Chapter Text
There was nothing between them but silence. An ever-expanding silence, like gas pumping into a tightly stretched balloon. Carol imagined it smoothing over the seams of the car doors, sealing them both inside the metal frame, rising up and up and up.
Silence. It wasn’t always a terrible thing. There were good and bad silences, much like there were good and bad tensions. On the drive to the tree lot, they had spoken sparingly, but the silence had been charged with nervous excitement. And the tension was the pleasurable kind, where one look held the weight of a thousand.
This was different. This was uncomfortable. For the silence they found themselves in now was as poisonous as carbon monoxide, and the tension was a match primed to strike. One wrong word, one lingering glance, and it would surely trigger a catastrophe.
Carol held her breath.
Then a rumble of thunder came, a heavenly thing, so deep she felt it beneath the car wheels, cracking through the road like a pickaxe in ice. And the silence soon ebbed away, replaced with the tinny sound of rain on the roof and the rhythmic swish of the windscreen wipers. It eased some of the budding pressure in Carol's ears, the sound of her own thoughts circling back on themselves.
There was movement to her right: the wringing of hands, the shuffling of shoes in the footwell. But Carol kept her eyes firmly on the road and the smoky winter-blue sky, for there wasn’t much that could fix the situation. Nothing, in fact, other than reversing time itself and barricading her front door with wood and nails.
If Harge hadn't walked through the door, the evening might have panned out differently. She might have listened to Therese rehearse more of Easy Living on the piano — a family heirloom neither she nor Harge had ever played. She might have made them cocktails and led Therese to the sunroom, where they could smoke and drink and talk.
Her hands squeezed the steering wheel. Her skin squeaked against the leather.
No matter what Harge had assumed, Carol really had just wanted to talk . Talk, and listen, and watch. She hadn't wanted to take it any further, not beyond the graze of her fingertips upon Therese's shoulders. No. Carol simply wanted to get to know her better. She wanted to know her eyes intimately, to find a name for the colour and look for it everywhere. She wanted to learn about Therese's camera and admire the photographs stashed underneath her kitchen sink. She wanted to read the books with cracked spines and finger-worn pages on Therese’s bookshelf. Carol wanted to know everything there was to know about Therese, to memorise it, to pocket it in her mind and retreat into it like a haven.
But, mostly, she wanted to know whether Therese felt as she did.
Driving along the quiet road, staring into the endless stretch of night, Carol still didn’t have her answer. And, with one furtive glance at Therese, she knew she wouldn’t receive it any time soon. There were glistening tears in her eyes, coloured red from the car tail lights ahead of them; one wrong word would knock them from their perch, sending them scattering like blood from a wound.
She peeled her eyes away. The rain was pummelling down harder now.
Therese being witness to Harge's drunken rages was bad enough, but Carol's short temper had only added insult to injury. Therese had only meant to be kind, to take some of the weight off Carol's shoulders. And Carol had made her retreat further into herself, like a frightened child. She had snarled, and over cigarettes of all things — the absence of which had sent her hurtling over the edge. Cigarettes wouldn't have made a damned difference to the situation. No material object, cigarettes or otherwise, could have brought back the peaceful hours of decorating the tree with Rindy and listening to Christmas carols on the wireless.
Carol sighed and flicked on her indicator. They had arrived at the train station.
'There's some time before it arrives,' Carol murmured, her hands still positioned on the wheel even though the engine was off.
Therese bunched up her coat in her lap, her fists balling tightly until they turned from pink to white. Carol tried to meet her questioning gaze. But her eyes were too heavy to lift, weighed down with shame.
'How long?' Therese asked meekly.
'Just shy of fifteen minutes.'
'Okay.’
‘I… I suspect it won’t be too busy tonight, not with it being a Sunday.’
There was the wispy sound of a staggered breath, and then: ‘Thank you for driving me. I’d better go.'
Therese opened the passenger door and left before Carol could say goodbye.
The silence became solitude. The tension dissipated. Carol could breathe freely again. And wasn't that meant to be a good thing?
She expected a wave of relief, the comfort one finds in being left in their own company. But there was no comfort in watching Therese pull on her coat and walk away. Nor was there any relief in watching her figure disappear into the ticket office. Instead, Carol felt a stab of panic, sharp and twisting in her chest, lodged underneath the bone.
