CHAPTER TWENTY TWO; FAMILY FIRST
"It's over, mister Mosley." Caroline announced without deceit. "I have a life to live and it doesn't consist of resting. I must return to those I hold dear."
Oswald suppressed gritted teeth but couldn't hide his glare. "So, you used my feelings for weekend entertainment?"
"If you have feelings just days after speaking, then I feel sorry for you."
"I don't need your sympathy." He almost snarled. "I am greatly embarrassed by your lack of consistency."
Caroline pursed her lips, amusement twinkling in her brown eyes. "Desperation doesn't suit sore losers. I suggest you refrain from making such a fool out of yourself."
Before he had the opportunity to reply in protest, Caroline had already made her way down the corridor, down the stairs and out into the open in search for the train station, shaking her head in dismay, wondering what could possibly have made her believe it was alright to indulge in an eligible woman's lifestyle whilst her innocent children remained at home.
It wasn't long before she found her way to the station. The raucous, metallic shriek heralds the arrival of the decrepit carriage, standing in defiance of its condition - all corroded iron and tacky upholstery. The doors reluctantly eases open with the force of a stocky station guard, as if gripped by age, the handles stiff with arthritis.
As she clambered aboard the steam express, Caroline fondly remembered how she threw Grace Burgess's body onto the tracks, but her grin faltered, recalling how Campbell remained injured and alive due to her own carelessness. Despite their gruesome demises, she exhaled deeply and slumped back onto the chair in preparation for a long journey to return home.
***
Ivy and ferns grew through the crevices of the old winding stone path, which led directly to the colossal structure. The mansion loomed proudly behind creaky iron gates, flanked by rows of skeletal trees crowned in crimson, swaying gently to the chilly autumn wind. At its threshold stood the delicate circle of the roundabout, the plush green grass tickling her ankles as she admired her rightful property.
She had lost so much. From her primary family to members of her secondary, to the disintegration of her sanity to her love life. She couldn't imagine what life would have been like if she didn't conquer her hardships, but she couldn't imagine letting them defeat her, which is why she had to retreat back to her home land, for one last battle.
With a small sigh, she had been cut short from her dreary reminiscences, because when she heard a gigantic creek, she peered up, only to beam when she saw a figure half her size running towards her with open arms.
"Mummy!"
"My baby boy. Oh, how I've missed you."
"Aunt Pol and daddy said you were sick." Charlie muffled into his mother's neck. "Are you feeling okay now that the hospital gave you medicine?"
She smiled politely and kissed his cheek affectionately. "I've never been better, honey, so don't worry about me."
"I almost forgot!" Charlie stood up and began to pull his mother towards the front door. "We have a new pet. It's a dog!"
Caroline froze with a raised brow. "A dog? Your father prefers horses."
"We adopted Alfie's." A harsh tone startled her from ahead.
Something flashed beneath the surface of his hardened expression and she hurried to investigate the sudden shift. It was too late, the emotion disappeared before she could identify it, like reaching desperately for an escaped balloon; the string dangling so tantalisingly close but the wind pushed it away and it's lost forever.
"Go into the warmth, sweetheart. Daddy and I need to speak alone."
She watched as Charlie sprinted past his father and into the house to where he slammed the door shut to give his parents the privacy they craved. Moue of distaste, her rueful glare turned to her distant husband who had all the emotion of wet concrete, his facial muscles just as loose. There was no anger, no sadness, no joy or resentment. He was gone within and Caroline could tell that it was over on his behalf just as much as it was on hers.
"Your excursion didn't last long."
"It lasted longer than you do."
Thomas clenched his jaw. "Is it appropriate to make crude jokes?"
Caroline pulled her lips into a devious frown whilst shrugging nonchalantly. "I don't know, were your affairs appropriate in our household whilst our children slept?"
"Why did you come back, Caroline?" Thomas grit his teeth. "You obviously didn't remain where you were supposed to, so you stayed elsewhere to occupy your time."
"Are you implying that I found leisure more exquisite than the love of my children?" Caroline's voice raised a roar. "In fact, I didn't have the luxury of enjoying a week's break because I was off my fucking head!"
Tommy barely rolled his eyes. "Of course you were."
Daringly, Caroline strode forward with a sinister scowl. "What the hell are you insinuating?"
