AN: Here we go, another little chapter.
I hope you enjoy (though this might be one of those "you know what I mean" chapters). Let me know what you think!
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After the man left, Carol made her way to her sewing room to work at a few of the projects that she had going on at the moment, barely looking up the one time she heard Daryl pass by the door.
He lingered there a moment.
"You could make some nice dresses for Sophia," he commented. "Something nice from you ta her."
"I can hardly make something nice without her measurements," Carol remarked, not looking up from the dress that she was working with.
"You can get all that when she's here," Daryl responded.
"If there's time," Carol said without commitment.
"Gonna be time," Daryl said.
He left her at that point and Carol tried to focus on what she was doing.
He was growing annoyed with her and it was evident in his voice. He rarely grew too annoyed with her, but when he did, the stress in his voice would change and often times he'd come up with some errand he needed to run or something he needed to do to get out of her presence for the amount of time he deemed necessary.
And she tended to fret and worry when he did that. She would try, in his absence, to check whatever it was about herself that had bothered him and she would try to do something to make it up to him like preparing him something she knew that he liked to eat.
But at this moment she didn't care if he was annoyed with her and she didn't care if he wanted to leave her presence…because she wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea of being in his presence.
She knew that he wanted this child to come and live with them…and he deserved to have what he wanted.
That didn't mean, though, that she wasn't bothered by the whole idea, and no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't get quite over her feelings on the whole thing.
She wanted a baby and she wanted a family, but a fourteen year old girl was hardly a baby. A fourteen year old girl would hardly accept her as a mother or him as a father. They wouldn't be anything to her beyond, at best, kind people who were willing to give her a home for the few short years that she would be with them before she married herself and had her own family.
She would likely have a family long before Carol would…if Carol ever got her family at all.
And for the life of her, Carol couldn't figure out why it was that Daryl wanted to bring a fourteen year old girl into their home. Why this almost woman? He could disguise it under the fact that they wanted children and adoption was a way for them to have children since Carol was obviously cursed to never give them any children…but that still didn't explain why he wanted to bring a fourteen year old girl there. Why not a boy? If he were going to be satisfied with this arrangement…an older child that would never care for them…assuming they even got to keep the child…why a girl and not a boy?
The more that Carol stewed on the thought of it, the more annoyed and perplexed she grew about the whole thing.
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Everything had gone well with the home visit. Carol had answered any and all of the questions directed at her by the man who had come to pay the visit…a man who either knew nothing of the fact that Carol was the child's birth mother or had chosen not to allude to it any way if he had known.
The questions that he'd asked were fairly simple, he'd pressed only slightly into what happened with Carol's hospitalization and he'd readily accepted Daryl's explanation of the events that took place in that time. He'd done a quick inspection of the house and it hadn't taken too long at all before he'd left the house and declared that Daryl would be getting a call later that evening, more than likely, about when he could come and collect Sophia.
But since he'd left, Carol had been quiet and moody. She'd reminded him of how she was in some of the earlier days that they'd been together…almost dismissive of him.
And Daryl was growing annoyed of it simply because he wanted her to understand that what he was doing wasn't easy for him either, and he was doing it because he thought it would be the best thing for her…the best thing for Sophia. He certainly wasn't doing it because he thought it was going to be the easiest thing for him.
Daryl passed by the sewing room for the third or fourth time, hearing the hum of the machine from time to time while Carol threw herself into some sewing project.
"Carol…supper?" Daryl asked.
Carol looked up at him and then she began to put away whatever she was doing, her actions jerky and tense.
"I'll get it," she mumbled.
"Why are you actin' like this?" Daryl asked. "You heard the man…we gettin' Sophia. He knows about Sunny Meadows an' he don't care. We're still gettin' the little girl."
Carol nodded her head slightly and got up from her chair.
"I woulda thought you'd be happy 'bout gettin' a kid…woulda thought you'd be lookin' forward ta bein' a Mama…not actin' like I just…took somethin' away from you," Daryl said.
He could feel his frustration getting greater and greater. She was almost mad about this and it was written all over her.
"You gonna talk ta me? You gotta tell me what's wrong with you…you don't want Sophia seein' you like this, do you? This is her Ma…gonna walk around actin' like this?" Daryl pressed.
"I'm not her mother!" Carol yelled suddenly. "I'm not her mother and you're not her father! She is fourteen years old, Daryl! She's not going to care about me and she's not going to care about you! She's not going to be our child! She's going to live here…until…she marries someone and we're just going to be some nice people she knew for a little while…she's not going to see us as her parents!"
