October 15-19, 01
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Takes place immediately after the next one.
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Doug scooted over on the bed and carefully placed each letter back into the appropriate envelope. He knew he would never get rid of those letters, no matter what. If there happened to be a fire, they would be the first things he would save. He slowly opened the small stand beside his side of the bed and placed the letters inside, leaving the picture on top of the stand. Then he shut the door and looked at the telephone. He had memorized the number and held it in his heart, unsure if he should call now. But he knew he had to, he had to know..everything. He had to talk to Carol, maybe even the girls. God.
With shaky hands, Doug picked up the telephone and dialed the number, hesitating on the last number. He pressed the one and swallowed before lifting the phone to his ear. He waited. Two rings.
"Hello?" A woman asked. Doug froze, knowing it wasn't Carol. Then he remembered her sister.
"Is Carol there?" He asked quietly, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Yeah, hold on a moment." On the other side of the line, Molly smiled and handed the phone to Carol.
"It's a man!" She said, raising her eyebrows. Carol chuckled.
"Probably Dr. Ryan. Or a salesman." Carol said. Molly smiled and bent down, picking her 16 month old daughter up off the floor.
"Hello?" Carol asked. Doug couldn't speak, his throat was as dry as dust. The words wouldn't form. He couldn't believe he was hearing her voice after all these years. Oh God. "Hello?" Carol asked again, wondering if the person had hung up. Slowly Doug spoke.
"Carol." He said, his voice husky. Her entire world stopped on that one muttered word, her name. And suddenly she could feel her heart slamming into her ribcage with every pounding beat.
"I...Doug?" She asked quietly, finally finding her voice. She hadn't been expecting this.
"Yeah." He replied.
"Oh God. This is..Wow." She managed. He chuckled slightly, nervously, his throat still pasty. "Is it really you?" She asked.
"Yeah. It's me." He fiddled with the edge of the bedspread. Then Carol remembered that he had not contacted her or their daughter's for five years. Six years if you wanted to include the time she had been pregnant. "I..You deserve to know why I've not called in the past few years." He said and answered her questioning thoughts. He paused and swallowed. "I moved out of that apartment the month after you left. A few days before you sent the first letter. My landlady, Mrs. Barnado, came into the ER this morning with a broken hip. She saved the letters. All seven of them. I just got them today." He said. Carol gasped. He hadn't even known about the girls after all this time? She had never thought of that. She had always just thought he was being irresponsible Doug and didn't care about his children. Oh God. All that he had missed because she hadn't thought..
"I am so sorry, Doug. I..I never thought that you hadn't gotten the letters. It didn't occur to me." She said.
"I.That's okay. God, Carol, we have two children. Girls." He closed his eyes and could imagine his little girls running around, curls bouncing behind them. "I..I've missed so much. They're grown, now. Five years old." He swallowed. "God. So much I've missed."
"Doug..I.." She stopped, not knowing what to say.
"What are they like? I mean, besides what you said in the letters." He said. She smiled and took a seat on the couch, aware that her sister had left the room, knowing who had been on the line.
"Kate is a little taller than Tess. She likes the color orange and chocolate chip cookies. Tess likes blue and is allergic to chocolate. She likes sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. They share a room in our apartment. It's two bedrooms."
"You don't live with your sister?" He asked.
"Oh, no. She was just hear to pick something up. She is keeping Tess, Kate, and her daughters Britney and Lindsay occupied before they go to bed. I asked her to answer the phone."
"Yeah." Doug replied softly, wishing he could be sitting in that very apartment, across from Carol. Carol smiled slightly. "Can you tell me more?" He asked quietly.
"They used to like to dress alike, but they have recently rebelled against that and want to be dressed in different outfits. Tess has a stuffed puppy that she takes everywhere with her except school. His name is Blinky. Kate has an imaginary friend named Eddie, who she claims tells her to do things that get her name on the board at school." Doug chuckled and Carol smiled. "I'm assuming she inherited that from you."
"Probably." He said, gazing at the picture on the desk.
"Tess is best friends with Britney, Molly's daughter, who is the same age as the twins. Kate makes friends with all the boys at school and doesn't really like Britney at this point in their lives. She's better friends with her older cousin, Tyler, who is seven." Carol paused for a moment.
