paused. Everything she was saying was hitting too close. She saw her mom’s face, fresh in her mind. Heard her mom’s voice saying her name. Kasey took a shaky breath in.
“We’ll…we’ll hide her, then. Send her off somewhere until he calms down and finds someone else…but oh God, I don’t want him to get with anyone else and do this to her either. I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what to do, but we have to do something,” Rosemarie said. She stood and got Basie’s leash off the hook by the door. “Let’s take her for a walk. We need the swampy—I mean fresh—air. Come on, get up. Time for walk and talk.”
Kasey stepped out of the conversation pit and slipped on her sandals.
*
Since Caro couldn’t make it to the restaurant until nine, Kasey had told Ada that she and Rosemarie would be there at eight so they could discuss everything before Caro showed up. Ada had prepared a beautiful spread for them, but they only picked at it as Kasey and Rosemarie told her everything. Ada cried, distraught and blaming herself, claiming she should’ve noticed the signs. She and Caroline saw each other practically every day, and yet, Ada had so many other things on her mind.
Ada told them that her life hadn’t been as perfect as it seemed lately, and she hated that people thought her life was so perfect anyway. Living up to that was impossible, and Ada had never asked for it. Her mom had chronic back pain, and after several surgeries stretched over the past fifteen years, recently, she’d been really struggling with needing more and more pain pills.
“Ada, stop. I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, and we’ll do all we can to help you get through this, but what’s happening with Caro isn’t on you. This isn’t anyone’s fault but Trey’s. He’s an Earl, period. Like Dumbass and more than half the men in this town.” Rosemarie said the last bit through gritted teeth.
“She’s right, Ada,” Kasey said.
The restaurant had been closed for thirty minutes, but it still smelled like good food, a packed house. Two small white candles flickered in glass on the table, and soft Sinatra floated from the speakers. Ada had made chicken piccata and lemon rice. There was an unopened bottle of chardonnay on the table; Rosemarie picked at the foil on the lip. Ada got up and walked away, returning with a wine key and four glasses.
*
Caroline showed up looking like she’d stepped out of a magazine—smiling in a light cowl-neck sweater, shorts, and a pair of espadrille wedges that wrapped around her ankles. “Why haven’t y’all started eating? Were you waiting for me? Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“You look good,” Ada said. “I love your face.”
“Aw, thank you,” Caro said, letting her fingers brush her forehead. “So do y’all! Whew, it’s a wonder I could pull myself together. It’s been a day,” she said, sitting and plucking an olive from the scalloped dish.
“Why? What happened?” Rosemarie asked so innocently that if the situation were different, Kasey would’ve wanted to laugh.
“Oh, just busy. Bakery stuff and I was at my grandma’s helping her weed the gardens earlier and Trey—”
“Caroline, stop. Caro, I was there at the house this morning and heard Trey hollering at you. I saw him grab you and push you, and I don’t want you denying it, because I saw it. I was standing at the door, and I could see through the window because the curtain was twisted up. You can’t stay with him. You have to get out. Now!” Kasey said. She let the words fly without caring about what Caro would think.
It was scary how easily Caro could act like everything was fine. How long could she keep this up? It was by God’s grace that Kasey had been there at that house at the wrong time.
“Caroline, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Ada said, putting her hand on hers.
“He’s not gonna get away with this,” Rosemarie said.
“I…I don’t know what any of you are talking about,” Caro said softly after looking at them in silence for too long. She took her hand from underneath Ada’s with no expression on her face and calmly poured herself a glass of wine.
2004
18
Roy lost the garage gig and things got worse. Instead of hanging out at the bar and picking fights there, he took up permanent residence on the couch, and when he was awake—drunk or sober—he was starting fights with Kasey’s mom when she was around or, when she wasn’t, with Kasey. Ranting about how life dealt him a bad hand and being ornery just to be ornery because it was who he was, through and through. Even if she had a million years to think about it, Kasey wouldn’t be able to find one solid, good thing about him.
She’d tried picturing him as a baby. He had a lot of family down in Florida, but Kasey had only met his mom twice—once at her mama and Roy’s wedding and one other time years ago when she was traveling through town. She tried imagining that Roy’s mother loved him, although her brain would lock on the impossibility of even that, since his mother named him Roymont Dupont, so clearly she never loved the boy.