CARMEN“I don’t understand, doctor,” Terri said before I could. “What does that mean? She takes her prescribed drugs at the perfect time, and I make sure of that.”“We’ll need all of the drugs that she takes every day brought into the hospital to test and see. The one that seems to be a lot more in her system on an abnormal level might have some form of arsenic in it.”My eyes widened in shock, and Terri shook her head to deny what the doctor had just informed us about.“What do you mean, arsenic? There’s no such thing in her drugs. I’ll go over to my apartment and bring some of the ones I have over here,” Terri said, stepping away and heading out before she looked at me.“Wait here until Jasper comes, okay? I’ll be back in no time,” she told me and got out of the hospital, leaving me with the doctor who was starting to leave as well.“Wait, doctor. How much of the arsenic is in her system? Is it so much that it looks to have come from a powder of arsenic?” I asked.“We’re not sure. W
CARMEN“You’re not going to India, Carmen.”I looked at Jasper as if he had just popped another head out of his shoulder as he told me those words with a cool air of finality, as if I shouldn’t dare argue with him about it.“You can’t do that, Jasper. Not right now at least.” I shook my head at him. “I am going to talk to my mother today, and we can talk about this later. You can’t make that decision for me and just expect me to—”“You’re not going!” He raised his voice, drawing attention from everyone present and causing me to flinch.“You’re still hungover from the alcohol you took last night. I don’t want to believe that you want to argue about this right now, with your mother in there,” I raised a point, but he laughed about it right in my face.“If you have any respect for her, then you wouldn’t be thinking of taking a leisure trip to a whole different country while she lays in there and needs you now more than ever,” he accused.“This is not a leisure trip. A lot of things depen
CARMENWhen Jasper returned to the house, he refused to say a word to me – not when I asked him how his mother was, and certainly not when I zipped up my bag and was done with packing up for the trip to India.Even though he was doing it on purpose and not because he was okay with me going, I thought it was too good to be true that he wasn’t bringing it up anymore, but I still wanted to know how his mother was doing.“If you could just tell me if she’s doing fine and is out of surgery, then maybe I’ll find it easier to fall asleep tonight,” I mentioned as soon as he got out of the bathroom after his shower that evening.“Now you care about her?” he scoffed, and I raised my eyebrows at that.“What makes you think I don’t?” I asked, knowing fully well that that was not the point of the conversation, but I also knew that he would probably be acting different if his mother’s health had deteriorated.“Is it because of the entire thing about going to India? The flight is tomorrow, Jasper. I
CARMEN“DAD?!” I exclaimed, frozen at the doorway as my father sat on the bed in the room and looked over at me with a smile and a slightly surprised look on his face.“I had my doubts about you coming, but I know you as someone who does something when she sets her mind to it. Come on over here,” he said, his arms wide open for a hug, and I didn’t know how to run into his arms.I was afraid that if I ran into his arms and tried to hug him, I would swipe at the air that he would disappear into, so I settled for standing there and staring at him, taking everything in.“You look miles different from when you were sick in the hospital,” I said, finally finding the strength to walk forward.The closer I got to the bed, the faster my heart beat, almost as if it was going to burst and break through my chest at any moment.When I got to the side of the bed and looked down at him, he laughed at the look I had on my face as if he was reading my thoughts to know what I had in mind.“I am not a
CARMEN“Is that why I’m here, then? You want me to help Steve – to get him out of the mess he doesn’t even know he’s in with Mom?” I asked, and my father smiled at me, silently telling me that I was right in my guesses.“I know that you haven’t gotten yourself trapped in your mother’s hands. You being here is a perfect way for me to know that,” he said. “Knowing her, I would know that the last thing she would want is for you to come here.”“You know I’m married, don’t you?” I asked, and he froze as tension hit him.“I didn’t think we would be talking about that this soon. I am truly sorry that I didn’t get to see you walk down the aisle. How is your marriage to…” He stopped, not knowing what Jasper’s name was or not remembering it.“Jasper,” I said, and he nodded.“How is your marriage to Jasper?” he asked me, a hopeful smile on his face as he waited for me to say something dreamy with my head in my hands, but I watched his smile fade as he soon started to realize that it was not the