"I want to meet the girls." He said. Carol stopped, slightly surprised.
"Okay." She said.
"I can fly down sometime soon. Just tell me when and where and I'll come." He said. Carol paused.
"I..Anytime is fine. I can take off of work whenever." She said.
"How about the day after tomorrow? I can get off work and come down. I could stay for a couple days, maybe." Doug said.
"Alright. That's fine." She said. He nodded.
"Thank you, Carol, for letting me see them. I..If I could go back and change time, I would so I could know them. Jesus." He muttered and pressed his fingers to his eye.
"I'm sorry that things happened this way. I should have known." She murmured. He shook his head.
"No." He paused. "Can I call you tomorrow and let you know when my flight will be in, get directions or something?"
"Sure. That sounds great." Carol replied.
"Do you work?" He asked.
"Yeah. Until six." Carol said.
"I'll call around seven, then." He said.
"That's fine. If I'm not home, you can leave a message on the answering machine." She said.
"Okay. Thanks Carol. I'll call you tomorrow, then?"
"Yeah. Bye Doug."
"Bye Carol." They both hung up. Doug lifted the picture up and remembered that he would have to tell Joanna about them.
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Just minutes after Doug got off the phone with Carol, Joanna returned home. Doug was lying on the bed in their bedroom, staring at the picture of the twins, when he heard her come into the house. Seconds later she called to him.
"Doug?"
"Up here!" He yelled in reply. He sat up, a bit reluctant that he would have to tell her. He quickly stuck the picture into the drawer beside his bed with the letters and then stood. Joanna walked into the room and smiled at him.
"Hi." She said. He grinned.
"Hey Jo." He replied. "How was work?" He asked. She shrugged, slid out of her white lab coat, and threw it onto the bed.
"Normal. No kids died today!" She said and smiled, knowing that was a big plus for her day.
"That's good." His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. "We need to talk." He said after a short pause.
"Okay." She said, raising an eyebrow and watching him with a curious look on her face. He walked to her and took her hands into his own hands. She curled her fingers comfortably around his. "Doug?" She asked. He cleared his throat and shuffled on his feet slightly.
"Do you remember how I told you about Carol Hathaway?" He asked. Doug had told her the entire story, including that he and Carol had had sex right before she left, how hurt he had been when she had left, and how he had felt it was all his fault. Still did, really.
Joanna knew everything. She nodded, "Yeah, I remember her." Doug nodded shortly.
"Well..I got some letters from her today." He said. Joanna's brows drew slightly together. "I was at work and my old landlady came in with a broken hip. She told me about these seven letters that had come to the apartment building after I had moved out. They were from Carol. Anyway, Mrs. Barnado's granddaughter took me to the apartment and got the letters for me." He paused. "I read them a little bit ago." He sighed. Joanna studied him seriously, wondering what else there was for him to tell her. Doug looked into her liquid blue eyes and let one of her hands fall from his grasp. He reached up and cupped her cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb under her left eye. "There was something pretty important in those letters. Something big." He said.
"Doug, what?" Joanna asked. He tipped his head down for a moment and then met her gaze again.
"Shortly after Carol left, she discovered she was pregnant." He swallowed as he watched Joanna's eyes widen. "With my child. Well, actually, with my children." Joanna's mouth dropped open.
"Oh Doug! Children? How many?" She asked. He smiled slightly.
"Two." He said.
"How old are they?" She asked.
"5 now. 5 years and 3 months. They were born on Thanksgiving. November 25th. Girls." He said. "Twin girls. Tess and Kate." He said softly.
"Doug, that's amazing!" Joanna exclaimed and took his face into her hands. "You have daughters. Oh Doug!" He chuckled and kissed her quickly.
"You're amazing, you know that?" He said. She grinned.
"Did you think that I would be upset?" She asked. He nodded.
"Maybe." He replied.
"Well, I think it's amazing. Are you going to find them?" She asked.
"Carol left her phone number in the letters. I called her. I'm going to go meet them the day after tomorrow." He said.
"Oh, that's great! That's wonderful. You'll have to tell me all about them. What they look like, how they act!" She exclaimed. He chuckled.