Daryl was stunned enough that he could have been knocked over with a feather at the moment. Carol had never yelled out in anger…or frustration…or whatever emotion it was that she was tangled up in at the moment, the way that she was doing now.
And then he felt his shock turn into anger at the fact that she almost seemed to think that he was being stupid about all this…like he hadn't thought about all the complications that might come from this whole thing when she didn't even know the half of it.
"Don't you yell at me, Carol Ann!" He yelled back. "You start yellin' with me an' you ain't gonna win that!"
Carol stepped back a step from where she was standing, her chest heaving.
"Why, Daryl?" Carol asked. "Why did you do this? Why did you go and decide that we were going to adopt a fourteen year old girl? Why did you decide that? You didn't even…talk to me…"
Daryl clenched his teeth.
"You wanted a kid, didn't you? That's all the hell I ever hear from you, Carol! You wanted ta get married…an' you wanted ta have a kid…well this is the only damn way I can get you a kid 'cause for whatever damn reason you ain't havin' one on ya own…so I got you a damn kid an' now you actin' ungrateful about it!" Daryl responded.
"I wanted a baby, Daryl," Carol responded. "I wanted us to have a family…I wanted us to have a baby…I wanted us to be parents and have children that we could love…children that could love us. I wanted a baby and…why? Why did you choose a fourteen year old girl? Why not a boy? You said company for me, Daryl…but why? Is it company for you? Is that why you wanted a fourteen year old girl? A pretty little girl? She's practically a woman!"
As soon as the weight of the accusation hit Daryl, he almost felt overcome with anger. He got the urge to simply walk out…and in hindsight, he'd wish that he'd gone with that instinct instead of ever responding to Carol.
"I ain't bringin' this girl in here for me!" Daryl responded. "If I wanted ta do somethin'? If I wanted ta find me some woman that was younger'n you? I could do that just fine without it bein' some kid! I'm bringin' this girl in for you because it's your kid, Carol!"
Carol looked at him, confused, and shook her head at him.
"What are you talking about?" Carol asked, her voice changing slightly…but it did nothing for Daryl's frustrations.
"Just because you don't remember it…just because you don't wanna remember it, that don't mean it ain't so," Daryl said. "That man ain't put you in some place just 'cause you up an' went crazy…he ain't left you for no reason at all…that man left you in another place 'cause you had this kid...had her just fine…Sophia…an' he didn't want her. He didn't want you neither…an' that's why you went crazy. That's why you ended up in Sunny Meadows where I found you! You ended up there 'cause you lost this kid…an' I'm sorry she's fourteen years old, but I ain't had nothin' ta do with that. You was the one that had her fourteen years ago…not me!"
Daryl felt his breathing seize right along with his heart the moment that his own words hit his ears. He felt like he'd hit a brick wall running with the impact of them…with the impact of his own anger.
And he could see on Carol's face that she was even more stunned than he was. She stood there, frozen for a moment, staring at him, her mouth open.
The anger and the frustration that he'd felt only moments before strong enough that he might have been able to strangle her for not appreciating all that he'd done for her drained out of him all at once and completely.
And he could have never apologized for what he'd said or how he'd said it enough for him to feel that he'd done it well enough…but Carol didn't even give him the chance to try. She stormed toward the door of the sewing room and slammed it shut, closing off the connection between them.
Daryl reached it in time to hear it lock and to hear the sound of, from what he could imagine, Carol slamming back against the door and sliding down it…the sounds coming from her sounds that he didn't want to ever hear.
And he certainly didn't want to know that he'd been the one to cause them.
Daryl walked to the door and banged on it halfheartedly, feeling like he wanted to sob just as loudly as she was at the moment.
"Carol Ann…open the door…Carol Ann…please…open the door…let me in," Daryl said.
But she didn't respond to him. And he wasn't entirely sure when she would respond to him or what to do about it.
Because for all his good intentions…for all of his efforts…for all of his years spent biting his tongue and wrestling back his anger and frustration…his temper had won out and gotten the best of him. And in a matter of minutes he feared that he'd been able to destroy very nearly everything that he'd worked so hard to build for so many years.
"Carol…please…open the door…we gotta talk…I'm sorry…" Daryl said, this time with less conviction than before, already knowing that she wouldn't open the door, not until she was ready to open it.