Chapter 22

Mallowater, TX, 1988

Caroline marched back into the health office. "You gave me the wrong certificate."

The young clerk who had helped her stood, her eyes wide. An older woman from an office with gray hair pulled in a tight bun walked up to the counter. "The wrong one you say?" She shot a glare at the other clerk. Caroline felt bad for the poor woman. She didn't mean to get her in trouble.

"Yes, this one is for a Bradley Hadfield. The father has the same name as my partner."

"Didn't you check her ID, Susan?" the woman turned to the younger clerk.

"It's not a big deal," Caroline said, pulling out both papers. "If you can just get me the correct one, there's no harm done. Ridge Hadfield, date of birth May 2, 1978." She pushed the documents across the counter and noticed the signature lines on the Certificate of Live Birth for the first time.

"Ma'am?"

Caroline realized she was still hanging on to the papers. "I'm sorry." She released them, bringing a shaky hand to her throat.

It couldn't be. But it had looked so much like Jay's signature. The big full capital letters, the largeness of the loop in the y, the upward slant from the line he was supposed to be signing on.

"Would you mind printing the other certificate for Ridge well?" Caroline asked. "The one from the hospital? It would be nice to have for his baby book."

"Of course," the older woman said. "Just one moment."

Caroline paced across the room, a storm of questions brewing. Did Jay have an illegitimate child? Caroline caught the hypocrisy of thinking of this child as illegitimate when Sloan and Ridge were technically illegitimate as well.

"Here you are." The older woman held up another envelope. "We are so sorry about the—"

Before she could finish, Caroline snatched it out of her hands. "Thank you," she managed, already opening the envelope as she walked out the door.

Her eyes went straight for the line on the Certificate of Live Birth where Jay had signed. There was the oversized J, the Y with the ridiculously large loop, and the signature that steadily rose above the line. Her entire body went numb.

She climbed into her car and drove home too fast, questions buzzing around in her brain. Who was Anna Elliott? What did she look like? Was it just one time? Did she know about me? Did Jay meet his son? Have a relationship with him? Has he been paying child support? Is that why we never have money?

Jay had really cheated on her. That sonofabitch. Pressure built in her chest until she realized she was holding her breath. Hopefully, it had just been once. A horrible mistake. She'd almost made one of those. Three years ago, with Sloan's third-grade teacher, Mr. Brewer.

Frank Brewer was ten years older than Caroline, tall with salt and pepper hair and a strong baritone voice. There had been an instant attraction between them. They were friendly all year, flirty even. Mr. Brewer always wanted to talk to her about Sloan, even when there was nothing much to say. They'd always end up discussing politics, science, books, and films. Frank always smelled of just-applied cologne. Caroline thought about him on nights she laid in bed alone, even on a few she didn't. She listened to "You're the First Time I've Thought About Leaving" over and over, finally understanding what Jay meant when he talked about songs you could feel in your soul.

But she hadn't left. Nothing had even happened between her and Frank. They were both in committed relationships; they were both good people. Maybe they'd fantasized about it; Caroline certainly had, but that was as far as it had gone. When Ridge entered third grade, Caroline didn't even request that he be placed in Mr. Brewer's class. Now, she wished she had.

No, she told herself. Even if she knew Jay cheated, she wouldn't have done anything differently. She'd never sleep with another woman's husband, no matter the sparks that flew. And if she had, well, she wouldn't have been stupid enough to get pregnant. This Anna woman might have been trying to trap Jay.

When Caroline returned home, Jay was sprawled out on the couch watching a news program detailing the Bush/Dukakis debate from the night before. He jumped up when she walked in. "Hey baby," he said, looking especially contrite. "Did you get the certificate?"

"Yes. There was a bit of a mix-up, but I got it."

"Listen, if Ridge doesn't want to play sports, it's okay. Sorry I was a jerk about it. There's just a lot of stress at work. Can you forgive me?"

Never. "We all have bad days," she said coldly. "I'm sort of in the middle of one myself."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." Jay pulled her close to him.

Caroline remained stiff in his arms. He must have noticed because he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. She didn't kiss back.

He broke away from her, seemingly perplexed that she would still be angry with a kiss like that. He could be such an arrogant bastard sometimes. "And I'm sorry for what I said about you spending all your time at the creek," he added, stroking her hair. "The opposite is true. But Sloan's twelve now. She's old enough to cook dinner and help around the house. That way, you can spend more time there. Treat it like a job, keep office hours, and I'll support you however I can."

How about by being faithful? Caroline thought. But she wasn't brave enough to match her words with her internal dialogue. Couldn't force Bradley's name off of her tongue.

"Kids are at school." Jay pressed his body against Caroline's. "I'm here all day."

Caroline pulled away. "I've got a headache."

Jay pursed his lips. "Did you sleep crooked again? I can give you a neck massage; that might help."

Caroline clenched her teeth. A massage. She understood what that meant. She wanted to tell him that there would be no massages, that there would be no post massages until he came clean about everything, but instead, she found herself agreeing.

