A Christmas Caroline by Camilla Isley
Eighteen
Firsts and Lasts
Will is so excited about the special boys’ trip that the instant breakfast is cleared, he rushes to his room to get dressed on his own and then starts pestering his father until Sam agrees to leave.
They change into their coats and Sam picks Will up to come to say goodbye.
“We’ll go for a smoothie or something,” Sam says, kissing my forehead. “The parade won’t start for another two hours.”
“Have fun,” I say, ruffling Will’s hair. “Both of you.” I kiss my boy’s soft cheeks once, twice, and again, and again, until he starts giggling. Then I lift my chin and look at Sam.
The phrase “I love you so much” pops into my head, but for whatever reason, I don’t say it and just kiss Sam on the lips. And then they’re gone.
The moment the door closes, Jo hops down the stairs in her ballet gear, white tights, blush body, and hair up in a chignon. Only the boots on her feet are at odds with this ballerina persona, but she’ll exchange them for pointes at the dance studio.
This Saturday it is Fan’s turn to drive the girls to practice. Jo goes to the same ballet academy as Harper and Nora. Visibly in a hurry, my daughter puts her coat on and slings her gym bag over one shoulder just as the baby monitor comes to life with Bram’s screaming as he awakens.
In the split second I glance up the stairs toward my crying child, my other kid mumbles, “Mom, I’ll go to Auntie Fan on my own, or we’ll be late, see you later.”
Jo exits, and the front door shuts before I’ve had a chance to say goodbye. I want to run after her, but Bram’s crying is growing more frantic, so I give up on the goodbyes and rush to soothe the baby.
In the nursery, I pick Bram up and hug him close to my chest. “It’s okay, mothersucker, Mommy is here.”
I change his diaper and we sit on the floor to play with rattles and other grabbing toys, balls, his activity gyms, and board books. Once we run out of toys, I play peekaboo with him, and after the umpteenth repeat, Bram stretches his arms to be picked up. I lift him and sit with him on the nursing chair.
“Are you hungry?”
Bram answers with a gurgle and lifts his tiny hands to grab my chin, laughing.
Then he looks directly at me and, clear as day, he says, “Mommy.”
My heart bursts in my chest as a shock wave of warmth spreads from my core up to the tips of my hair and down to the points of my toes.
“Did you just call me mommy, you clever, clever boy?” I ask, while tears well in my eyes.
“Mommy,” Bram repeats, proud.
I hug him closer to my chest.
Bram burrows in my shirt in response, searching for my nipple. I give him a quick feed, and he soon falls asleep as we rock in the chair.
I stand up and drop him in his crib. I’m watching him sleeping peacefully when a loud bang resounds from outside. Then another, and another. The sound of a heavy ball striking metal.
Rage surges in my chest at whoever is being so inconsiderate of my sleeping baby. But dread soon replaces the fury as I remember the other time I heard that sound. It was the last time I saw Melodie.
Is she back?
Bang!
Why?
Bang!
What does she want?
Bang!
I sit on the rocking chair and rock back and forward, nibbling at my cuticles and trying to ignore the noise. But it—bang, bang, bang—drills a hole in my skull worse than the Chinese drop torture.
When I can’t stand it any longer, I grab Bram’s monitor and head down the stairs, banging the front door open without even putting on a coat.
I run to the end of the patio and yell, “What do you want?” over the hedge separating my house from that of the neighbors’.
Melodie, her luminescent white-blonde hair lifted in matching pigtails, stops the basketball in her hands and looks up.
“Ah, Caroline, nice to see you, too. And to answer your question, I’ve come to take you home.”
“I am home,” I say.
Melodie snickers. “What? This dump in a New Jersey suburb? This isn’t your home. You’re Caroline Wilkins, you live in a swanky penthouse in Manhattan. Or have you forgotten who you are?”
“I’m not that person anymore.”
Melodie smiles a cryptical smile. “Good, good,” she says, bouncing the ball on the concrete. “Then my job here is done. Time to go.”
Panic swells in my chest. “I can’t go with you, I won’t.”
“Not how it works, Caroline, I told you this was only temporary.”
“But then you disappeared, you left me here for weeks, you made me believe this was—”
“Forever?” she interrupts me, shrugging. “Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”
I stomp my foot on the patio while half-freezing to death in my light sweatshirt and yoga pants. “I won’t go,” I repeat as I think of Will laughing as I kissed him on his puffy cheeks, or that I didn’t tell Sam “I love you” one last time, or even said goodbye to Jo, and Bram, I won’t leave him alone and helpless in his crib to wake up without a mother.
I’m about to run back into the house and shut myself in, when from across the yard, Melodie yells, “Caroline, catch!” and throws the basketball at me.
By reflex, my hands shoot up to grab the ball, letting go of the white baby monitor I’m holding. The last thing I see is the plastic rectangle falling on the patio’s boards and splintering into a million pieces. Then the world spins and disappears in a white and gray vortex.