Page 1 of Keeping Caroline
Prologue
The Phoenix
Pushing a chair against the door and wedging its back under the doorknob, I let out a shaky breath and desperately reached for my phone. I was not sure why my instincts led my fingers to pull up the contact info for someone I had only spoken to a few times. Although he had been working with my brother for a long time, I had only met him when he came into the store, but he was someone I knew could help me—or at least I hoped he could.
Swallowing back my hesitation, I clicked on his contact information and quickly typed a message. “Hey, it’s Caroline. I think I need your help.”
Chapter 1
The Phoenix
Two Weeks Earlier
It’s startling how fast life can change—how quickly you can go from whole to a million broken fragments, tumbling along the ground and breaking into dust. That’s what happened to me three years ago when my husband, Daniel, died in a car crash, leaving me and Evie, our then five-year-old daughter, to navigate life without him. After three years of being without him, I was not sure if I would ever be able to move on.
Dawn cast a gentle glow across the small cottage kitchen as I stared out the window, but even as sunshine painted my face with its joyous rays, he was all I could think about. I did not believe in an afterlife, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was watching over us—if he knew how hard his little girl fought against cancer—how hard she had been fighting. Evie had been in remission for five months, but I wondered every day if the cancer was back and hiding from us. It haunted me like a bomb with a retractable fuse, except I wasn’t the one holding the lighter. I couldn’t even find the fuse.
Our new home in the mountains of Alabama was so different from my downtown New Orleans apartment, but I loved it. It was the perfect place to raise my little girl. It was far away from the hustle and bustle of a city that moved too fast, a city that was plagued with too much crime and natural disasters that sent us running multiple times per year like birds flying away from the seasons that did not suit them.
I moved quietly, trying not to wake Evelyn, acutely aware of the peaceful stillness that enveloped the house without the incessant horns of taxis outside our windows. I cracked eggs into the sizzling pan, the aroma of butter and bacon filling the air, making my stomach grumble. It definitely beat the hospital food that had all started to taste like cardboard after a while. The steady rhythm of my morning routine provided a comforting anchor in a world that had once been untethered by grief.
“Mommy?” A sleepy voice drifted in from the hallway, pulling a smile onto my lips. After so many months of not having my little girl at home, I cherished every moment we had together. Just thinking about how I could have lost her forever threatened to send me into a downward spiral that I would never crawl out of, so I pushed the what-ifs away, instead focusing on making every moment with her as special as I could. Cancer was a relentless foe, but Evie was a warrior.
“Good morning, nugget.” Turning off the burner, I watched as Evelyn appeared around the corner, the stuffed llama Ethan had brought her the last time she was in the Intensive Care Unit clutched tightly in her arms. She padded over to the table, dragging her feet in fluffy bunny slippers.
As she sat down, I measured out her medications, a morning routine we had perfected over countless months.
“It tastes yucky, Mommy.” Watching me with her usual scowl, Evie shook her head. She responded the same way every day, but we both knew she would take her medicine in the end. She had no other choice if she was going to stay in remission.
I smiled, setting the bottle back on the counter. “Like the nastiest goblin brew, but it’s making you strong, my little warrior.”
Her blue eyes searched mine, seeking assurance in a world upended too soon. “Strong like you?”
The question took me by surprise, considering I was never more than two seconds from unraveling. “Stronger.”
Once she had bravely downed her medicine and taken a big gulp of her vanilla almond milk to wash it down, I returned to the stove to finish making breakfast. My heart swelled with love as I prepared her food on her favorite plate, ensuring every detail was perfect—the strawberries sliced in bite-sized pieces so she would not choke, and her toast buttered just how she liked it.
“Here you go, baby. Eat up. We’ve got a big day ahead.”
As she nibbled, I fitted her hairpiece on her still nearly bald head, pulling the sides back in a braid and finishing it in a big pink bow.
“Is Uncle Ethan coming for breakfast too?” she asked, a milk mustache coloring the top of her lip.
Right on cue, the sound of a familiar engine rumbled outside, and moments later my brother sauntered in, his black hair disheveled and tattoos peeking out from his rolled-up sleeves. With late spring setting in, it was getting too hot for his typical black hoodie, not that he didn’t still wear it the majority of the time.
“Morning, Cara. Morning, munchkin.” A goofy grin spread across his lips as he crossed the room and lifted Evie from her chair, her squeal nearly popping my eardrums. She thrashed, but it only made him tickle her harder, her wig barely holding on.
“Put me down, silly goose!”
Chuckling, he plopped her back into her chair and sat beside her.
“Saved you some eggs and bacon,” I said, sliding a plate across the table, followed by a mug of black coffee. It felt like a ritual, this shared meal we had most mornings, a silent nod to the new life we were steadily building in Alabama, far from the turmoil that once consumed us. “Is Scarlett at the store?”
Already chewing his food, he nodded, the love for his new wife written all over his face. There was still so much I didn’t know about how they’d met, but what I did know was that their love was one I hoped for myself one day. It was a force that could build and shatter worlds—just like I’d had with Daniel, turning my whole world upside down.
Thoughts of the man I still mourned flooded my mind again, tearing at the freshly stitched wound that still bled, so I did my best to push it back. Later. Later, when I was alone, I would let myself feel.
“Are you excited for school?” Ethan asked, his bright blue eyes settling on Evie, whose fingers were so sticky that I instinctively clenched my teeth, hoping she wouldn’t get any in her new wig.