She looked at the passenger seat and the empty space Therese had left behind. In the darkness, she saw a permanent void, growing larger with every trudging heartbeat. It was like bathing in the warm sunlight, only for the sun to then set behind the horizon line, darkening the world. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, begging for the light and the warmth to return. Could she live without it? Would she ever want to?
And that’s when she saw Therese's beret, folded in the gap between the seat and the backrest. Yellow and red and black; a small fragment of starlight, like a divine offering.
Without taking a moment to think it through, she grabbed the hat and made haste, managing to reach Therese before she passed through the ticket barriers. There was a moment of hesitancy. Therese looked tired and displeased, her arms crossed, her hands absentmindedly playing with the fabric of her coat sleeves.
‘You forgot this,’ Carol explained.
‘Oh. Thanks,’ Therese murmured, her lips flinching into a false smile.
‘It’s frightfully cold, you’ll need it.’
Therese placed the hat on her head and shifted it into position. She took one step back.
Fear coursed within Carol, filling her with an abject desperation. At that moment, the idea of Therese boarding the train to New York City felt like a permanent, irreversible thing. And she couldn't bear it, no matter how irrational the fear was.
‘Might I have your telephone number?’ Carol blurted out.
She hadn’t meant to ask it. She hadn’t even realised the words were her own until Therese lifted up her head and looked at her curiously. There was a hung pause, a strange sort of embarrassment on both sides that made the station feel empty and echoing. And then, in stunned silence, Carol fetched a scrap of paper — a receipt from the tree lot — and a pen from her coat pocket.
Therese seemed reluctant. But she wasn’t the sort of woman to say no easily, and so she took the paper, scribbled her area code and number, and handed it back to Carol.
'If you ever need to call me, try to ring before 10pm. My landlady gets very irritable when the telephone rings in the late evening…' There was another awkward pause, then Therese said a quiet goodbye.
And Carol felt her heart snap, for Therese had said need to call , as though she thought Carol would never want to. As though it would be considered a last resort.
‘I’ll call you,' Carol said, her voice clear and steady, stopping Therese in her tracks once more. 'Before 10pm.'
And Therese looked back, her nose reddening in the cold, her eyes a fraction brighter now, reflecting the warm station lights. She didn’t say a word, but Carol saw the acknowledgement in her eyes. There was a barely noticeable nod of her head, then she walked towards the platform, her posture straighter than it had been before.
Moments later, Carol sat in her car and waited until the train left, taking Therese with it, leaving swirls of smoke in the sky. And then she pulled the rear-view mirror towards her face and stared into her blue-grey eyes. They were bright and clear, hardened like glass. Set with a firm decision.
Carol wanted Therese, and the want was an exhilarating but frightening thing. She wanted her more than she had ever wanted Abby or any other fleeting affections that had come and gone over the years. She wanted her fervently, enough to ignore the dangers it might cause.
Yes. Carol wanted Therese in all the ways the world told her she shouldn’t — in all the ways that put her at risk. But she didn’t care. It was her nature, her very own heart, an unchangeable and beautiful thing. To deny it would inflict the severest of harm, would shatter her into pieces. To let her go without even trying would be a disastrous mistake, wouldn’t it? And so she would try to make amends, she decided, and cautiously see where things might lead — to see if Therese shared her interest in women. And, if so, whether she might be interested in her.
On the drive home, Carol rehearsed what she might say over the telephone.
'I must apologise, Therese. I wasn't thinking straight. But we had a wonderful time in the afternoon, didn't we? Why not try it again? Perhaps we could go for dinner tomorrow evening somewhere in the city.'
She glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror again and chewed her lip. No, she thought, that wouldn’t do. After the mess she’d made of things, they had to be alone so they could speak freely.
She tried again. And again. And again. Until she settled on: 'I'm sorry. I was horrible earlier… Can you forgive me? Would you let me come see you tomorrow?’
A few more repetitions later, she arrived at her house. The gravel in the driveway crunched underneath her feet as she hurried inside. Carol committed to waiting at least half an hour before picking up the phone and ringing her. Perhaps it was better to call Abby first and talk the evening through anyway — she was often her voice of reason, ironing out her thoughts in a way Carol struggled to alone.