CARMENAs I accompanied my father to the hospital a few hours later for his very last shot of treatment that he had been getting to help him recover, the thought of my mother working with Jasper did not leave my mind for a second.That would explain why Jasper was quick to call my mother and find out about the aviation company lie that I had made up. Perhaps they had always been in contact.“Do you think it’s possible that she would be working with him? I mean, in the sense that he hits me. Do you seriously believe that she knows about it and is in full support of it?” I asked my father.“I can’t say for sure, but it’s not something I would put past her. She has surprised me a lot over the years that I just don’t think this would be the most outrageous thing she has done,” he replied.I saw the sense in what he was saying, especially after what had happened with the chef and the video she had recorded, but there was something holding me back from believing that my mother could be that
CARMEN“Steve Wilmer is investing in my father’s new company?!” I asked, standing up and looking down at the file in my hand with my mouth ajar while doctor Adrian signaled for me to keep my voice down and avoid waking my father up.“He gets headaches when his sleep is interrupted,” he told me, and I nodded in understanding, resuming my position on the seat opposite him.“I don’t—I don’t understand,” I stuttered, my eyes glazing over the name and the unmistakable signature of Steve Wilmer on the document. “Why hasn’t my father told me about this since I got here?”“He wanted to tell you after the last treatment at the hospital, but he made me give him my word to tell you about it in case he falls asleep before reaching here.” Doctor Adrian shrugged.“Have they met? I don’t imagine Steve Wilmer would invest so much money on something that he’s not entirely sure of,” I said, giving him a confused shake of my head as I waited for context.“We disguised it as something your father had bee
CAMRMEN My father stared at me after my confession with the most neutral expressions he had ever given me so far, and it didn’t make it better. I wanted him to have a reaction, good or bad, and not leave me with the thought of whether he still thought of me the same way.“Are you sure about this?” He interrogated after minutes of staring at me in silence, his tone of voice even more zen than his face.“I haven’t had the time to think about it to myself, but I’m very sure that even if I do, my answer is going to be the same – I do love him,” I confirmed.“And do you know if he feels the same way towards you?” he asked, not judging me and slightly surprising me with it.“He told me he loves me. I would like you to know that we didn’t start it after our parents got married. He was my date to prom, and in mere weeks, Mom was married to Steve Wilmer. We have tried to separate one too many times, but it hasn’t worked out so far.” I looked down at the bed.“Your wedding… We were told that y
CARMEN“Are you sure about this? Maybe you heard him wrong the first time. Besides, I just got out of prison. I highly doubt that he’ll want to get to see me just yet,” I said to Dave as we slowly walked towards the front door of his father’s house.“You just have to relax for me, Carmen,” Dave said, placing a hand on my lower back. “I didn’t hear him wrong. He clearly said it after his divorce with your mom that he would feel better about giving us his blessing now that he’s not married to her.”We got into the living room, where Steve sat with his legs crossed as he took note of something from a piece of paper.“Dad, look who’s here,” Dave called for his attention, making him look up at us and stand up to give me a good look. I almost laughed at his reaction, but I was too consumed by nervousness to make a sound.“Carmen, what… Come here, my sweet child,” he said, walking towards me and meeting me halfway with a hug.“What happened to you?!” he asked as he pulled away from the hug a
CARMEN“How may I help you?” the woman who stood at the doorway asked me, and I had half a mind to apologize and tell her I had the wrong house before walking away, but I decided to stay instead.“Is Dave home?” I asked.“Mr. Wilmer is home, but he didn’t tell me he was expecting anyone,” she answered, looking down at my hands which held the small box where the wristwatch was. “You can tell me your name, so I can go tell him—”“You really don’t have to,” I said, stopping her from walking back in. “Just let me in, please. I have something important to talk to him about.”“I understand that you probably know him, but I don’t want to get into any trouble. It’s my first day at work, and I don’t want to mess this up.”“You won’t,” I assured her. “You just have to trust me.”It took a moment of hesitation before she finally sighed and stepped aside for me to walk in.I glanced at the little girl she had in her hand with a smile on my face as I got to see just how much she looked like Kate.
