Conversations In the Storm

Chapter Four - All In The Family

It had taken a second to react to the sudden darkness. For a moment, Caroline had simply stood in the black trembling from the shock. She had known it would happen, yet it still had made her heart stop, the violence of the thunder. That little girl hiding in the closet - she had been safe from the lightning flashes once the door was closed. But the thunder, there was no protection from that. Lightning was simply a warning, a way of putting all her nerves on edge in preparation for the unpleasant sensations which the thunder forced. Eventually she had gathered herself and had fumbled her way to the dining table, which luckily was very close by, and had found the lighter. With trembling fingers she had flicked once, twice, three times until finally the flame had held steady and she was able to light the candles she had set up there.

Lit by the flickering orange light, they sat apart on the sofa. She pulled the blanket over her legs again, her hands interlaced in her lap.

"I heard that you had a fight with your parents," he said softly. She shrugged, still unable to meet his eyes.

"What happened?"

"You didn't get a blow by blow description? Adrian was there, he must have told you. He didn't tell you what I said?"

A hint of pain appeared in his eyes.

"No, he didn't give details. Adrian..."

He shook his head, shifting his posture.

"It's not important. Tell me what happened."

She toyed with the stitching on her sleeve, the memories already flooding into her mind. Her cheeks reddened, and even through the dim lighting he could see it.

"Tell me what you think happened. You predicted it, after all."

The bitterness was plain in her voice.

"You told me I didn't talk enough about things that were upsetting me and that one day it would explode out of me. You were the tipping point, I guess. After we ended, for days I simply want over everything in my head. I was telling myself what I had tried to ignore for years - it was me. My fault. I wasn't good enough for you. I wasn't good enough as an adult for them to accept, I certainly hadn't been adequate as a child. It was my fault, right? And slowly, I got angry. I was angry at you for making me feel inadequate. I can't help my past, I can't change it. I can't help the fact that I'm eight years younger than you. But you made me feel ashamed for it, and only then did it hit me that wasn't ok."

Unable to continue facing him, she rose and walked over to the candlelit coffee table, then crouched down to sit there.

"Then at that ridiculous family dinner they asked me why I couldn't be more like Summer was. They couldn't help but remind me how much promise she'd had, and said I was a disappointment next to her."

In shock, he fell dumb. She pressed her fingers to her eyes, the pain of that conversation flowing through her again as though the memory was happening all over again.

"They ridiculed my career, my ambition, and when Adrian remarked that it was over with you and they used that as another excuse to show how inadequate I was, I couldn't take it. I do what makes me happy. I haven't asked them for anything in years. I've made my own choices, I've muddled through and myself into a person without any mentoring, and I'm proud of who I've become."

Although there was truth in the way she'd said it, the loneliness was plain in her voice. She was proud. He was extremely proud of her. But just because she was proud didn't mean that she was happy.

She spoke again, her voice clearer, stronger.

"It was wrong for them to say that I'm not enough. To hold me up to the image of a girl who never made it to adulthood, who was different all along. I lost her too. I loved her perhaps more than them. I wanted them to celebrate me, I wanted to be accepted. And there is one person who has known everything about me and who loves me for it. It's not them, it's not even you. And all of a sudden I knew I couldn't forgive them for that."