Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [47]
“That’s it.”
“Where’d you get it?” He looked confused and, for the first time, mistrustful. “We didn’t send many of those out.”
“Oh, I…” I stumbled with my words, feeling guilty that I had read Della’s letters, that I had been prying in someone’s life.
“Did you get it from your father?”
“No,” I answered immediately. And then the next logical question occurred to me. “Does he have that picture?”
Matt sat in a wood chair to my right, but then he pushed it back a little as if afraid to come too close. “I don’t know. If Caroline sent him an announcement, she didn’t tell me, but then Caroline never really talked about her family. When we first met, she told me that her mom had died when she was about to start high school, and that she didn’t get along with her father. She only told me about you after she started making that last quilt, the one she wanted to give you, but I know that she’s had some contact with your father since we’ve been married.”
“She told you that?”
Matt shook his head. “When we first started dating, she said she hated Will. She always called him by his first name. Said she never talked to him, that she didn’t want to ever see him, didn’t want to invite him to the wedding. She seemed fine about it, and I never pushed her. But one day a few years ago, I came home from work and heard her talking on the phone. Her voice was strange, really tight and controlled. I don’t know how else to describe it. She was talking very formal, saying she was fine and yes, she was happy. She got off quick when she saw that I was in the house, and when I asked her who she was talking to, she said no one. She left the house then and went for a walk.”
Matt stopped for a moment, removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I heard the wind chime trill from the front door again, making me aware of how silent everything else was.
“What happened then?” I said. I couldn’t bear the quiet.
Matt slid his glasses back onto his face. “I checked the caller ID when she left. The name listed there was W. Sutter, and it said, ‘cellular call.’ I confronted Caroline when she came back. I was probably too harsh on her, but I felt like she’d been holding something back from me. Finally, she told me that her father kept tabs on her.”
“Were those the words she used?” I asked. “Kept tabs?” How odd that sounded, not at all like a normal father-daughter relationship, but more like a warden and a paroled prisoner.
“Yeah. She told me that she’d tried to stay away from him because that’s what he told her he wanted. But he always found her, so she’d given up hiding from him. She talked to him every once in a while to make him go away again.”
I sat back and rested my head against the sofa.
“I take it you didn’t know any of this?” Matt said.
“No.” I raised my head. “I haven’t seen Caroline since I was little, and my dad and I don’t really talk about her. Do you know why she didn’t want to see him or why she thought he didn’t want to see her?”
“She refused to tell me about it. I finally accepted that it was the one part of her life she wouldn’t let me into.”
“That must have been hard.”
“I hated it.” Matt shifted his gaze away momentarily. “I hated the thought that we would have any secrets from each other. And it scared me, because she always acted so strange whenever the subject came up. But I had to get over it. I thought it was for the best. Now I wish I’d made her tell me about your dad. She might still be here.”
“Why do you think my dad had anything to do with Caroline taking off? Isn’t it possible that she has other problems or issues that might have made her leave?”
A look of annoyance took over Matt’s face. “Like what?”
Should I mention Crestwood Home? Maybe my sister hadn’t told Matt about that either. Maybe she wouldn’t want him to know. For all I knew, it could have been Caroline who’d caused my mother’s death.
“Depression, maybe?” I said.
“If you haven’t seen or talked to Caroline since you were seven, what are you getting at?”
I was silent, then I felt my face grow pink. I didn’t want to be