But before her hand could touch the receiver, she was disturbed by the click of heels against hardwood flooring.
It was Florence, her housekeeper, standing by the entryway. She was a slight woman, easy to miss in the sizable rooms of the house. Yet she was always somehow there , exactly where Carol didn’t want her. Her shrewd, watchful eyes seemed to see everything, piercing beneath the pauses of conversations, digging for buried context.
One look at her downturned lips and furrowed brow, wrinkling the lines of her face, and Carol knew that something was wrong.
‘Mr Aird phoned. He promised to call back in ten or fifteen minutes. It sounded very important, ma’am, I should wait for the ring.’
‘He telephoned while I was out?’ she asked nonchalantly, ignoring the seeds of worry that sprouted within her.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘What for?’
‘I don't know, he didn’t say much.’
Carol scanned Florence’s face, trying to detect whether she was hiding important information. Not a single muscle moved under her scrutinising gaze, and so she let it go.
‘Right. Thank you, Florence. I think you can finish for the day now.’
‘Very well. Goodnight, Mrs Aird.’
For the second time that night, Carol waited. This time she waited in the dark on the piano stool. Her fingers brushed against the ivory keys, trying to recall which Therese had pressed and in what order. She tried one — it was wrong. She tried another — wrong again. And then she smiled sadly at a thought that occurred to her suddenly. Therese was good at creating beautiful things; Carol was only good at appreciating them.
The phone trilled, loud and intrusive, like Harge himself was parading through the halls once more. The smile dropped from her face as she picked up the receiver and answered, ‘Yes?’
‘Carol.’
‘Well? What is it? You’ve already stolen my daughter away from me before Christmas, what else could you possibly want from me this evening?’
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ he muttered.
‘It’s just as well we’re getting a divorce then, isn’t it? I—’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘I refuse to stand back and watch you ruin our daughter’s life this way… Ruin my life.’
‘Ruin your life?’
‘I’d suggest you phone your lawyer soon. After the New Year, of course, I don’t want to spoil your Chr—’ He paused, then sighed. ‘It’s terrible timing, but this cannot wait any longer.’
Her throat made a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a splutter. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m petitioning for sole custody. I've already given my lawyer the word. He should be pushing paperwork through soon.'
‘We already settled the custody agreement. We’d almost finalised the papers, Harge. I thought we agreed t—’
‘And I thought Abby was a one-time thing, Carol,’ he seethed. ‘A lapse in judgement, a mental wobble. I could live with that. But if you continue to act in such a disgraceful way, you leave me with no choice. I have to think of Rindy. She's my daughter, my responsibility, and the way you choose to lead your life, the company you expose her to… It’s harmful. It’s immoral.’
Carol set her teeth so hard she feared they might break.
‘The company ? Be very careful what you’re implying, Hargess. I invited a friend over for the afternoon. A friend . That isn’t a crime, is it? Or have you suddenly decided I can’t choose my own friends?’
There was a stunted sigh on the other end, followed by the creak of a mattress as Harge sat down.
‘Don’t play dumb with me, Carol. We both know you're smarter than that.’
‘Harge, please. You’re upset — drunk, even. We can sort this out without lawyers, without disrupting Rindy’s Christmas.’
‘No. No… it’s final. If I don't act quickly, I'm afraid I won't act at all.' He sucked in a sharp breath and held it. When his voice returned, it was quieter, breaking delicately. 'Have a merry Christmas, Carol.’
The line dropped dead. And there it was again, another silence, the heavy languor that came before catastrophe. It swelled and swelled, larger this time, dampening the space in the living room like a growing wave. But there was no break. No relief. No pain. There were no white caps crashing at her feet or salt water choking air from her lungs. There was only a nothingness, cementing her to that moment in time and place like a mountainous rock. Everyone and everything else slipped away with the tide. She stayed put.
Rindy was travelling to Florida the next morning. Carol imagined her singing Christmas carols in the backseat of her grandparents’ car, her fingertips leaving grubby prints on the window. And she could see Harge there, too, handing her sandwiches and boiled sweets, laughing at her tuneful song, his hand stroking a path in her hair. The very same hair Carol brushed one hundred times every morning and one hundred times every night. They counted the brushstrokes together; they never fell short of one hundred. Who would brush her hair now?
