He raised his hand and it would’ve connected with her face if she hadn’t ducked. “As usual you don’t know nothin’.”
“Put her in a nursing home where she can get the care she needs.”
“She refuses.”
The way her father looked away guiltily…something else was going on. “Or are you refusing?”
His angry gaze snapped back to her. “I can’t afford long term care for her, okay? Unless I abandon her as a ward of the state and then they make all the medical decisions for her. I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for my entire life. And you know what? I’d gladly give it all up, but she won’t let me. She says she’ll die in her home with dignity, not among strangers who only want to prolong her life to eke more money outta me.”
Tears rolled down her face. Once again Thomas had gotten everything wrong. Their dad wasn’t the villain; he was a victim of his wife’s stubbornness and circumstance too. “What can I do?”
She noticed his eyes were moist. His voice was so scratchy when he finally spoke. “Be here with her during the day until I get home from work. I can’t quit and lose my job and pension this close to retirement. But my boss said I can knock off two hours early until…”
She dies.
Just thinking about that was a knife in her heart. Carolyn swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “I’ll be here.”
“Thank you.” Then his gaze tapered to a fine point. “I need your word that you won’t tell McKay about this.”
“Dad—”
“Your word, Carolyn. I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell you kids nothin’ about this. And McKay knowin’ that I don’t have the money to give my wife…” His voice broke. “Please. I need some dignity in this too.”
None of this sat well with her, but she didn’t have a choice. Since Marshall had taken a job in Cheyenne and Stuart moved down south to build houses, she had no help—emotionally or physically—from any of her siblings. Taking a chance her father might rebuff her, she hugged him. “Okay. I’ll keep this between us.”
He hugged her for a long time.
Carolyn stepped back and wiped her eyes. “I’ll be here in the morning.”
So her every-other-day visits became daily visits. She’d go home late in the afternoon, exhausted, wishing she could tell Carson why she was spending more time at the home she couldn’t wait to leave, rather than the home she’d made with him.
Lying to her husband—a lie of omission was still a lie in her guilty mind—ripped her up inside.
She thought about seeking solace and advice from Father Dorian, who visited her ailing mother every other week. But Carolyn suspected he’d remind her that she’d willingly taken on the burden of her mother’s care and her family’s secret—and it was her Christian duty to honor her father and mother.
At first, Carson didn’t say too much about her absence because fall was a busy time. He’d crash right after supper and be up at the crack of dawn the next day. She’d come up with reasons why she had to be at her mother’s; canning and preserving food took up a lot of time, as did the extra sewing projects she’d taken in for Maxine. Their trailer was too small for sewing equipment so the work had to be done where her equipment was—at her mother’s.
Eventually she didn’t have to create excuses because Carson stopped asking.
Christmas rolled around and they exchanged gifts, then he went to his father’s house and she to her parents’ house because their family situations remained at an impasse.
During the lull before calving began, Carson started hitting the bars three or four nights a week. He’d be gone in the late afternoon when she returned and he’d stay gone until after midnight. Sometimes he’d come home on his own. Sometimes Cal dragged him home, which always meant Carson had been fighting.
Even the passion between them had cooled. The only time Carson reached for her was in the middle of the night. She welcomed his hands and his body on hers, but after the time she’d tried to seduce him and he’d passed out on her, she’d been too gun shy to try again.
This wasn’t how she’d envisioned their life together.
She felt them drifting farther apart. She’d stopped buying her groceries in Sundance because she’d run into ladies from church circle, or the women she’d met from the bars and the dancehall who knew her husband was out drinking and fighting, while she, the dutiful young wife, stayed home. Their looks of pity shamed her.
When calving started, Carson all but moved in with Cal. Yes, she knew it was the busiest and most critical time of the year on the ranch, but she had no idea how long calving season lasted.
So she let him be. She cooked for him and cleaned for him and tucked him in on the couch those nights he was too drunk or too tired to stumble to the bedroom.
But the last straw was the night she’d gotten a phone call from the Weston County Sheriff informing her that Carson was in jail on a drunk and disorderly charge. He’d called Cal first to bail him out but his brother had refused.
That’s when she’d had enough. They’d either fix this or end it.
They made the ride from the jail home in utter silence. Carson had sobered up in the eight hours he’d spent behind bars.
As soon as they were inside the trailer she confronted him. “Jail, Carson? Really?”
“I didn’t start the fight.”
“No, but you didn’t walk away from it, either.”
“What’s your point?” he said coolly.
“I’m sick of it. You’re out all the time, drinking and fighting. When will you stop with the fighting?”
“When guys stop bein’ assholes.”
“So never.”
He glared at her. Then he said, “What do you care? You’re over at your folks’ place every damn day. I’m surprised you even noticed I wasn’t here.”
“I’m gone during the day but I’m here at night. Every night. But you head out to the bar before I get back.” She tried to contain her anger. “Do you do that on purpose? Because it’s such a chore to hang out with me and you’d rather be with your bar buddies than your wife? If you wanted to lead the partying and fighting lifestyle, why did you marry me?”
Another hard glare.
“What do you think people are saying, with you being out at the bars alone?”
“I don’t give a damn what other people think.”