Seeking Carolina Read Online Free Page A

them around a little while longer. Her slip was already fading. As if Charlie would ever bring his kids to Cape May, of all places. As if anything about that teenage-summer still mattered to him at all.
    “We always pay you,” Julietta was saying. “Don’t be stupid.”
    “This is different. Don’t start with me, Jules.”
    “I’m not starting anything. You are.”
    “What are you, twelve?”
    Johanna stiffened, but Julietta laughed and shoved him. “Then come to Emma’s for dinner tonight. We’re all going to be there. If you won’t take money, we can pay you in food. My sister’s as good a cook as Gram was.”
    “Thanks but—”
    “Charlie, I can’t take this much rejection in one day. You know I’m special that way. I’ll square it with Emma. Come. It’s the least we can do for all you’ve done the last few days.”
    Charlie’s shoulders slumped but he smiled fondly. “All right. Thanks.”
    “Great. Be there at seven. Bring wine.”
    Johanna stirred and stirred. The action soothed. She poured out cups while the others chattered. Will and Caleb were trying to convince their dad to take them snowboarding. Charlie said Charlotte could do it. He’d already promised Tony and Millie he’d make a snowman with them. Julietta told the story about the time Emma went up the mountain on some school trip, and how she nearly killed herself and five others by falling in the middle of the slope. Their words were far away and apart, as if she were a ghost listening from the shadows in an altered world. Johanna tried to shake herself out of it. She hadn’t needed this slip from reality in a long time. Of course, being in Bitterly would trigger it.
    The scraping of chairs on the hardwood restored her hearing, her sense of place. Johanna found herself helping Charlie into his big jacket.
    “Sorry about the floor.” He pointed to the puddles around his sons’ discarded boots. “I’ll have the boys—”
    “Don’t worry about it. Julietta will do it.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’ll make her more hot chocolate.”
    He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling in deep creases there for as long as she could remember. Back then, they smoothed as quickly as they formed. Today, they did not, and Johanna liked it quite a lot.
    “I’ll see you later then?”
    “Yup. Later.”
    “Come on, boys.” Charlie was out the door before his sons could pull on their boots. Johanna bit down on her lips suddenly buzzing with words like—Stop. Stay. Do you ever think of me? Of that summer? It was so long ago, and they had been so young. In those sweaty months before Labor Day, Charlie McCallan made her happier than she ever thought she could be. And then it was over, just like that.
    She dug into the front pocket of her backpack, pulled out two crumpled twenties and stuffed them into the boys’ hands.
    “Don’t tell your dad.”
    “Wow,” Caleb said. “Thanks, Johanna.”
    “Thanks,” Will murmured, shoving the bill into his pocket.
    Closing the door behind them, Johanna leaned against it. Dinner. With Charlie. She glared at her sister.
    “What?”
    “You know what. Heavens to Murgatroyd, Jules. I’m going to murdilate you.”
    “You’re welcome.” Julietta handed her the mug of hot-chocolate dregs, kissed her cheek. “And you can clean up the floor.”
    * * * *
    Johanna lay alone, in the dark, supine on her grandmother’s bed and a hand on her overburdened belly. Emma’s famous macaroni and meatballs sat heavily alongside the pastries Charlie brought—recompense for having to bring his eight-year-old twins, Millie and Tony, to dinner when his older kids stayed late at the slopes. Johanna’s middle nephew, Henry, had been thrilled. He and Tony were classmates, and though Millie was as well, she mostly ignored the boys to instead braid and unbraid the silky strands of Nina’s golden hair. Nina happily took her own turns at Millie’s thick, red curls and Johanna had to wonder if her sister’s childlessness