Page 55 of One Cry Too Loud
“And why was she on the road?” Caroline asked. It was very clear now that she was crying. “Why wasn’t she at home, in bed, where she was supposed to be?”
“Just because I called my sister to come pick me up that night doesn’t mean I caused the crash,” Holly said, blinking back tears of her own.
“You put her in a position to have that crash,” Caroline said. “You killed her. You took her away from your father and I, and then what did you do? You became a criminal and took yourself away as well.”
“I made mistakes,” Holly said. “Because I was hurting. I did stupid things. I trusted stupid people.” She looked over at Joe.“But I needed you and Father. I needed my parents, and I didn’t have them.”
“You destroy my entire family, and you try to place the blame on me for it?” Caroline scoffed. “That’s quite rich.”
“I’m not blaming you,” Holly said. “You’re the one who's blaming me. You always have. You want to know why I lost my way? It’s because I never had anyone to count on. I had a mother who called me a murderer and a father who was too weak to stand up to her about it. There’s little wonder that I went outside of our home looking for some sort of comfort, for some sort of validation.”
“Holiday, I play many instruments, but none of them are the violin. Stop fishing for sympathy,” Caroline said.
“I’d know better than to think I was going to get sympathy from the likes of you,” Holly said.
“And I’d know better than to ever think that you’d deserve it,” Caroline said. “You stole my family away from me, Holiday. You took my future away. So, imagine my surprise when I realized that you hadn’t stopped with just one generation.”
“Cindy,” Holly said in a whisper.
“Duncan began coming to visit after your father died,” Caroline said. “We grew close, and then we grew very close.” She turned as she reached the shed, wiping tears off of her cheeks. “I even asked him about you one day. I wanted to know if he was still in touch with you. You two had been so close when he served as your mentor. He told me he hadn’t. He said that you stopped responding to his letters after a few months in jail, but you’d said something in one of your initial responses, something about morning sickness.” The old woman shook her head as her mouth turned down in disgust. “Imagine my disappointment when I realized what you had done.”
“I didn’t do anything to you,” Holly said.
“I already told you. You stole my family,” Caroline said. “Or, at least,I thought you had. When Duncan said that, I asked him to look further into things. It took a very small amount of time for him to come across the knowledge that you’d had a baby girl in jail, and only a little longer to find out where that girl was.” She scoffed. “Really, Holiday? Witches? And worse than that. Americans.”
“I put her where I thought she’d have a good life,” Holly said.
“You stole her from her family,” Caroline said. “Just like with Edie, you took her from me. Worse than Edie, though, Cindy is alive. And I never knew about her. You lied to me about my own grandchild. You robbed me of my opportunity to have a second chance and things. You took that from me, and now you speak to me as though you hold some sort of moral superiority. It’s insane, but then again, you never were quite stable.”
“That’s why you did this?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Because you want to have Cindy for yourself?”
“Partly,” she said. “Family is everything, Mr. Harrington. Certainly, as a father-as agrandfather, you know that.”
“What I know is that there’s nothing in the world that would convince me to put my granddaughter in danger,” I said. “And I would never, ever put her in the same room as a bomb.”
“Well, that’s because you haven’t been through what I have,” Caroline said. “And I won’t have you judging me.” She shook her head. “I buried my daughter.”
“I’ve buried people too,” I told the woman. “People I loved way more than myself. It doesn’t give you the right to turn into a monster. It doesn’t give you the right to give up on the people who are still in your life.” I took a step toward the older woman. “I’m not perfect. When my wife died, I let the grief I was feeling hurt the relationship I had with my daughter. I almost lost her forever, and I wouldn’t have swallowed my pride and tried mybest to see things her way, I probably wouldn’t have her in my life now, her or my granddaughter.”
I saw a flash of something like hurt move through Caroline’s eyes. It was quickly replaced with more cold anger.
“Then you’re in no position to judge her, are you, Mr. Harrington?” Duncan asked, rounding the group of us and settling in front of me. “And you’re certainly in no position to call my wife a monster. All she wants is what you have. All she wants is her family.”
“You can’t steal family,” I said. “And you certainly can’t threaten the people in it into loving you. You need to bring us to that little girl. You need to let her go and you need to turn yourselves in for what you’ve done. That’s the only way you’re ever going to even begin to try to earn your daughter’s respect back. And that’s the only way to ever even think about having a family again.”
“Her respect?” Caroline balked. “What about my respect? I’m tired of you people looking at me like I’m the villain here. Holiday is the person who lied to me! She’s the person who stole years away from me, years I could have had with my grandchild.” Caroline looked past me and at her daughter. “If you didn’t want her, if you didn’t think you could raise her, you could have given her to your father and I.”
“For what?” Holly asked. “So that you could treat her the way you treated me? Or worse? So that you could treat her the way you treated Edie and turn her against me.”
“I would have told her the truth,” Caroline said. “If the truth is enough to turn your daughter against you, then that’s a problem I can’t solve for you.”
“It doesn’t look like you’re doing much solving here,” Kat said, and I could tell from the tone in her voice that she was tired of holding her tongue. “Bring us to the girl right now. I won’t ask again.”
“Strangely enough, this shed was very special to Edie,” Caroline said. “She was a true genius with a paint brush, and when she came of age, we converted this space into an art studio for her. Some of her paintings still hang in here. I come and look at them daily, so that I remember what beauty is, and so that I can think about what I’ve lost.”
“Caroline, I’m not going to-”
“You want to see Cindy?” Caroline cut into Kat’s words as she twisted the handle and pushed the door open. “Be my guest.”