Countless memories of Rindy — once soothing — tore her asunder. There was every chance Harge’s petition wouldn’t lead anywhere. But what if it did? What if he wasn’t bluffing? What if she lost?
No. It was too absurd. Too foreign of an idea to entertain. Carol couldn't lose her. She wouldn't .
Carol stared at her trembling hands. One clutched the telephone tightly in its fist. The other lay motionless on the piano, its fingers spread across the keys, gentle enough not to evoke a sound. Then she thought of Therese, for she was slipping between her fingers too.
She thought of Therese and her liquid green eyes turned red in the night lights. The first time Carol had looked into them, that very first day in Frankenberg’s, she thought she had seen her future. Scene after scene, she watched her life play out, blooming in prismatic colour. She imagined dancing with her on a rooftop one evening, a jazz band playing in a restaurant somewhere far below, the city lights blinking alongside the stars. She imagined a smiling kiss, the warmth of her skin blocking out the chill of the night air, a whispered confession. She imagined taking her to bed and worshipping her from head to toe, their skin flush, their breathing synchronised. She imagined holding her face in the palms of her hands and asking, 'Wherever have you been?' and then, just as Therese opened her mouth to respond, she would say, 'It doesn't matter now. You're here. Just don't leave.'
Those foolish imaginations. They would never materialise now.
Carol squeezed her eyes shut.
Had Therese made it home now?
Carol had promised to call.
What was it she was going to say?
I'm sorry. Forgive me. Forgive me for everything. I think you're magnificent. I want to see your photographs, but mostly I just want to see you — I don't care when or where. I don’t care what we do. I want to see you, because I think we might be quite happy together. Do you think so too?
She had promised to call, but it was a promise she could no longer keep. She couldn't , for Rindy. And perhaps it would be better for Therese too, to be free from the damning rip current of her life, to avoid inevitable devastation later on. Carol would only drag her under.
Carol placed the phone back on the receiver with a click, her eyes fogging with tears she hadn't the strength to shed. Perhaps happiness wasn't in the cards, she thought.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed ten times.
Carol let the nightfall smother her. She lay on her back, almost catatonic, her head planted firmly in the familiar indent of her pillow. Her eyes adjusted to the cool darkness, colouring the white ceiling of her bedroom a fuzzy blue-grey. The windows were open and a breeze whistled through, disturbing a hanging spider web that Florence had forgotten to dust. She stared at it intently, focusing on its slight movements.
As a child, Carol had been afraid of spiders and the gossamer homes they left behind. She would wake her father at any hour of the night just so she could be spared the unpleasantness of boarding in the same room as one. Now, the spider web was just a small detail, something to texture the meaningless present. There were more frightening things ahead than eight-legged creatures. Things that made her wish the night would linger a little longer, would smother her a little more.
The sun rose, of course, as it always did. That day it greeted New Jersey in muted oranges and greying yellows, dulled by the interminable rain. She peeled back the curtains and wondered whether Therese was looking at the sky too.
Then the phone rang. It was her lawyer, asking if she might stop by his office when she had a free moment. And she had almost laughed, for Harge's noble advice to wait until after Christmas had been so utterly pointless.
Fred’s voice was reliably level over the telephone; it would be reassuring to newer clients, she was sure, but Carol knew he only ever used that tone when something was wrong. It had been a very similar scenario a handful of months prior when Harge had threatened to sell their house before the divorce was through. What she wouldn’t give to be thrown into a situation as inconsequential as that, rather than the one she now found herself in.
Still, on the drive into the city, she clung to hope — a slither of it, like the small slice of sun peeking behind the thick rain clouds. There had to be a way she could fight this. There had to be a way she could win, even though she knew the odds were always in the man’s favour in these cases. There had to be a way, hadn’t there? Because she couldn’t lose her. She wouldn't.
The hope clouded over the instant she arrived at Fred’s office and saw his stone-like countenance, hardened like armour. He had never quite gotten the hang of controlling his facial expressions.
‘I’m afraid it’s not good news,’ he said as he shut his office door.
‘No, I know it isn’t. It never is. But nothing is beyond fixing, is it?'
