Hush, Sorrow
Feeling rather useless at the moment, she watched as her daughter wove her way through the late lunch crowd. Kayla had too much talent to be tending bar and serving up chowder. With her customary kind heart and predictable Brady stubbornness though, she’d insisted on helping. Oh sure, she’d called it an early Christmas visit, but while Caroline Brady was many things, a fool she was not. This little open-ended visit away from her husband and daughter was little more than ill-disguised pity. Shaking her head ruefully, she knew that really wasn’t a fair assessment. It wasn’t pity that had brought Kayla home. It was love and concern. Still, Caroline hated to feel like a burden. It was just a broken bone. And broken bones heal—even old bones. As a doctor, Kayla should know that.
Shaking off the encroaching despair, she instead said a quick prayer of thanks for such caring children. Kayla had dropped everything to be here; Kim called her daily; not a day passed that she didn’t see Roman, Bo or Hope one; and then there was John and his letters. With a sad sigh, she again surveyed the pub. It was becoming a habit. For seven of the last eight days she’d quietly watched her former daughter-in-law sitting alone in a corner booth, staring vacantly into cup after cup of cold coffee. Rarely drinking, just holding the mug with white-knuckled intensity as an aura of lost, loneliness hovered about her. Undoubtedly, she would have been here on the eighth day were the pub not closed on Sundays. She really should have thought to invite Marlena to Sunday dinner. With a gentle shake of the head, she tossed aside the warm comfort of memory. Though she seriously doubted the invitation would have been met with anything other than a polite decline. Even so… gingerly slipping from the stool, she waved off her daughter’s concern before she could make a beeline in her direction. Whether Marlena was here for company or more than likely as she suspected here to escape the haunting strains of an empty home, today she was getting company. “Marlena?” The smile never quite reached her eyes as she waited, poised to help if needed but respectful enough to let Caroline do for herself all that she could. Cautiously she slipped into the booth—feeling, for the moment, a little less useless.
She couldn’t completely stifle the weary sigh that escaped. “You seem to be getting around better.” A bittersweet, knowing smile twisted Marlena’s features. “I’d ask if there was anything I could do to help…” She was once again swallowed up into the dark abyss of her coffee mug. “But I can see Kayla’s got everything well in hand.” Glancing up from beneath lowered lashes, something tormented & unreadable flickered behind those once lively hazel eyes. “How’s that working out?”
An uncustomary dark chuckle rumbled from the very depths of her soul. “She means well.”
Marlena nodded. “So did I…it didn’t make me right, though.” Carefully placing the cold mug back atop the table, the silence stretched between them.
Plucking at a loose sweater thread, she plowed forward. “So, how’s John doing?”
Snatching the coffee mug back into a punishing grip, Marlena’s answer was as well rehearsed as it was hollow. “Fine; he says he’s doing fine.”
“Oh yes, his letters are full of fines. Of course I don’t believe his ‘fines’ anymore than I believe yours…must be that internal lie detector God gives us Mothers.” Tears welled, but Marlena stubbornly refused to let them fall as they once again surrendered to a silence full of truths too painful to utter.
As the last of the lunch crowd slowly filtered out Marlena reached for her purse. “Well I better get going.” Her voice was unusually monotone. “I have a job interview in thirty minutes.” She watched her pluck through a few stray bills to lay three singles on the table and slide out of the booth. At the last second, Marlena’s icy hand grasped hers, “you really do need to tell Kayla how you feel,” and with that she was gone.
Ellis County
Taking a deep cleansing breath, she tried to focus on the documents in front of her. She didn’t have time to be angry with her husband, much less worry about his hurt feelings because she couldn’t understand the simple of concept of being bound by facts. God, if he got any more condescending she would be sorely tempted to haul off and hit him. Did he really think she needed to be lectured about facts, about proof? A disgusted grunt escaped as she thumbed through the file before her. She was drowning in “facts.” And this was just the tip of the iceberg, she was sure.
Hearing the door shush open and then closed again, she didn’t bother to look up. She knew who was standing there. She didn’t need to see the frustrated look on his face, and she certainly didn’t need to waste anymore time arguing. John and Marlena were depending on her. She couldn’t let them down. She swatted away the invitation of comfort as he tried to massage her tense shoulders.
Moving back to stand before her, Austin stooped—tried to catch her eyes. “I don’t want to fight.”
For a long moment she simply stared at him, part of her longing to give into the raw emotion she could hear in his whispered plea, another part of her sick at the lack of remorse. He didn’t even sound torn. How could she love a man who wasn’t even torn over his belief in John’s guilt? “You think I do?”
“Carrie, if you could just see the facts, you’d und—“
A tired sign interrupted him mid-whine. “Oh believe me; I am getting intimately acquainted with the ‘facts.’” Her eyes flashed menacingly to the file she’d been in the midst of studying. “Austin, I know that as a forensic accountant you are bound by a specific set of guidelines, and looking over all this,” she gestured wildly to the growing stack of files, “I can understand why you as a professional could believe John is guilty.” Finally looking up at him, she fought the sudden overwhelming urge to cry. “What I can’t understand is how you, as my husband and as one of the few people to actually visit John and Marlena these last two and half years, can’t believe in his innocence. How can that be Austin? Explain it to me…because honestly, I can’t even comprehend it. I look at you right now and I feel like I’m looking at a stranger.”
“Carrie…”
Lips tightly pursed, she couldn’t help but think he looked pained as she once again pulled away from him. “Austin, do you think I’m a good person?”
“What kind of question is that?” He squinted in consternation at the unexpected turn in their conversation. “Of course, I think you’re a good person.”
“A big part of who I am today is because of John—“
“Sweetheart…”
“No, Austin. I listened to you. I listened to you and I told you that I understood how you came to the conclusions you did.” She swallowed hard and then looked at him with an unflinching gaze. “Now it’s your turn to listen. John is the person who taught me right from wrong. He didn’t teach me with loud lectures and a ‘my way or the highway’ attitude. He taught me through example. He is the one who grounded me for a month when he found out I cheated on a chemistry test. He’s the man who let me help Billie because he knew it was important to me, but then made me pay back every red cent of money she’d taken. He’s the man who for over four years single-handedly raised three kids and paid a mortgage all while on a policeman’s salary. He’s the man who cheered us on by day and tucked us in at night. He’s the one that held me while I cried over the first boy that broke my heart, and who has comforted me through almost every other heartache since then. He’s the man that taught me there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish with a little faith and a lot of hard work.“ Unashamed she swiped at a stray tear that escaped her glassy eyes. “You speak of facts. Well, I speak of truths. I know my truths won’t hold up in a court of law before a jury of John’s peers, but that doesn’t make them any less irrefutable. Little pieces of paper tell you that John’s guilty. Fine. My heart tells me that he’s innocent. That is not something I simply want to believe that is something that I know to be true.” Standing up a little straighter, she nervously ran her fingers through her hair. “I know I may not be able to prove that and that scares the hell out of me, Austin. But John and Marlena have always been there for me and now it’s my turn to be there for them.” Sitting back down at the table, she ended the discussion. “I have work to do.”
The Jarlena Journal 