CARMEN“Did you tell anyone? I told you not to tell anyone. Did you tell anyone?” I blurted to Evan as I found him standing and waiting for me on the day of my release.“Relax, Carmen,” he laughed. “I only told them that I was coming to check up on you. Why don’t you want them to know that you’re being released, anyway? Are you planning to live as far away as possible without them knowing?”“No,” I answered. “I just… I didn’t want them standing out here and waiting for me to come out. I still need to prepare myself for everything. It’s been a long three years, and I don’t know how they’re going to react.”“I’m sure all this is not what they’re thinking about right now. Trust me when I say that those people will wait for ten years if they have to,” he informed me.As much as it was assurance enough to hear those words from Evan, it didn’t make my heart beat any slower than the speed at which it was going.“Thank you for going through the stress of picking me up, by the way,” I told him
CARMEN“Cartier!”I flinched when I heard my last name being called by the prison guard as she stopped in front of the cell I shared with two other women – Reese and Naomi.She chewed her gum aggressively, using her baton to hit the cell bars, as she watched me so intently that I almost started to dig a hole to hide myself in.“You have been here for a while now, Carmen. It’s time you took the bull by the horns. Don’t let people like her intimidate you,” Naomi said, giving me an encouraging pat on the back to approach the prison guard and ask her what her deal was and why she was calling me.“What…what’s the matter?” I questioned, looking down at my feet to avoid making eye contact with the woman.“Are you ready for your board hearing today?” she asked me, leaning against the bars with folded arms.“I think so,” I said with a nod.“Well, then.” She sighed and took out the key to the bars, opening it for me to step out.“Good luck, Carmen! I’ve had two board hearings so far that have n
CARMENEvan was now standing in front of me with a silent reminder for me to keep my chin up and that I would be fine after the trial, but it was getting harder to do so.After the prosecutor finished asking me questions, I started to feel as if every answer that I had given had dug me into a hole that I would not be able to come out of.“When the victim was making those moves towards you, you called out for your mother, didn’t you?” he asked.“I did.”“Well, to demonstrate just how far her voice must have reached when she called out to her mother, we tested it. I called out to different sound experts to the house, and I was asked to stay in the farthest room from the kitchen. At 70 decibels, I could hear someone calling out to me from that room.”“From the footages gotten from the security cameras around the house, Mrs. Wilmer was not even in the farthest room to the kitchen. In fact, at the same time that Ms. Cartier is seen shouting for her mother’s help in the kitchen, we can see
CARMENMy mother stared at Evan with a shocked expression on her face as he submitted a flash drive to the judge as evidence.“The house where you left after you got married to Mr. Wilmer had a lot of security cameras, which Mrs. Wilmer here may have forgotten about when she slipped into the kitchen and put about ten pills of aphrodisiac into the victim’s drink,” Evan explained as the video on the drive was played for the whole courtroom to see.I had not thought that Evan would work that hard and go that far to get evidence, but he did. Was that why he had been working with my father the whole time? Even I didn’t know about that.“If we watch further, we can see that there was no complete and direct contact between my client and the victim that they were involved in any sexual discussions with each other. To further prove that an aphrodisiac was used in this footage, we have receipts from the pharmacy that she bought them from that week.”“Do the prosecutors have anything to add to t
CARMENDave and I shared a look of disappointment, and I could see that he had made up his mind to be with me no matter what his father said, but that didn’t stop me from feeling bad.“This whole thing between Bianca and I is not close to being over, and I believe she’s going to raise hell before everything is finalized. I have all of that in mind, and I don’t want anything to distract me just yet. Perhaps, after the divorce, we can revisit this talk,” Steve explained.I completely understood why he didn’t agree to the whole thing, but that didn’t mean I was not hurt by it.“You can take all the time you need to think about it,” I encouraged. “We wouldn’t want to put you under any kind of pressure.”“Carmen and I have something important to discuss. Thank you for giving us your honesty, father,” Dave told him as he took my hand and led me out of the room as he asked me, “Which of the bedrooms is yours?”“Here.” I took the lead from him and opened the door to my room, slamming it shut
CARMENBefore Dave could take me into the room where his father was staying, I pulled him back. I tried my hardest to hide my annoyance from him, but I could feel it coming off in waves, and I was certain that he could tell as well.“Is something wrong?” he questioned, and I raised my brow at that.“I should be asking you that question, Dave. I know you’re mad at me, and you should be mad at me for what I hid from you, but you haven’t spoken to me in a week. We can’t just leave things hanging and go in there to tell your father about us.”“I know, Carmen. We have a lot of talking to do, and I do have a lot of apologies as well, but I don’t want to prolong this. The more we keep him the dark, the less likely he is to be happy about the news. We can talk about everything else that we haven’t talked about during the week after.”“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked. “With everything that my mother must have planted in your mind against me—”“She planted nothing in my mind against
CÀRMEN“What…what are you doing here?” I asked, looking around to see if I could find out if someone else came with him – perhaps Kate or his father.“I wanted to talk to you about everything,” he said.“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re divorced,” I replied, wanting to turn around when he grabbed me by the wrist.“What are you doing?” Dad asked, finally bringing Jasper’s attention towards himself.“Who are…” Jasper trailed off as recognition grew in his eyes, and he took steps back as be looked between me and my father.“You’re… You’re her father,” he noted. “They said you were dead.”“If she doesn’t want to talk to you, don’t you think you should take a hint and leave her alone?” Dad asked him, ignoring his shock and refusing to give him any explanation.“I just wanted to have a short and important talk with her about something, that’s all,” Jasper defended.“Excuse us,” I told Dad, a little curious to know what Jasper wanted to say even after we had legally gone our separate way