Fred couldn't even muster a polite smile. Instead, he gestured for her to sit down. In a moment of irritability, she considered retorting with a snide comment, but then thought the better of it. It was his sombre face, she thought, that worried her into obedience. She took a seat and watched as he shuffled some papers on his desk. He glanced at her briefly, unable to hold eye contact for more than a few seconds.
'So, I'm sure Hargess has already communicated his intentions with you.'
‘Unfortunately,’ she said.
'Well, he's built up quite a case here, Carol. The allegations are far from good, but—'
She held up a hand and frowned.
'What is his case? What on earth has he got against me?'
‘We needn’t go into those details right this very moment—’
‘Oh, I’d like to.’
There was a long pause.
'His lawyers claim to have records of your, uh, affair with a Miss Abby Gerhard.' Fred held a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. 'Letters, photographs, and one recording.'
‘What?’ Carol asked, laughing disbelievingly. When Fred maintained his unblinking gaze, she realised he was being serious. ‘I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘At this stage, Carol, it’s much easier for us both if you’re honest.’
She covered her mouth with one hand and exhaled. There was no point in explaining the affair when Fred clearly knew enough already. So instead she asked, ‘How did they get these records?’
'I believe your housekeeper obtained them years ago with the help of a private detective friend. She passed them over to Hargess some time ago in exchange for a sum of money.'
Florence. Carol had always despised the woman and her unwavering loyalty to Harge. Though, she supposed the payment was proof that she wasn’t completely loyal to him either.
‘You weren’t aware of this?’ Fred asked.
‘No,’ she snapped, ‘of course I wasn’t aware of it.’
He cleared his throat again.
'By his own admission, he kept the material to protect you. Now that… Well, I'm afraid they're raising concerns of a pattern of behaviour. Allegedly, you recently began an affair with another woman.'
'Affair?' she scoffed. She rose from her seat and paced the room, hoping the movement might diffuse some of the anger bubbling inside.
'Was it an affair?'
'No!' she refuted, halting her footsteps. 'I simply invited a friend over for an afternoon.'
‘Harge claims there was more going on.’
‘I see. And does he have proof of that too? More letters? More recordings? He doesn’t, does he? Because nothing happened.’
Fred fell silent, then said in an even tone, 'Carol, whether that's the case or not, these are serious allegations. He’s petitioning the judge to consider a morality clause. And, as such, I'm afraid we’ll have to tread carefully until the hearing. I suspect it won’t happen until March — April, maybe.’
‘Tread carefully?’ she asked, hoping Fred wouldn't confirm her worst fear.
He spoke calmly and succinctly, as if he had rehearsed it multiple times before Carol had arrived. ‘You won’t be able to see Rindy unless Harge condones a supervised visit.’
‘No, Fred,' she said shakily. 'Don't be ridiculous. No… That can't be right. I'm her mother, for god's sake. I'm her mother. She needs me. Surely I can see her somewhere. At school perhaps? In this office?'
The room grew very quiet. The walls seemed to move inwards, squeezing all the air out. Fred shook his head.
‘You risk inviting further scrutiny if you force contact.’
In the hazy minutes that followed, Carol pleaded with him loudly and incoherently, with animated hands and a shaking voice, as though he had any say in the matter. Fred was as powerless as she, yet he was the only other person in the room, the only other person she could direct her anger towards. He was silent throughout her ravings.
'That's not all, Carol,' he said gently, once she finally grew quiet. 'I'm sorry to say you'll have to reduce — or better still cut entirely — contact with Miss Gerhard and the girl too, at least until after the hearing.'
There was a twisting sensation in her stomach, rising to her throat like nausea.
'Can you do that?' Fred asked, ducking his head to catch her eyes. 'It won't be a problem, will it?'
'No,' she said quietly, 'it won't be a problem.'
'And one last thing,' he added. His face contorted with nervousness as he searched for a business card in one of his desk drawers. 'I think you ought to call this fellow as soon as you can. He's the best in the city when it comes to — well — these situations. It would help our case a great deal if you would call him.'
The card was white with blue type: a name, a telephone number, and an address. Upon leaving the office, Carol slipped it into her coat pocket and pulled out the receipt from the tree lot, her only tether to Therese. She held it for a moment. A delicate thing — her own heart in her hand, she thought. And then she crumpled it in her fist and watched, forlorn, as it slipped from her fingertips and onto the watery street.