the clipped tone illuminated everything Carol needed to know. She was getting a frigid greeting because her mother disagreed with her choices. As usual.
“For now,” Carol said. “That will grow old eventually, and I’ll settle down somewhere.”
“Where, Carol? You’re selling your house.”
Carol cast a glance at her aunt, who diverted her eyes like a child trying to avoid trouble. From the moment Carol had filled her mom in on her plans, Ellen had likely been listening to all the ways Carol was messing up her life this time.
Judith turned and stared Carol down. “And what about your belongings?”
“I’ve sold most of them.” She stood a bit taller—a matador bracing for the bull to attack. “Mary took the rest to St. Louis.”
Her mom scowled as if she were already fed up with Carol’s foolishness. “You burdened your mother-in-law so you could roam the country without a care?”
“I’m sure Mary didn’t mind,” Ellen offered. She was well-practiced at diffusing the tension between Carol and Judith before things erupted. For years, whenever Ellen was visiting, she would wade into turbulent waters in an attempt to calm them. She was rarely successful.
“No, she didn’t mind.” Carol’s words were almost as sharp as her mother’s. “I didn’t send her home with anything larger than a few boxes of framed photos. Mary was happy to take them.”
“You told me she drove home in Tobias’s car.” The slight smirk on Judith’s lips seemed to imply that she’d caught Carol in a lie. “That’s a bit larger than a box.”
Carol bit the inside of her lip. Pictured flowers in the wind. Heard Tobias’s voice in her mind.
Don’t take the bait, she imagined him telling her.
“I gave Tobias’s car to his mother,” Carol said calmly. “She’s not storing it for me. I gave it to her after I paid off the loan. All we had to do was switch the title. There was no burden passed to her. Thank you for being concerned, though.” The last bit came out dripping with sarcasm, but Carol didn’t care. For Judith to suggest Mary viewed Carol as the inconvenience her parents always had enraged her. She would never place undue stress on Tobias’s family. They were the best thing in her life.
Judith narrowed her eyes into an accusatory stare. “Is this some kind of midlife crisis or…or…some kind of mental breakdown?”
Ellen carefully set three bowls on the counter before turning toward Carol. Where her mother had been direct and borderline harsh, her aunt offered Carol a concerned look and soft smile. “Honey, did something happen at that conference?”
Carol creased her brow with confusion. “What conference?”
“You went to a conference, and then, out of nowhere, you decided to retire and sell everything to live in your camper,” Ellen said. “Why? What happened?”
John. John had happened. Her ex-husband had shown up and turned Carol’s life upside down, as he’d always done.
Carol had loved being an executive at a pharmaceutical company. However, she’d clung to the monotony like a life preserver after Tobias’s death. She’d stopped living—socializing was limited to work; her home became an extension of her office. When John resurfaced, he’d forced her to face that she’d put herself on autopilot and was in danger of never coming out. He had woken her from a daze and made her promise she wouldn’t spend her life hiding behind her desk. She had the money and the means to travel. She only had to find the courage to leave the security of her self-inflicted prison—which she’d done without much of an explanation to her mom and aunt.
Though it pained her to concede so soon into her visit, she had to give this one to her mom. From Judith’s point of view, Carol’s abrupt redirection came out of nowhere. She didn’t know where Carol had been or what she’d been going through because Carol had constructed a story about going to a conference rather than dealing with the fallout of her mother’s reaction to her taking a trip with John.
Explaining to her mom and aunt where she’d been, as well as what she was planning to do after her visit, was one of the many reasons for needing to see them in person. This wasn’t something she’d wanted to discuss over the phone.
“I wasn’t at a conference,” Carol said calmly as she sat at the small round table in the corner of the kitchen. “I was on the road, but I didn’t want you to worry about me.”
Judith slammed down the wooden spoon she’d been using.