Chapter 7:
The house seemed empty now, friends and family that had gathered filtered out in the now late afternoon hours. Tess and Kate had gone with their grandmother, but right now it seemed as if that was the last place that he wanted them to be. It was almost as if he was waiting for her to come walking through that door any minute now to tell him this was all a mistake that everything was fine.
He slowly walked now through the house, her things still where they had been left, untouched, almost holding some new sacredness to them. Moving them would be giving up, accepting the truth, even though today he had buried his wife that was the last thing that he wanted to do. He was torn between the cold harsh unforgiving reality that had in his eyes taken from him his life and the wishful thinking of his heart. Neither one he wanted to face, but knew that he would have to; he would have to for his girls.
He stood at the foot of the steps, running his hand over the deep mahogany woodwork that made up the banister that was there. His eyes looking over the living room, taking in everything as he never had before. He remembered the look on Carol's face when the first looked at the house, how excited she was about them moving back to Chicago. How this house reminded her of the one that they had shared in Seattle.
Seattle, his mind wandered back, where everything seemed to be so perfect, and now everything felt turned upside down, inside out. They never should have left Seattle, Doug should have put his foot down harder on them staying there rather than moving back here. If they hadn't moved back to Chicago, then they wouldn't have had the car accident, they wouldn't have been on their way into the bay, this wouldn't have happened. Things would have been different if he had been the one that had been driving, he should have been driving. He blamed himself for this. There were a million other ways that this could have played out, if he had just been tougher with her, this could have been avoided.
He found himself walking now up the stairs and into the bedroom, closing his eyes as he sat down on the bed, emotionally drained, tired from trying to put up this overly strong front for his friends, for his family. He could still feel her there, in that very room with him. See her walking across it, from the bedroom to their closet. Feel her fingers brushing against his arm as she passed by to get ready for one thing or another. Her soft smile and dark curly hair pulled back at the nape of her neck so that it wouldn't hang into her face while she worked.
Nothing more now than a memory, a cruel taunting memory. He'd never see that smile again, hear her laughter, and watch her lovingly guide their children. A single lone tear ran down his cheek, men didn't cry, he knew that, had been told that, it was a sign of weakness. Right now, with life alone in front of him, that was exactly how he felt, weak and alone. His arms ached for one more chance to hold her, to tell her that he loved her, words now that he felt that he hadn't said enough to her. Wanting more than ever the one thing that for so long he didn't think he could have, now something that he never could, everything else he had managed to make right, prove to her that Doug Ross was capable of change, and for what, none of it seemed to matter now, because this one act, he could never make right.
"You think he's going to be okay?" Abby asked as the black jeep navigated its way through the damp streets of Chicago.
"I don't Abby." Carter replied, his voice soft, almost despondent, not all the way there with her, but enough to be able to answer her.
"Are you going to be okay?" She asked now hearing his voice, watching him out of the corner of her eye as they drove along.
"I'm going to be fine." He said patting her leg as if that gesture along would be reassuring enough to convince her that he was going to be fine. In time, he and everyone else would be. It was just a hard thing to say goodbye to a friend that they had known for so long.
"I have no doubt in that." She replied back to him now, "what are you thinking about?"
"Nothing and everything." An honest answer, "I'm just paying attention to the traffic." While he was mostly numb right now and his mind wasn't thinking of much it was still thinking more than he wanted it too.
She didn't take her eyes off him, she couldn't do that right now, "I know it's hard John." Abby finally said breaking that little bit of silence that had filled the jeep, while Abby knew that there wasn't much that she could do other than be supportive, the silence wasn't a good thing either.
"Yeah it is." That was Carter's simple reply. He just didn't want to get into a conversation right now. But then there was no good time to have the conversation that he knew she was looking for.
She wasn't sure what to say next, how to approach this in a way that defenses wouldn't come up and she could almost foresee the walls coming up, and she wanted to make sure that those walls didn't come up, once they were up, it would be nearly impossible for her to get around them. She had too much experience with walls, "you want to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about right now Abby," Carter said his eyes focused upon the road nothing else right now, "this isn't the time or the place for us to have some deep meaning conversation."
There is was, the start of the wall, but he was right in a way this might not have been the best place to try and talk to him like that, at least not while he was driving. He did need to keep an eye on the road, and maybe in time, if he wanted or needed to talk he would trust enough in her to come to him. Abby needed to have faith that if Carter needed her, that he knew she was there, it was a hard thing to do, after everything that had happened between them over the past few years, but there came a point in everyone's life where you needed to close your eyes and jump and she had found herself at that point. She was just going to close her eyes and jump.