Consequences

Part 45

To Charlie it simply didn't make sense. Her journalistic nose told her that the bits of information she had just did not quite add up. The woman she met and the situation Doug described indicated there was a missing piece of the jigsaw somewhere, even if Doug seemed to think he had all the pieces.

Something was seriously wrong, way off. So with her journalistic blood coursing Charlie decided to take matters into her own hands. She was going to find out what was going on. Her genetic makeup would not allow her to take what she had heard at face value. She needed facts. She needed to do a bit of digging.

On Tuesday when Ryan headed for the office, Charlie donned her flattest shoes and headed for the docks. Eight and a half months pregnant she waddled along the street, gathering information, asking questions. It seemed she wasn't the only one asking questions. Though by all accounts she was late on the scene! Journalists had apparently been and gone. The story wasn't hot, especially when they found out the truth. And the truth had Charlie even more determined to get Doug and Isabelle back together. When he heard the truth, he'd change his mind, Charlie knew that. The question was, would Isabelle forgive him. Why or why didn't men ask for direction? For a supposedly logical man Doug had jumped to a conclusion without bothering to really check his facts. That was simply not like him. He had not behaved like that in the past. But then, Charlie smiled ruefully, he clearly hadn't been in love in the past.

Her smile waned when she thought about how he must have reeled when he found himself in situation that suggested his dreams were about to go up in smoke. Charlie knew that he probably hadn't really believed that someone from Isabelle's walk of life would hook up with him. And finding out at the Police station that she was not all she purported to be must have been a real kick in the guts for Doug. He was a confident man. Charlie knew that. But he was also a man who kept the emotional scars from his childhood well hidden even if his physical scars were very much in evidence.

As a man falling in love he was vulnerable and the situation at the docks had probably just confirmed his own fears about their social status. Why would someone from Isabelle's world want to associate with someone from Doug's world? Her face was beautiful his was riddled with scars. She grew up in circles far removed from his. Until that night at the Police station he had probably thought their family's change in financial circumstances is what had persuaded her grandmother to seek him out. The night at the Police station had changed all that. For Doug had reached the conclusion that Isabelle had settled for him because she assumed he would not object given he had grown up in that part of the world. No doubt for Doug, he would think that what Isabelle had failed to recognize is the fact that he had dragged himself out of that environment and had no interest in going back or being associated with it.

Charlie knew that despite everything that had happened, Doug was hurting. He might not want to admit to it. He might not want to show it. But he was hurting. And now that her digging had unearthed the truth, now she intended to show him that he had seriously misjudged the situation. But before she did that, she needed to know whether Isabelle would take him back! For there was no point going to Doug with all the facts and showing him the error in his conclusion, if Isabelle was too stubborn to forgive him!

So at 2pm Charlie headed for Isabelle's home. Charlie wasn't sure what kind of a reception she'd get, but as a journalist she was used to dealing with difficult people. Charlie was pretty sure the next few hours were not going to be easy but she was going to talk to Isabelle. Doug was important to her, and if Charlie could do something about the current situation, she was going to help him. She had been tempted to call him, try to con him into meeting her at a local café. She would do the same with Isabelle, and when they both showed up at the café, she would leave them to it, after sharing what she knew. But even as she had initially contemplated that plan she knew she was dealing with two stubborn people. There was no guarantee that either would stay long enough to talk to the other.

So Charlie headed for Isabelle's home. She was going to work on each of them individually. She would explain Doug's childhood to Isabelle, and try to show Isabelle why Doug was hurt. If she could persuade Isabelle to forgive him for jumping to the wrong conclusion then she would work on Doug. Though she was pretty sure he would not need much working on when she shared with him what she had found out! In fact she was pretty sure he would kick himself for being so quick to judge.

So with her plan B in place Charlie headed for Isabelle's home.

Unfortunately Isabelle wasn't home. But Cara was. Not that Cara was particularly welcoming when Charlie explained who she was, despite the fact Charlie did not mention she was a journalist. It was the fact she had introduced herself as Doug's sister-in-law that nearly saw Cara shut the door on Charlie! But Charlie was a journalist with years of experience and she knew how to ensure a door remained open!

Cara was not best pleased to find Doug's sister-in-law at the door, not after the day she'd had been fending journalists first thing in the morning and fending telephone calls from people in the Sojour-D'Sa social circle the rest of the time. When the news item went public, life for the Sojour-D'Sa family went pear-shaped. More so for Isabelle. And all because Isabelle Sojour-D'Sa's fiancé's comment to the recent news story was 'no comment'. He had not bothered to defend her. Not bothered to tell the journalists to correct their story. Not bothered to listen to Isabelle.