Caroline

Chapter 10

The chicken and seasonings were simmering on the stove top when Caroline decided to check her messages again. She never left her phone on. She didn't want to chance picking it up without thinking, and hearing Derek's voice at the other end. Perhaps she was a coward, but there was nothing she wanted to hear from him, and nothing she wanted to say. She had returned once to the apartment when she knew for certain that he would be out. The few, irreplaceable personal items that she had brought when she'd first moved in had fit into an overnight bag. The ring Derek had given her, she'd left on the dining room table. She'd known when he'd found it because the calls and messages had started in earnest. That was when she'd first turned the phone off.

It was as she was thumbing through messages that a call came through from a number she recognized, but had not seen for a while. The debate in her head lasted for the span of three rings before she threw caution to the wind and answered.

"Hello? Treacy?"

"You've got some nerve, bitch!"

She had some nerve? "What are you talking about?"

Treacy's voice snarled the words. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing at with Derek, but leave him alone!"

Caroline closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm not playing at anything with Derek."

"Don't fling that crap! You and I both know Derek only stayed with you for the money. God knows, he deserves better than anything you could ever give him. I told him when you left, it was the best damn thing that ever happened to him. He's making it all on his own and doesn't need any more payouts from you!"

Caroline sighed. "Treacy..."

"So whatever poison carrot you're dangling in front of him now, cut it the hell out!"

"I don't talk to Derek, much less dangle carrots in front of him. Why are you..."

"And I am sick to death of that innocent little girl act! Derek told me he believes there's a chance, and why would that be unless you'd decided to sweeten the pot even more? What's it gonna be this time? Stocks? Annuities? Another shiny new car?"

"Treacy!" Caroline said forcefully. "I have never given Derek Hollingsworth a dime, and I never intend to. Where do you get this?" she finished, incredulously.

There was a pause on the other end, then, "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what.?"

Treacy let out a throaty laugh. "Oh my God, this is priceless. You really don't know..."

Caroline took a deep breath to calm herself. "Is there something you would like to tell me?"

"Oh, hell no, not me. But I'd surely love to be there when you find out...."

"Treacy..." But the connection had been broken.

Treacy Butler had never been a favorite of hers, but she had been a long-time friend of Derek's, and so Caroline had tolerated her. A part of her had actually hoped that Treacy was reaching out to her in friendship. Now she wished she'd never answered the call. What the woman had said didn't make any sense.

There had been a time when Caroline would have gladly given Derek whatever financial assistance he'd needed. But not once in the time she had known him had he ever needed anything. In fact, he was the one who'd spent money on her, most often in ways that she would have preferred he hadn't. Her closet in the apartment was filled with shoes and dresses that she had worn once or not at all. She felt no remorse in leaving them behind.

Shaking her head, she decided that Treacy had finally snapped from all the bitterness she carried inside her. There were more pleasant things to do and think about.

The image of a little girl with strawberry blond hair and freckles came to mind. Hannah Morris's mother and hers had become friends during their own childhoods, so it was only natural that the daughters would be friends as well. They saw each other regularly throughout the year, but it was the summers in the mountains that sealed their attachment to each other. Their days had been filled with hiking, fruit and flower picking, sliding on their bottoms down cool mountain streams, and whatever their imaginations had dreamed up for them. Nights were sleepovers, blanket forts, and whispered secrets. They'd believed that they would be friends forever.

Their days had been divided fairly evenly between each other's cabins until the summer before high school. Hannah's older brother had been teasing and bullying them too often, so they preferred spending their time at Caroline's cabin when they weren't exploring the woods around them. They both learned to cook watching and helping Caroline's mother. It was those days her thoughts lingered on, when she still had her mother and her best friend with her, where she needed them to be.

She and Hannah saw each other a few times after her mother's funeral, but the Morris family were undergoing trials of their own. The brother who had turned into a bully was spending time in juvenile detention with no signs of regret or a willingness to reform. Somehow, confiding in each other had become too difficult. It just became easier to allow themselves to drift apart.

Caroline's life had a definite dividing line: before her mother's deadly crash, and after. Everything before was just as it should have been. Now, nothing was.

Glancing at the time, she realized she needed to pull the chicken from the pot to cool and strain the broth. Then it would be time to prepare the biscuit dough for the dumplings.

She was half-way up to her elbows in flour and dough when she heard the knock on her door. Great... he was one of those early people. Not a problem. She would just sit him down with a glass of something and he could keep her company while she finished up. Calling out, "Coming!", she grabbed a dish towel to wipe her hands. With a big smile on her face, she opened her door.

"Hello Caroline," Derek smiled back at her.