"You don't know what's good for you and you'll never change." He spoke with certainty. "You were sent away to be reformed, but instead, you pick up old habits."
Caroline spat. "Old habits die hard, which is why you're a classified cheating addict."
He ran his fingers through his hair and released an exasperated sigh. "I'm tired."
Their voices rose above the sacred silence. A glance, touch, and one small comment stirred a hurricane of harsh and horsed insults. Their own Pandora boxes opened, sending each word full speed ahead to shatter their souls into a million pieces. His face brightened, just a tone lighter than her own crimson. This was no longer 'He said, she said'. Blood was bound to be spilled, feelings hurt. They were strong to being with, but now they'd never be as strong as they once were.
The argument was cold. Every word over pronounced, slicing rather than tumbling through the dry air. The love hadn't gone, it had been distorted into a close mimic of hatred; and just as love endures, so would the wall of bitterness that separated them, growing more thorns every day.
"You don't think I am as well?" Caroline spluttered in disbelief. "My mother once told me that if I had the sense I was born with, I'd run a mile away from you, and yet, here I am, stood before you whilst our children play happily inside. How could I possibly leave?"
"Look at me, Caroline." Thomas cupped her cheek and turned her head to meet his sincere gaze. "I fucked at least three women for business and two to feel something other than the agony of not being able to hold you."
He licked his dry lips and continued. "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have even thought about it, but I can't, so until you forgive me and learn how to trust me again, I'll agree to attend marriage counselling, just like Pol told us to."
"Forgiveness and trust aren't comprehensible in our foreseeable future." Caroline spoke bitterly. "The separation will commence no matter how many enemies want us dead, because to me, you are the worst, most dangerous villain I have ever came across, and it is my job to protect society from the monster that you truly are."
***
He inhaled that grey stench, the odour that foretold of tar-infested lungs and his future death-bed. There was something rotten in his eyes as he took each drag, as if he perversely lured on that morbid end to punish those who had caused him pain, the mother who herself had suffered so much abuse all her days and the father whose brain was addled from corporal punishments and lack of affection.
He had been a drowning victim since childhood, it was true, yet now in adulthood he cursed those who struggled beneath his feet in their own emotional chains rather than striving for fresh air and sunshine.
Caroline hated him, that much he knew for definite. Usually, he was able to tell when she was lying by the devious shimmer in her doe eyes, but this time when she spoke words so unkind, there was no flicker, only daggers that pieced his heart with the truth.
He didn't blame her, though. To be honest, he despised her every time he saw her with Alfie, Michael or any other male she'd captured the heart of, because they were jealous and it got the best of them, which led to the demise of their love.
Thomas gripped on so tightly despite the fact that his palms were sore and burned. His nails dug deep into the cigarette's skin to give himself a better grasp, to give himself one more hope that he would succeed. A tear rolled down his cheek, but he didn't care; he had to feel something other than sorrow for himself, because he only had himself to blame.
Whilst Thomas wallowed in grief, Caroline absorbed in the sheer warmth from beside her two children. Charles hadn't changed, but Rose seemed to grow longer, because her bare toes touched Caroline's forearm whereas they hadn't before from where she lay in her lap. Although she was content beside her kids, she felt lost, not only because she'd lost their sibling from within, but because her partner was no longer the man she desired.
"Thank you, Maria." Caroline alerted the maid's attention with a fond grin.
Maria stopped tidying and peered over her shoulder in confusion. "What ever for, missus Shelby?"
"Because I have no doubt in my mind that you fed my children, clothed them, bathed them and nurtured them whilst I was absent and Thomas no doubt was nowhere to be seen."
"Actually, he has been at home for the past five days." Maria's reply made Caroline's heart thud heavily. "But, he has been in a world of his own, just as much as you are."
Caroline stroked Charlie's face with a loving gaze, mind elsewhere. "I wonder what planet he was on. Perhaps his version of heaven where naked women roam free and he is in charge of the whole kingdom - untouchable as ever, though his hands touch many others, viciously, yet so tenderly."
"Or, one in which you two are perfect as pie and things remain the same as they were many years ago."
"Oh, Maria." Caroline smiled sympathetically with sad eyes. "Thomas is correct; I will never change, but neither will he. Therefore, he is in fantasy land whilst I remain in hell, burning in the flames he set alight to my heart."