I gently stuck the white rose in the middle of the bundle. Mother grimaced in the front row as the white threw off the display, becoming the center of attention in my hands.
Father hooked my arm and I glanced into the cameras, wondering if any of them were showing live, and if any of them were playing in front of William. I looked away in shame but forced my head up as I dragged myself down the aisle, not wanting to make my father have to do it.
I don't remember holding Parker’s hands. I don't remember trading rings or saying, “I do.”
I remember the nauseatingly bright sky and the beautifully distracting sounds from Hugh somewhere behind me. I remember Parker’s lips on mine and his hands cradling my face as William’s once had.
The reception faded in and out of focus for hours. Drunken laughter and words of congratulations sounded like a skipping record. There were flashes of cameras all around and soft music chased me.
When we danced I didn't recognize the song. Parker whispered words that sounded so sweet and would have been welcomed had they come from William.
He mistook my tightened grip. He kissed me and I almost laughed when he had to tilt up his head. The night wore on. I didn't taste the small bite of cake or the champagne. At some point I threw a tiny bouquet and Parker modestly pulled the garter from my leg.
I saw the wall of people and felt the rain of rice come down, stinging my skin. As we climbed in the back of a limo I threw one more glance backward, scanning the crowd to find one camera. I begged it to show William my sorrow if he had been forced to watch my wedding to another man.
Chapter 41- Wilted
The small private plane landed in Knoxville. Parker and I were driven up the mountains.
I tried to keep up with his simple conversations. When he dozed off I allowed myself to slip out of reality, pretending the hand grasping mine was William’s. We were on our honeymoon and would go home to Hugh, together.
The car stalled in front of a quaint cabin overlooking a tiny town and surrounded by the trees and mounds of the Smoky Mountains. The sun had yet to streak the sky as he helped me out of the vehicle.
He carried me over the threshold and I bit back tears as he laid me on the bed.
I had tried to ignore the fact that I wasn't simply going to be forced into a wedding, but a marriage. I had to play the part of a satisfied wife.
He asked if I needed the bathroom. I shook my head no and he excused himself. My stomach rolled as I waited. I tried not let the tears escape. When he reemerged I demanded myself to sacrifice my own life to save my heart.
I let him kiss me, trying not to turn my face away. His hands danced on my dress, unzipping it from under my arm. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine William, but the shape of the man on top of me was wrong. There was nothing comforting or familiar about the stranger.
He leaned back and I opened my eyes. A small smile lifted his lips. “It's ok to be afraid the first time. I'll be gentle, I promise.” He kissed my face in what I imagined to be sweetness.
I don’t know how I didn’t laugh at him. I watched his face as he undressed me, his fingers grazing over the scar under my left breast. His eyes met mine, full of questions. I made no move answer him.
He kissed it and I tried to remind myself to pretend to enjoy him. William’s safety depended on my acting skills.
Parker pulled his own clothes away. Fear and anguish strangled as his weight pressed me into the mattress.
I closed my eyes tight against the tears but they seeped. He kissed them away and I ignored his words of comfort. He asked if I needed more time. I wanted to kick him and tell him to get off of me. I wanted to scream, rage, and do something to get out of his bed.
William’s screams echoed. I shook my head and he greedily pushed into me. He was true to his words, he was slow and gentle. Still, every second was torture.
There was no pleasure, but I could feel his naive love. He heard my sob and assumed it was from joy. When he finished he laid on top of me, his weight suffocating. I wanted to throw him away but he tried, so hard, to be patient.
He rolled and pulled me to him. He lifted my chin and stared into my eyes. “I can give you everything you need, anything you want.”
His words were pleading. He knew I didn't return his love. I could see enough passion and depth in his emotional, stormy eyes to believe he loved me enough for the both of us.
I pitied the foolish man. I didn't know him, and he didn't know me. He had simply been another random boy from school throwing me longing looks I had ignored. In the end, he allowed himself to become another pawn in a pile of broken pieces.
My muscles tried to suppress me, but I fought myself to lean in and kiss him gently. I couldn't give him the chance to run home and complain to anyone. It might get back to Mother.
✷✴✷
Our honeymoon eventually passed and we went to our own private home in Kentucky. It was beautiful without being obscene. It wasn’t large enough to need as much help as my childhood home. We had a manservant that started work when it was finished being built.
The home was my gift from Parker. He knew about our engagement long before I did. I wondered how he could have thought it was realistic.
I called my doctor and set an appointment for as soon as possible. The new psychiatrist was quick to push the blessed chemicals into my body at any woe. I loved her for it. She put me on pills to help me sleep, a stronger stabilizer, anti-anxiety medication, and upped my sedatives dosage.
It took a few days for the pills to help my brain stop whirring. I tried not to look in the mirror as much as possible. Instead I continued running every morning, a mindless instinct.
I still went once a week to stay a night or two with Hugh, always telling Parker a new excuse for why my parents needed my presence. Sometimes he came with me and watched with confusion as I held, loved, and cuddled the little boy with a brighter version of my eyes.
