Chapter 15.
Leather.
Carol.
"I don't like you spendin' all your time with them beaners' kids," he had said.
It came down like a tidal wave. It was always like that the first time, especially when it had been a little while since the last time it happened.
"Louis is sick. I was just helping them," she had defended.
She hit her hands and suppressed a sob. Strength comes from within, she told herself. God lives there, in the heart. Or, he was supposed to. Lately it felt like there was nothing living there.
"You spend more time with those fucking kids than with our kid!" he started to storm, drawing raindrops from the sky with the force of his words. A bitter voice in her head had whispered, do you even care about that, Ed? "And I don't like her hangin' around that pig's kid! You put a stop to that or god damnit I will."
She had sensed her mistake before it happened, but it was too late now.
It came again, gentler this time, just waves breaking on a crumbling shore. Her hands dug into the damp soil and she closed her eyes.
"That's not fair, Ed! They're friends! Sophia likes him!"
She had raised her voice. She had sounded defiant, more defiant than she ever had. Maybe it was the woods bringing it out of her, or the fact that before Sophia had found a friend in Carl, she had been sullen and quiet all the time. Now the girl was smiling and laughing most of the day, and it was thanks to that boy. Ed was not being fair. He was not being a good father. Why did he care anyway? It made Carol mad. It made her fight back.
It brought her down to her knees in the mud, shirt torn and open at the back, with a belt whipping across her shoulder blades.
He talked between lashings, furious, but keeping his voice down,
"You gonna send that pig to 'straighten me out,' huh? Is that what you gone do?"
It was the root of it all, the reason he had even bothered coming to talk to her. She pressed her eyes tight together and tried to say, "No! I never even talked to anyone!"
Carol kept her life a secret. Ed had no reason to be this angry. What changed?
Carol groped for answers when the belt came down again. She finally slipped off her palms and lay flat on the wet ground.
Ed stopped. He put his belt back on. "You keep our business to yourself, you hear?"
Carol said nothing.
He nudged her with his boot, "You heard me." Mercifully, he didn't wait for a response. He turned and left her there in the woods, on the ground, in the rain.
It was midday, too early to pretend she was tired and needed to go to sleep. Carol formulated a dozen excuses in her head, sifting through them, trying to put concrete plans to a weathered mind. But her thoughts were all over the place. She deserved this. No, she didn't. She needed him. No, she didn't. Sophia needed a father. No, she didn't. Carol had let her family business slip to someone else. No, she didn't. Which was the truth?
Carol slowly dragged herself up to her knees, sitting back on them. She started pulling the pieces of her blouse back together, like she could stitch it out here in the woods.
And she waited for the dam to burst, but the tears never came.
She only had this anger growing deep down, circling, making the rounds, blocking the parts of herself that she knew so well and opening up new avenues. Who knew she could be angry? Who knew she could be defiant? Who knew she could want something more?
She did. Or, she used to.
Maybe she could again.
She tried a third time to pull her shirt together in a way that the others wouldn't notice, but failed. It was ruined. Ed had grabbed it by the collar and ripped a gash clean down to her lower back. She would have to go back to camp this way, covered in mud and exposed. That was the worst part.
Something crackled in the forest, and she heard a soft, "Momma?"
Carol looked up sharply, finding Sophia approaching from the direction of camp. Her little blue eyes were wide with horror as she beheld her mother. Carol quickly turned, hiding her reddened back, clutching her shirt together. "Sophia, why are you out here?" she demanded.
"I saw Daddy coming out of the woods, and I couldn't find you," Sophia said, rushing toward her. She didn't notice that Carol wanted her to stay away. She wrapped both arms around her and hugged her too tight, angering the fresh welts. "I thought… I thought…"
"You thought what?" Carol asked into her daughter's shoulder.
Sophia pulled away, teary-eyed, "I thought he had killed you!"
"What?"
Years of dealing with this – years – and she had never heard anything that scared her so much. Carol clutched her daughter, fear making her heart race. Killed me? she thought, her stomach clenching into knots, is that what my baby thinks about?
And then a darker thought spawned, and what if he did?
"Baby, I need you to do something for me," Carol said, prying Sophia away and holding her face in both hands. They were soaked by now. "Go to camp and get me another shirt, and a coat. And put a coat on yourself, okay? You shouldn't have come out here without a rain jacket."
Sophia seemed daunted by the idea of going back to camp alone. "Can't you come?"
"No, I… I need another shirt, see?" Carol showed her the frayed edges, keeping her back carefully turned away, "I can't go back like this."
"O-O-Okay," Sophia whimpered, like a little lost kitten.
Carol waited what felt like hours. She got to her feet, a little dizzy, and paced around, getting as close to the edge of camp as she dared.
She heard a rustle and looked up, relieved, "Oh, there you are, I thought-"
But it was not Sophia.
Daryl stood there, crossbow in hand, a bloody brace of rabbits slung around his neck. He had paused mid-step, and now stared at her. Carol clutched her shirt and backed up a step, suddenly worried about something other than walkers.
"Relax," he grunted, making a sour face. "I ain't here for you. I got a trap up there," he motioned up one of the nearby trees, and then looked at her again – this time he seemed to really see her. His face became stony and he turned away, "I'll get it later," he muttered, and headed to camp.
Carol did not know him very well, but he made her nervous.
Sophia came back with a shirt and a jacket, but she had not put one on herself. She waited while Carol changed, and then they walked back together. Carol held her hand, hoping against hope that no one had seen her coming and going, and that no one would be suspicious about what had happened in the woods.
It was only drizzling now, and the clouds were dissipating, and the evening sun had set.
Carol let Sophia go and went into her tent, where Ed was napping. She grabbed a ball of their laundry that she had removed from the line earlier and took it just outside to start folding, careful of how she moved her arms. Her eyes kept wandering back to the tent while she worked. She folded on into the night, smiling pleasantly at others as they passed by, hiding the scared and lonely parts of herself and showing them what they wanted to see.
Every time her eyes drifted over to the tent, where her husband lay sleeping, she felt the strong desire to be somewhere else tonight, but could not act on it.