Bub said something to her, and Caroline tried to smile at him through the reflection of the rearview mirror. The websites also recommended that she visualize a wall between her and her troubles. She should construct this wall from bricks, each of which represented something that strengthened her. Bub was one of the bricks that she could always count on.
Yes, for every problem, God offered a solution. Caroline just had to be aware of her state of mind, take her herbal treatments, and muster her strengths, brick by brick. By doing this, Caroline could handle not only the holidays and the Crofts but also her problems with Ben and her worries about Charlie.
In the backseat, Bub muttered something in the neighborhood of his brother’s name, and Caroline realized she’d been talking aloud.
“You won’t leave me, will you, Bub?” she asked the baby. “If you wandered in the dark alone, you would tell me about it, right? If you spent all your time in the forest, you’d invite me along sometimes, wouldn’t you?”
She began to cry then. The tears came in a torrent, and sobs racked her chest. The car lurched, and when she looked up she was surprised to see that she was stopped in the middle of the Crofts’s gravel drive, just past the ruined outbuilding. The sky had seemed bright a moment before; now it was a study in gray scale. Behind her, Bub was wide-eyed. She looked at the clock and saw that almost two hours had passed since she’d walked out of the fabric store. She could not account for the lost afternoon.
Caroline tried to shake her head clear. She tried to stack her bricks of strength. She and Bub were safe. And Ben would be home soon with Charlie. She would have some tea and share a biscuit with her baby while she waited for them. Sometimes pretending everything was all right made it so. Maybe she would take a bath when Ben came home. She would light some candles. Vanilla made her calm. Maybe she would bake two pies with the pecans they had in the pantry. One for Mrs. White and one for Ben. Ben loved pecan pie, and it would make her happy to make him happy. A happy husband would never spread his wife’s secrets.
But Caroline wondered why she’d parked here in the middle of the gravel path. She noticed Bub studying her carefully through the rearview mirror. “Boom!” the baby shouted. He slammed his palms together with a noise that startled her.
Dread began to churn in her chest. She could suddenly feel very clearly that something was wrong. Standing made her light-headed, and she braced herself as she got out of the car.
“Hello?” she called out to the frozen reaches of the Drop. She must have had a reason for stopping here. Had she seen Mrs. White wandering around? As she turned toward the forest, Caroline thought she saw a flash of movement in the darkness beyond the trees, but she dismissed this as a trick of the wind.
She began to walk back down the gravel drive, intending to peer into the old outbuilding, but she didn’t get farther than the rear of the car.
The remnants of the animal were spread over several feet. Split almost perfectly in half lengthwise, it seemed too big to be a raccoon or squirrel. Viscous red sludge filled the treads of the Escape’s left rear tire, and Caroline remembered the sickening lurch that had shaken her from her reverie. Her horror mounted as she realized that the animal had been so crushed that it appeared to have been turned inside out. Shredded intestines and crushed organs were fully on display, but she could hardly see a scrap of fur.
Caroline had seen roadkill but nothing like this. It was hard to believe it was possible for an animal to be so obliterated by a set of tires. Then Caroline saw the dog collar and nearly fell to her knees.
“Hudson,” she whispered to the remains. Tears sprang to her eyes again, but she wasn’t sure for whom. The only thing she was sure of was that Ben couldn’t know. No matter what, he could never find out.
Deciding this gave Caroline strength. She broke the task into manageable parts. First she would get a shovel and put poor Hudson in a plastic bag. Then she would dispose of the bag someplace where Ben would never find it. Ben hadn’t really believed that Hudson had survived the night. He didn’t need to find a body. It was better this way, better for him to remember Hudson as the dog he had been. She’d have to hose down the Escape’s tires.
Caroline drove up to the Crofts to get started. I can do this, she told herself.
Then she saw two white trucks drawing slowly up the gravel drive toward her, and all the bricks that she had so carefully collected throughout the afternoon came tumbling down.
32
“Whoa,” Ben said when the Crofts loomed into sight. Even Charlie sat up in his seat to get a better look. Two large moving trucks had pulled alongside the house. Dozens of large boxes were piled behind the trucks and along the front of the Crofts. Men in pairs shuttled back and forth on their way to the front door, struggling under their burdens.
Bub was in the kitchen by himself. He banged his cup against the top of his play parking garage in time to the thump of the delivery men’s boots, which resonated from the floor above.
“Big commotion, huh?” Ben asked the baby. He scooped Bub off the floor and wiped the beads of water off his chin. Charlie breezed past them to the kitchen stairs.
“Watch the floors!” he could hear Caroline scream. “And the walls!” The Wolf was in her voice.
With Bub in his arms, Ben jogged to follow the sound of her shouting. He found her on the second floor, berating a group of men.
“They’re slamming into every corner they come to,” Caroline told him when she saw him. Her voice trembled with rage, but she looked close to tears. The wildness in her eyes made the bottom drop out of Ben’s stomach.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “That’s why we kept the extra paint. And, remember, we chose a semigloss for the halls and stairs because we knew they’d get a lot of wear and tear. We planned for this. It’s okay.”
“And the floors,” she said, closing her eyes.