She leaned her head back against the rest and focused on Caroline. “I could make the caramel, and you can pour it over that rice cereal you love.”
Caroline had just eaten plenty for lunch, but she did love her sweets. So she gave Belle a smile and said, “Absolutely.”
Once home, Caroline got Judy and Belle inside, made sure Gondola had enough water, and left her sisterto make the caramel-covered cereal. Then they’d all pile onto the couch, with the lights off, and put a movie on.
She didn’t mind the simpleness of her life. In fact, it was something she’d desperately worked to achieve. A job she enjoyed and could do. A place to call home. A refuge. A sanctuary away from the storms her life had once been.
In the bathroom, where she’d barricaded herself so she could check her messages in private, she looked up and into her own eyes in the mirror. “If you’re going to start dating Dawson, you have to woman-up and talk to Belle about it.”
She breathed in, and her shoulders lifted. She’d been through a lot, and those shoulders had carried so much all on their own. She could carry her sister for a little bit too.
“Jesus will,” she murmured. Jesus would carry them both when they needed it, Caroline knew that. She bowed her head and let herself just be for a few seconds. She just breathed, and appreciated that she still could. She let her mind think whatever it wanted. She pulled her shoulders back down as she exhaled, and the rest of her tight muscles followed suit.
And then, when she looked up, she prayed, “What’s the right thing to do here?” She’d been divorced and rebuilding her life for five years, but Belle hadn’t even made it five weeks yet. She still had along road in front of her, and Caroline wanted to be there every step of the way.
Her phone fizzed in her palm, which indicated a text from Belle. Caroline switched her gaze to it, not sure what she’d find.I’m not feeling like making anything, Belle had said.I can’t stop crying, and I don’t want Judy to see me like this. I don’t want to do this. I can’t keep living like this. I don’t know how to do this.
Caroline heard and felt the pure desperation, the pure agony, in her sister’s texts. Tears touched her eyes, and Caroline didn’t know how to console this hurt. She had no bandages for this kind of pain.
She had, however, experienced this exact torment, and she’d somehow made it through to the other side.I know, my sweet sister. But you must.
There was no other advice to give her. Caroline had experienced some very dark hours herself, and she’d hung on. She’d clung to certain truths that had somehow provided a pinprick of light that had eventually grown brighter and brighter until she didn’t feel so cold, so alone, so lost.
She left her bathroom and bedroom and went across the hall to Belle’s bedroom, where her sister had already escaped. She sniffled and sobbed, and Caroline hurried to wrap her sister up in a tight hug. That had always helped her to feel like she wasn’t about to splinter apart cell by cell.
“Hey,” she soothed. She didn’t say it was okay, because nothing was okay in Belle’s world right now.
“I’m s-sorry,” Belle said. “Everything reminds me of this beautiful thing I thought I had but didn’t.”
“I know, sissy. I know.” Caroline stroked her sister’s hair back off her cheek and forehead. “You take your time. I’ll go spend the afternoon with Judy.”
“She must be so sad too.” Belle looked at her with a measure of hope in her expression. Hope Caroline didn’t understand.
“I’ll talk to her,” she promised, finally deciding that perhaps Belle thought Judy wouldn’t be sad that she didn’t get to see her daddy anymore. But that wasn’t rational or possible. Of course Judy—a real human being though she was only six years old—missed her daddy. She missed her friends in Phoenix. She’d been removed from the only life she’d ever known and brought to Three Rivers to live with her aunt.
She’d start at a new school next week. In a strange place. Everything unfamiliar.
Caroline had done the same thing when she’d left her marriage, and she’d done it all again when she’d taken this new position and had to come to Three Rivers.
She stayed with Belle for another minute or two, then carefully eased herself away from her sister, tucked her back into bed, and left the bedroom. As she walked, every step brought more strength to her mind.
Judy deserved someone to care for her, someone to see her and provide for her, and Caroline could do that while Belle grieved. As she moved into the living room, she didn’t see her niece, and Judy hadn’t camped out at the dining room table to color either.
Caroline called, “Judy?” and headed for the back door. She had a beautiful, fenced backyard that would’ve housed a dog so perfectly, and a pang of sadness hit her that she couldn’t have the canine she wanted.
Although, with Judy and Belle here now, perhaps she could. The dog wouldn’t be home alone all day with her sister here.
“Jude?” Caroline moved across the back deck and found Judy on the swing set that had come with the house and yard. “It’s going to rain again, sweetheart. You can’t stay out here for long.” She looked up into the sky, with its angry gray clouds and the threat of more rain and hail and maybe worse.
“Okay,” Judy called, seemingly unconcerned about another round of rain showers.
Caroline wrapped her arms around herself though she wore a pink sweater with a fox on the left side. She wanted to call Judy in right now, because she didn’t want to stand on the back deck. “It’s not about you,” she muttered as she turned and went back inside. She also didn’t have to stand outside and wait for Judy. The girl knew how to come back inside.
She put together the caramel popcorn, only reserving a bit of the sticky mixture to pour over her preferred crunchy treat—Rice Chex. Judy liked popcorn better, and Caroline settled her in front of the TV with the snack and the Barbie mermaid movie.
She didn’t have to watch that either, but she did. She made dinner and fed Judy, neither of them seeing nor hearing from Belle again. Caroline stewed and stewed and stewed over Dawson, suddenly glad their date that evening had been canceled.
There was no way she could leave Judy with Belle tonight, and she had no words to tell her sister she was going to start dating again.