*
The next morning, Kasey stopped by bright and early, and because Caroline had known Kasey her whole life, she quickly recognized Kasey’s something awful has happened face. Although Caro was sitting on the couch, she touched the side of it to steady herself in case she fell.
The girls must’ve gotten caught somehow, and Kasey was there to tell her about it.
She wouldn’t let them take the blame alone. She could lie and say she asked them to do it. This was partly her fault. At least her grandma was young; she could help raise the baby while Caro was in prison. And Beau. Beau said he wasn’t leaving. Beau would help. The pain in her shoulder sharpened, and although she could tell her eye was healing, the room was a little dim when she looked out of it.
Grandma Mimi was knitting another piece of the pastel layette for the baby, watching the television. She offered Kasey the pancakes she’d just made and some coffee.
“No, ma’am. Thank you,” Kasey said. Her voice was weird, but Mimi wouldn’t notice. Only Caroline. And although Caro assumed Mimi would figure out what happened to Trey soon enough or maybe already knew, Caro hadn’t said anything about it to her grandmother yet.
“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Caroline said, getting up.
Not much had changed about Caroline’s bedroom since she moved out. She felt a little behind and immature, living back and forth with her grandma up until she married Trey in her thirties. She and Jay shared an apartment off the town square for about a year, and before she went to Amsterdam with Samuel, they lived together in his house on the other side of the lake.
But it seemed like no matter what happened, she ended up back in her bedroom in that trailer. The same bedroom with the window Kasey would climb through when she didn’t want to stay at home. The same bedroom where Caroline would flip through magazines and cut out pictures and come up with pie recipes for all the people in them based on their looks. The same bedroom where she and the rest of RACK would stay up all night making lists of the boys they liked and looking at stuff on Caro’s computer and listening to the same songs on repeat.
Caro was awash with the sticky nostalgia of their high school memories—both good and bad—as she sat on the bed and steeled herself for what Kasey was about to tell her. Those memories could keep her going. She needed to picture them one more time so she could store them away and go back to them later. She looked around the room, trying to hold on to every last bit. Caro could feel her life about to change, and her life had already changed so much since Trey put her in the hospital she wasn’t quite sure how much more she could take. How many life-changing moments could a woman have before she was altered completely? Could she get far enough away from who she was that she couldn’t even feel who she used to be again, no matter how hard she tried?
“Caro, Rosemarie’s cancer is back and this time…it’s not going away,” Kasey said as she sat on the bed. “I didn’t want to have to tell you. I wanted you and the baby to rest and you have enough on your mind—”
“What…what do you mean it’s not going away?” The fogginess was almost unbearable. Nothing was making sense and her head was hurting again. Her shoulder was hurting. Her entire body. The air was painful. Everything.
Someone outside was setting off fireworks a day late; a loud boom spilled across the sky followed by a shimmery hiss.
“It’s metastatic. Spreading all over her body now. There are some treatments that can help, but—” Kasey said.
“But what? What? She’ll die anyway?” Caro asked, trying to make sense out of something that would never make sense. Imagining a world without Rosemarie was impossible, so Caroline shut the door on it immediately and stared straight ahead.
“She’s in the hospital right now for exhaustion and dehydration, basically. No one knew about it besides Leo and Esme and Esme’s brother, but only because he’s her doctor. I’d have to assume that her mom must’ve known something was up, but…I don’t know. She looked a little skinny to me, but she’s always been a little skinny and she didn’t seem sick. Did she seem sick to you?” Kasey asked, shaking her head to answer her own question.
Caro shook her head too and asked if she could go to the hospital and see her.
“Of course. We can go right now. Everyone’s up there,” Kasey said.
“How did you get here?”
“Silas dropped me off.”
“I thought you were here to tell me the cops know about Trey,” Caro said.
“It’s actually a murder investigation now.”
“What?” Caro’s blood went thick and cold. “What? Why?”
“The Foxberrys were able to get an independent autopsy. I don’t know how they did it so fast, but…that person said Trey’s skull was cracked by something deliberately.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know…we’ll figure it out. Beau’s aunt is doing an autopsy too. She’s on our side. Try not to worry. Okay? Try.”
“On the way to the hospital, tell me exactly what y’all did to him. Promise?” Caro said, standing next to Kasey outside of Grandma Mimi’s car. Shaking, she handed Kasey the keys to it.
“Okay. Promise.”
2016
46
Beau had shown up back in Goldie. A sweet surprise. He’d come to visit his family after his divorce and stopped in the bakery to say hey, then hung around until they closed. Afterward, he and Caro ended up at Duke’s. Half of the night was a blur, but Caro remembered dancing to the Spice Girls and Beau had his arms around her, and she was scared she’d melt right through the floor. She wanted him to kiss her so bad, so she told him she needed to get some air.
They stepped outside and she told Beau that Samuel was her boyfriend, but he was out of town and she wished she could kiss him. She wished she could be with Beau, but he ran off and got married and now he was back and the timing was wrong. Again. The timing was always wrong for them.
“Yeah, but maybe it won’t always be,” Beau said, after listening to her holler at him for a while. She was drunk and he told her that, which made her laugh.
“I loved you so much when we worked at the diner together,” she said to him.
“I loved you too, Muffin Mix,” he said.
They went back inside Duke’s and danced together some more even though Caro thought she’d burst into flames. Like she’d split in two for wanting him so much and for loving Samuel, even when he wasn’t there. Beau had taken her to Samuel’s house and gotten her inside. He put her to bed and left a glass of water on the nightstand.
“Maybe it won’t always be,” he said softly when he thought she was sleeping.
Oh Plum wasn’t happening, Beau wasn’t happening, but the bakery was “basically” hers, and Samuel was great.
Every time Caroline thought about how boring and bad things were, she found herself thinking, Yeah, but maybe it won’t always be.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Friends
Beau, I forgot to say something when you were in town so I want to say it now. No matter what…I want us to be friends. I love being your friend. You’re one of my favorite people in the world. So there…I told you. Next time you’re in town, I promise not to drink so much and by “so much” I mean not at all because I’m well on my way to realizing that I can’t hold my alcohol. Such a lightweight! You told me that when I was in high school and okay whatever, you’re right! :P