"Carol sent me a picture from their fourth birthday. Want to see?" He asked.
"Of course!" She said. He withdrew from her embrace and made his way back to his side of the bed. She followed and watched as he opened the door and pulled out the picture. Then she laughed slightly.
"She looks just like you!" She said, taking the picture into her hands and pointing to Kate.
"Yeah. That's Kate. The other, Tess, is Carol's mirror image. It's unbelievable how much she looks like her." He said with a smile.
"They're beautiful girls, Doug." She said.
"Yeah. I can be held accountable for that." He paused. "But not how they were raised, how they are." His smile turned sad. Joanna placed the picture onto the stand and turned to him, touching his cheek gently.
"It's not your fault, Doug." She said. His smile faded.
"Yeah, it is." He said seriously. She shook her head and met his gaze for a moment, then stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held on, turning his face into her shoulder and couldn't help but think of Carol. How she used to feel in his arms. Doug quickly shut her out of his mind, knowing it was unfair to Joanna to think of Carol while he was in her arms. It was always unfair.
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Around seven p.m. the next night, Doug picked up the phone and quickly dialed Carol's number. She picked it up as soon as she heard the second ring, as she had been sitting, waiting by the phone, knowing he was going to call and she could hear his voice. That deep sexy voice rumbling in her ear. God, just the thought of it sent chills down her spine, let alone the real thing her ear.
"Hey Carol." Doug said.
"Doug, hi. It's seven already? Wow. The girls have kept me busy since I got home." Carol lied. They were at her sister's house. Doug chuckled.
"What are they doing?" He asked.
"I just sent them out the door to go to my sister's. Since it's Friday and they don't have school tomorrow I let them go to spend the night." She said, lying once more. The girls had been at their aunt's since after they got home from school. Carol hadn't even seen them since that morning before she sent them on the bus. But that was besides the point.
"Do they go there a lot?" He asked.
"We alternate." Carol said.
"Hmm. Well, uh, I just called to tell you that I got a flight. I actually leave tonight..er, this morning. Anyway, I'll be there at about ten o'clock a.m. Is that okay?" He asked.
"Yeah, that's fine. I was planning on picking the girls up at nine. That'll give us a good hour to fight through everything." Doug chuckled.
"So, uh, how have you been?" He asked, wanting to prolong the conversation. He wasn't quite ready to let her go yet. Carol smiled and felt her insides warm, knowing that he was intentionally keeping her on the line.
"Good. Busy, with the girls and work, but good." She said. He nodded and rubbed his hand over his thigh. "And you?" She asked after a moment.
"I've been..good. Well, life's taking a sudden turn for the better now. Wow, Carol. I still..This isn't quite real to me, yet, y'know?" He asked. She smiled.
"It'll be real when you see how much Kate looks like you." Carol said and laughed slightly. "Every time I look at her, I see you. In a facial expression or just how she says something. And just because she looks like you. When I look at Tess all I see is myself at that age. It's kind of strange how one of them took after one of us so much." Carol said. He chuckled.
"Genetics." He said. Carol grinned.
"Let's just hope that they don't take after us exactly!" She said.
"Oh God, yeah. Let's hope Kate doesn't want to be me." He said.
"Or Tess me." She said. They both smiled, basking in the happiness they felt just by talking to each other, like old times. After a short silence, Doug cleared his throat.
"I, uh, I better go. I need to finish packing. If it's okay with you, I'll just stay one night. I'll leave late Sunday night." He said.
"That's fine. Then the girls will be able to go to school without Kate begging me to stay home with her dad. I know that's just what she'd try." Doug chuckled.
"She's definitely my daughter." Carol laughed. "Anyway, I need directions to your house." He said.
"Oh, right. Got anything to write on?" She asked.
"Yes, I do. Go ahead." He said. She rattled off directions carefully while Doug jotted them down.
"Got them?" She asked.
"Yeah. So..I'll see you tomorrow morning, then?" Doug asked.
"Yeah." Carol replied.
"Ten o'clock." Doug said.
"Ten. Alright. See you then." Carol said.
"Bye Carol." They both paused and then reluctantly placed their phones back onto the receivers and smiled.
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