Summer Secrets - Barbara Freethy [108]
Kate opened the door and let Ashley in. "Thanks for coming so fast."
"What is it? What's wrong now?"
"Caroline is ..." How could she say it?
"She's what? Is she sick?"
"Not exactly." Kate closed the door behind Ashley.
"Why are you being so mysterious?"
"Because she's trying to find a nice way to say it, but there isn't any," Caroline said from the doorway of the bedroom.
Caroline looked like she was feeling better. She'd changed into a pair of leggings and a T-shirt, and there was color in her cheeks now. But as she sat down on the sofa, Kate could see how thin her baby sister had gotten. Too much booze, not enough food, another sign she'd missed.
"Does someone want to tell me what's going on?" Ashley asked..
"I'll say it. I think I can do it." Caroline took a deep breath. "I'm an alcoholic, Ashley. There I did it again. It's getting easier."
"You -- you're what?" Ashley stumbled over her words.
"An alcoholic. A drunk. A boozer. Whatever you want to call it."
Ashley stared at Caroline for a long moment. "I don't understand."
"Do you want me to spell it out for you?"
"I understand what you're saying; I just don't understand how it happened." Ashley looked at Kate. "Did you know?"
"Not until an hour ago. Although, maybe I did notice but I just didn't want to see it."
"Well." Ashley sat down in the chair across from Caroline. "What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing. Kate was the one to call you, not me."
"We need to support one another," Kate said, sitting down on the couch. "We're still a family." A family that had given Caroline that first drink, Kate realized. How old had her sister been then? Fourteen, fifteen? "It was that champagne we opened the first day we set sail," she murmured. "Dad wanted to toast our trip. That was the first time you ever drank, wasn't it?"
"Probably."
"You liked it a lot," Ashley commented. "I remember you sneaked back into the galley and finished it off later that night."
"Busted," Caroline said. "I guess you two are to blame for my bad habit."
"Yes," Kate agreed.
"I'm just kidding," Caroline said. "No one held my head and forced me to taste that champagne, and it's not like either of you turned into drunks because of it."
No, but that had opened a door they'd never closed. It had been easy to get alcohol on their trip. When they'd hung out with their father, there had always been glasses left unattended and sailors eager to give you a taste of this or that. Caroline had loved to sit by their father's side and listen to him tell stories. She'd always been the closest to the booze, and to the boozers, for that matter.
"You can't blame yourselves. This is my problem, and I'll fix it." Caroline stood up. "First I'm going to take a shower, then I'm going to work for a few hours and hope they won't kill me for blowing off this morning's appointments."
"You're going in to work?" Kate asked in confusion. "I thought we could spend time together."
"I need to work. So do you. Don't you have a bookstore to run?"
"Theresa is there," Kate replied, but in truth she did need to get to work.
"Look, I'll be okay. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually. Mike said it will take awhile. In the meantime, I have to live as normally as I can. If you want to have dinner or something tonight, I guess we could do that, but oh, damn, I almost forgot, the charity picnic auction is tonight. I promised I'd put in a basket this year, and I don't have a thing in the refrigerator."
"I promised as well." Kate added that to the rapidly growing list of things she had to do. The annual picnic auction was a big fund-raiser for the local library. All of the eligible women on the island made up big baskets of food that were auctioned off to participating bachelors. The couples would then share a picnic supper together. Kate had always enjoyed the event, although some of her bachelors had been better than others. A shiver ran down her spine as she thought about Tyler. Would he