He didn’t answer. Carrie wondered if she’d gotten through to him at all.
“You sound like Sharon.”
“I’m sure she feels the same as I do.”
“I thought it was just her being irrational,” he said slightly more calmly. “I thought it was because of her… problems.”
Carrie didn’t want to meddle in Sharon’s business. The Fletcher children were her concern, and that made her feel like she had some leeway with Adam and his business, but she had no right to even ask about Sharon’s. She could feel herself asking him to explain with her eyes, even though she didn’t want to. The concern for Sharon was overwhelming her reasoning. She knew she didn’t need to know, but she wanted to know.
“It’s a bit of a touchy subject…” He seemed to understand her even without words, and she’d never had anyone else who could do that, but she ignored the thought because she needed to hear about Sharon. She wanted to know. “She’s had a very hard time getting pregnant. When she finally did, she miscarried, and getting pregnant had taken a ton of time, money, and effort. They’d tried to go through the doctors, hoping that would increase their success. It didn’t work. They used every single bit of their savings.”
How terrible, Carrie thought. All the pieces were starting to gel, and she was getting a picture now of Sharon and why she broke down like she did.
“But why is she so angry at you?” she asked, her thoughts coming out more easily due to Adam’s openness.
“She and I had a disagreement.”
“About?”
“She battles depression, and the baby issue isn’t helping things. One night she and I really went at it because she told me that I didn’t deserve my own children. She said that David and Olivia ought to have parents who spend—what did she say?—every moment with them without regard to anything else.” He looked at a spot on the wall as if something were there. “I shouldn’t have given in to the argument, knowing her state, but I did, and it got heated.”
“I’m sorry,” Carrie said. And she was. She was so sorry to hear about Sharon, and she was sorry that their disagreement had escalated into something that still lingered between them. In a way, Carrie and Sharon were similar: they both desperately wanted their own families, and they both feared that the Fletcher children, whom they loved so much, wouldn’t get the attention that they knew they could provide if just given the opportunity.
“I thought she was just unleashing her anger at not having success with getting pregnant. I thought she was being irrational, and I hired you because I worried that Sharon’s depression would require Mom’s attention, pulling her away from the kids. My mother spent many nights over at their house helping Eric—especially right after they’d miscarried. It took a lot of her energy. When she said that Sharon would be coming I didn’t want to take any chances with the kids’ needs being neglected.” Adam’s shoulders were tense, his forearms resting on the desk in a rigid way. “What I hadn’t anticipated was hearing the same thing basically from you, just in a more polite fashion.” He leaned back and pushed his food around on his plate with his fork.
Her first inclination was to feel saddened by his statement. He’d been confronted by his family about the way he’d chosen to live his life, and, clearly, he felt attacked. He was defensive. Now, here she was, a stranger, able to pick out the same issue after only a few days’ time. Certainly, that would make him feel awful. But, the more she contemplated it, the less guilty she became, because she knew that she’d been right. She knew, not just what the children needed, but what Adam needed, and the fact that his own family felt the same only made her feel stronger in her intuition.
“You, Sharon, my parents—you don’t understand because you aren’t in my line of work. It’s frustrating to me to have to repeat it every time I’m hit with it. I don’t have any answers for you. I have to work.”
If only she could get him to see it. Then it occurred to her that he felt the same way. “Help me to see your side,” she said. He didn’t answer, but he seemed to be thinking about it, so she left it at that.
Chapter Fifteen
Happiness is achieved by doing what you love. Carrie knew exactly what she loved, so she decided to focus on that today.
Rose, the housekeeper, changed the sheets on every bed in the house on Thursdays. This Thursday, Carrie had asked her to leave the kids’ sheets and blankets in a pile in the playroom. Rose wasn’t keen on the idea, but Carrie assured her that she’d get them washed and put away.