The Harbour...Chapter 30: On parenting
Carolyn stood in the shower washing Marco’s scent off her skin. Her heart felt like it was breaking.
How do you choose between the man you love, and your child?
There was no choice.
She cried, her tears mixing with the hot water spilling from the faucet.
She pulled on an old T-shirt and jeans, and walking barefoot down the corridor, she rejoined her father and brother in the living room.
It was almost midnight.
“Any calls?” She asked hopefully, knowing even as they shook their heads in unison, that she would have heard the extension in her bedroom ring if Brandon had phoned back.
She walked over to the tall windows that looked onto the pool deck, and peered out into the semi-darkness, the area dimly lit by the glow of the nearby security lights dotting the lawn and the back wall of the compound.
“Have you told Marco what’s going on?” Her father asked.
She turned to face him where he stood at the piano. Marc was perched on the arm of one of the two over-sized sofas.
“How do I tell him I can’t marry him?” She said, her voice flat. It was more of a statement than a question.
Marc turned his head to look directly at his sister. Their father frowned.
“What do you mean, you can’t marry him?” He asked, the furrow in his brow deepening.
“Dad, my baby ran away from home because I’m getting married again.”
Her eyes flooded, and she marvelled that they could still produce tears after all the crying she had done over the past few hours.
Michael exchanged a glance with Marc and then looked back at his daughter.
“Carolyn, I think you’re oversimplifying,” he said steadily. “From everything you’ve told us, Joel’s upset because of all the changes going on, and finally realizing that you and Kyle are not getting back together. He’s probably also upset about his fight with Maya.”
Carolyn turned to look back onto the deck. She stared at the still water. It looked purple in the moonlight.
“Oh Daddy,” she sighed, her back to the two men.
“If my getting married again is going to cause my baby grief...then...then...I can’t. I just can’t!” She said, suddenly turning to face him, her voice shrill and her face flushed.
Marc stood and moved toward his sister. “Skipper,” he said, touching her arm, and calling her by the pet name they had for each other.
She shook her head as though to clear it and turned to face him.
Her father joined them. He gently rested his hands on her shoulders.
He had gotten shorter than she was.
“Have I been a good father?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Marc said, almost at the same time.
Michael smiled. She noticed that the creases around his eyes had deepened. “When did that happen,” she thought to herself.
He released her shoulders and glanced at Marc and then back at Carolyn: his two oldest children, born just ten months apart.
“Thank you,” he said. “Now let me tell you something. And I want you...both of you...to listen to me carefully.”
His voice cracked.
“I am a good father, and hopefully a good person, because my heart and spirit are at peace. They are at peace because I have the support and unconditional love of a good woman, which frees me to give to others.”
Carolyn heard Marc inhale sharply, as she too caught her breath.
“Oh Daddy!” She threw her arms around him.
He embraced her and then reached out to draw Marc to them. Carolyn cried soundlessly. She wasn’t sure if her brother and father were crying too, but Marc’s breathing was slightly ragged, and she thought perhaps he was.
After a few minutes they pulled slowly apart. She smiled tearily at the two of them, the first men in her life.
Michael gently brushed a drying tear from her cheek.
“Now, bella...another thing...Joel is not a baby. He’s fourteen years old, and in a few more years he will be gone off to start a life of his own. Of course you must love him, and protect him from physical and emotional harm, but you must not...” he searched for the word.
“...You must not smother him. You understand?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Good!” He said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “You must tell Marco what is going on,” he instructed.
“There is enough time before you get married for Joel to adjust, and if you do have to take a bit more time, that’s okay too...but none of this, ‘I’m not going to get married at all’ talk. You understand?” He asked again.
She nodded giving her father a crooked smile.
The phone rang. Marc was closest to the coffee table where the handset sat, and he picked it up and passed it to Carolyn.
She saw Brandon’s name and number one the display, and pressed the talk button even as she was putting the phone to her ear.
“Hello.”
“Carolyn. We talked. He felt bad that you overheard his ‘conversation’ with Maya. He panicked. He is coming home. He says he knows you won’t sleep if he’s not in the house.”
She heard the smile in her former father-in-law’s voice, and she smiled too. A wave of relief flooded through her entire body, and her limbs suddenly felt heavy. She dropped onto the sofa.
“He’s coming home,” she mouthed to Michael and Marc. Her father took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. She saw him whisper something to himself.
Marc looked up at the ceiling and then back at her, his eyes glassy.
Twenty minutes later she was standing in the carport alone, when Brandon’s car crunched up the driveway and parked. Her father and brother thinking it best if she and Joel had time alone when he got home, had left.
She stood now looking at her son walking hesitantly toward her, his grandfather a few paces behind.
Other than the slightest stoop in his shoulders, in this lighting Brandon looked almost as young as he did when Carolyn had met him over twenty five years ago.
Joel stopped about two feet from where she stood, looking at her tentatively.