As she lay on her stomach and Jay kneaded her shoulders, she allowed a few silent tears to fall onto her pillow. Why was she doing this? She should be confronting him. Maybe she just needed to feel close to him, needed to assure herself they still had a connection. That one night over ten years ago didn't undo everything.

But when the massage ended and she rolled over, she only felt disgust. Disgust as he kissed her neck, disgust as he ran his hand down the side of her leg. Is this the way he'd touched Anna Elliott? Caroline looked into his eyes, such a brilliant blue. My Blue Jay , she used to call him. But now she understood he wasn't a blue jay at all. Like crows, blue jays mated for life.

Caroline couldn't stomach looking into his eyes, so she closed her own. Closed them tight enough to pretend it was Frank Brewer on top of her.

Jay left following dinner. He always did, but for the first time, Caroline wondered why. He wasn't going to Beaumont or even Frisco. Tyler was less than an hour away. Why the rush to get on the road?

Did he just need to unwind before a busy day of knocking on doors, or was Anna Elliott meeting him at his hotel?

Caroline tried to distract herself by playing Uno with the kids, but during the third hand, she threw her cards down.

"What?" Sloan asked. "That bad a hand?"

Caroline stood up and slipped on her shoes. "Jay left his paperwork."

"No, he didn't. He had his briefcase." Ridge laid down a wild card. "I change it to red."

"It wasn't in his briefcase." Caroline spotted a manila envelope on the shelf under the phone. She knew it was empty, but they didn't. "It's in here," she said, grabbing it.

"You'll never catch him," Sloan said. "He left like thirty minutes ago."

It had been eighteen minutes, actually. Each one more torturous than the one before. "I'll take it to his hotel then."

Caroline called Doreen and repeated her made-up story. Sloan and Ridge would be fine alone for a few hours, but she didn't want Ridge to be afraid.

Caroline grabbed her purse. "Doreen and Noah are coming over. Be good for her."

Caroline was already in her car when Sloan charged out the front door, holding something in her hand. The envelope.

"Forget something?" Sloan asked in that know-it-all voice she said everything in nowadays.

Caroline took the empty envelope without saying a word to Sloan and peeled out of the driveway.

Caroline drove twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, praying that Jay hadn't done the same. She wasn't even sure what the name of the hotel was where he stayed. Jay said the company put him up wherever they got the best rate.

Simultaneous relief and dread filled Caroline when she spotted his truck five minutes outside of Tyler. She followed him, being careful to stay far enough back where he wouldn't notice her in his rearview mirror. Once in town, he turned down a road called Brookhaven Drive, a neighborhood of two-car driveways, piles of raked leaves, and an occasional campaign sign.

Jay wasn't going to a hotel. Caroline's car was suddenly stifling. She turned off the heater and cranked down her window, letting in the cool fall air that smelled of pumpkins and chimney smoke.

There had to be a reasonable explanation. Please , she thought. Be lost. Be visiting your boss. Be doing anything but seeing Anna Elliott and your son. Your son. You have a son who's not Ridge.

Jay pulled into one of those two-car driveways. Caroline parked a few houses down and across the street, glad at least to be no longer moving. She needed to be still, needed her stomach to settle.

Even with the window down, the car was too hot, and Caroline felt trapped. She opened her door and stood, watching Jay retrieve his suitcase from the truck's bed. The suitcase she'd packed full of underwear she'd washed. A gust of wind swept by. Secrets and fall leaves swirled around her.

Seconds later, the screen door of the house on Brookhaven Drive flung open. A little red-haired girl ran out and straight for Jay's arms. "Daddy!"

The wind carried the word. Jay dropped his suitcase and fell to his knees, letting the child rush into his arms. Caroline's own knees loosened, and she grabbed her door for support.

Like passing a terrible car accident, she didn't want to watch, but she couldn't turn away. Two boys came out. One looked to be Ridge's age, one older. Jay put an arm around each of them and squeezed. "Where's your mother?" Caroline heard him ask.

On cue, a short woman with strawberry blonde curls sashayed out the door and into Jay's arms. She spoke, but her voice was too soft. Caroline couldn't make out the words. But Jay was loud. He was always so damn loud.

"I missed you, darlin'," he said, then lifted her off the ground and right out of her white high heels before pressing his lips against hers.

"Ew!" The little girl screamed, charging against Jay from behind. "Stop!"

Caroline lowered herself back into the car, no longer able to stand . Yes, stop, stop. Please, God, stop.

They eventually did. Jay scooped the little girl onto his shoulders and took the woman's hand. The older boy grabbed the suitcase, and they all walked inside together—closing out the dark night, the chilly air, and the woman watching from across the street.

Caroline sobbed the entire way home. Sobbed and screamed. Screams that came from somewhere deep inside of her. Some dark place she didn't even know existed.

Anna Elliott. The name clanged inside Caroline's head. But then, realization struck her. It probably wasn't Anna Elliott, anymore. It was probably Anna Hadfield. After ten minutes of sitting in her car, Caroline had unstuck herself and driven by the house. "Hadfield Family" boasted the carved sign mounted to the yellow brick. The porch light above it acted as a spotlight, illuminating it in an almost holy glow. Caroline fantasized about grabbing a rock and shattering the porch light. That sign should be in the shadows, not her. But she had no strength left in her body. No strength to get out of the car, no strength to pick up a rock, no strength to confront them.

Caroline thought again about the boys. The younger had to be Bradley. The girl was a few years younger. Seven or eight? Caroline hadn't gotten a good look at the other boy. He was older than Bradley, that much she could tell by his height, but how much older?

Not that it mattered much either way, but if he was older than Sloan, that meant Anna was Jay's wife before he met Caroline.

If Jay had a wife, Caroline was his mistress. She'd pursued nothing further than friendship with Frank Brewer because she didn't want to be the other woman. But she already was. She'd always been Jay's other woman.

Caroline didn't remember getting home. Didn't remember making the turns or stopping at traffic lights. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been sitting in the driveway until her own porch light came on, and Doreen Dawson stepped outside.

There was no hiding that she'd been crying, but Caroline wiped her eyes anyway. As soon as she stepped out of the car, Doreen jogged toward her. "Caroline, are you okay? What happened?"

Caroline started crying again. It was cruel how tears never ran out. How the body was capable of producing them forever and ever and ever. "Jay and I just got into a silly fight. I don't want to talk about it."

Doreen gave an understanding nod. "Men can be damn fools, can't they?"

Caroline nodded, too, even though she knew she had been the damn fool.

"The kids fell asleep about ten minutes ago. Oh, and Ridge slipped in the kitchen. Running in his socks. He's fine but is gonna wake up with some bruises."

Caroline rubbed her head. "That boy. I've told him to stop running on the floor after I wax it. And I'm sorry I got home so late. Noah can stay the night if he's already asleep."

"It's fine, honey. He's just watching TV. We'll be home in time for him to get plenty of sleep. You try to get some too. Call me tomorrow and let me know you're alright."

As soon as Doreen and Noah left, Caroline checked on the kids. Sloan had burrowed under her quilts, and Ridge was snoring gently. Her poor babies. Thanks to their father, life as they knew it was ending.

Caroline wanted a drink. Something hard that would make her stomach burn like her throat, but she hadn't eaten since breakfast. She needed to get some food inside her so she could drink herself to sleep without throwing it all up.

She entered the pantry and pulled the cold metal chain attached to the lightbulb. The light clicked on, illuminating Caroline's perfect pantry just as the porch light had illuminated that Hadfield Family sign. She looked around the orderly storeroom. A place for everything and everything in its place. That's something her mother had always said about her own pantry when Caroline was growing up. Caroline thought it was stupid to care about something like that, but as soon as she became a mom, she surprised herself by following in her own mother's sensible heels. There was a lot about domestic life that didn't come naturally for Caroline, but her mother had taught her how to cook, and by cooking, Caroline could nurture her family. She often felt like a fraud, but food was a need she could meet. And so, she attended Tupperware parties and bought the latest storage containers. She actually asked Jay for a label maker for Christmas back in '78. She labeled and arranged, then rearranged, when she decided that perhaps the cereal should be on the low shelf because when the children grew older, they would need to reach it.

Standing in the pantry now, Caroline felt pathetic. Pathetic that she'd spent so much time and energy here. Pathetic that she'd forgotten who she was and what she liked to the point of asking for a goddamn label maker for Christmas. Pathetic that she'd ever believed that these stupid Tupperware containers made her a good mother. Pathetic that she'd always longed for Jay to acknowledge how much easier she made his life by shouldering this fundamental need of nourishing him and his children. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

She swung her arm against the shelf, knocking over rows of canned goods. It felt good, watching them topple like dominoes. Standing on her tiptoes, she shook the shelf above, knocking over the canisters of flour and sugar. But their labeled containers did what they were designed to do, kept their contents contained and prevented a mess. But Caroline wanted to make a mess. She stood on the step stool to reach the sugar, then pushed open the spout on the lid and sprinkled it all over the floor, like snow. She started laughing, and it somehow improved her mood. Like she was releasing some of the chaos inside of her. She grabbed the flour container next. This time, she took the entire lid off and slung the container back and forth until it was empty. It still wasn't enough.

She broke jars, tore open boxes, and stomped on chip bags. The noise she was making never occurred to her until she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw Sloan standing wide-eyed in her pajamas, watching her mother lose her mind.

"Sorry I woke you, Sloan." Shame instantly replaced the strange and manic joy Caroline had just experienced.

"What's wrong, Mom?" Sloan's voice shook.

Caroline bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm just missing my daddy." She wiped her flour-coated hands on her jeans and put her arm around her daughter. "Come on, let's get you back in bed."