A few months into my marriage Parker came home with a large silver frame in his arms, almost as tall as him. I was sitting on the edge of our bed, drying my hair.
“I know you've been morose. I saw this at your mother's house and she let me have it.” The blood drained from my head. No.
“What is it?” I asked, praying it was anything else.
I covered my eyes in fear as he stood on a chair, removed the floral printed painting above the mantel, and replaced it with the large portrait. When I braved a glance, he stood back with pride.
William stared, the small secret smile pulling at me.
I stood and stepped toward Parker. He looked between me and the portrait. “You hate it? I'll take it down.” He put his foot back into the chair, ready to climb up but my hand caught him around the collar I pulled him to me in a hug. He had no idea what he had done for me.
Even I couldn't have predicted my reaction. I'd have thought it would make me sad and break my heart again. Instead, it soothed and comforted me, a constant reminder of my own strength and William’s love.
✷✴✷
Another month passed and I started getting queasy with certain foods and my medications. I had no doubt what was happening, though I tried to pretend I was paranoid.
When the little plastic window showed a pink plus sign I clung to myself in the floor of my bathroom.
Parker was terrified when he walked in on me rocking back and forth with my head on my knees. When he saw the test he cried with joy and blamed my reaction on hormones.
Chapter 42- Ivy
I became increasingly depressed as my second pregnancy wore on. It was more difficult. I got bigger quicker, swollen sooner, and was forced to bed rest by six months pregnant.
I tried to treat the child in my womb the way I had Hugh. I read and talked to it but felt as if I was missing an important connection with it.
It wasn’t conceived through love.
I hated myself for feeling like that and worried I couldn't love the baby as much. Parker knew the gender, but I didn’t want to.
He
prepared the nursery, brought me anything I wanted, and came home with bags from shopping for what the latest parenting books warned we needed.
Hannah often brought Hugh to visit. Hugh was so sweet to my tummy. He was bright. His vocabulary and enunciations were astonishing. He knew all of his shapes and colors and how to count to ten at eighteen months old.
Parker piqued my rage when I was eight months into the pregnancy. He hadn't meant to, and didn't understand why I reacted harshly.
He asked one day after Hannah and Hugh left why I cared so much about the help's child when I was about to have my own. It was the one time I ever yelled at him, accusing him of being selfish. All I could say was that she was my best friend and I loved her child like my own.
He apologized for days after. I felt guilty for my words towards him but would never apologize for loving Hugh, regardless if Parker understood.
When my water broke two weeks early I was prepared, but afraid. I didn't want another terrifying, lonesome labor strapped into a bed and unable to move when I needed to.
I also didn't know how to give birth with an audience. I felt like that was what Parker would be, someone to watch the horror unfold for entertainment.
He proved to be surprisingly useful. He kept a large cup of ice chips near me, a luxury I didn't have the first time. He gave me a hand to hold when I needed to squeeze against contractions. He rubbed my back and neck and let me push against him when it was time.
The baby arrived after an hour of pushing. She had black hair, a tiny nose, and Parker named her Olivia. He ran out to use the phone and call our parents.
Mother and Father arrived shortly after Parker’s parents. Everyone wanted to hold her, even Mother. When no one was paying attention Mother leaned down and whispered, “I'm proud of you.” I blinked up at her in shock until her smile twisted and she continued, “this one isn't an abomination.”
I shook my head, wanting to demand she leave. Parker saw the conflict in our eyes and asked everyone for privacy to feed the baby.
When we arrived home from the hospital a few days later Hannah came to help, bringing Hugh. Parker didn't understand how bringing another child would ease my anxiety and depression, but as I laid in bed with Olivia asleep in one arm and Hugh in the other, I felt complete.
✷✴✷
It was difficult to be a complete mother to my daughter. My heart was never fully a part of the way I raised the child. I loved her but in a different way from the way I loved Hugh. I felt like a terrible person, never being able to completely be the mother Olivia deserved.
I watched for the milestones Hugh had reached too early and saw mediocrity in Olivia. She had the same porcelain tone as Hugh, but to me Olivia looked too much like Mother. I had nightmares of my own infant berating me, beating me, and pushing me down a flight of stairs.
Her eyes faded from the blind blue of a newborn to the soft grey of her father's. It was the part of her I concentrated on in my desperate attempts to bond with her.
I despised myself for never being able to see past the fact that she wasn't born out of my love, but my enslavement. It hadn't been her fault. She was as much a prisoner in her own life as I was in mine. She simply didn't know it yet.
Olivia and Hugh grew up close for the first few years, but when Mother realized she started making new threats.
She told me I was ruining the one good thing in my life, Olivia, by tainting her with my sin. She threatened Hugh, Hannah, and William repeatedly in new, cruel ways anytime I let Olivia play with Hugh.
My relationship with Hugh suffered. Mother allowed me to see him no more than once every two months. She wouldn't allow Hannah to come to me.
Hannah tried to push her luck, but Mother came to my home one night, knowing Hannah was there with Hugh. She threatened Hannah’s employment. She even promised to have Hannah arrested for stealing.
She never threatened Olivia, though. She had such high hopes for Olivia to be the daughter I was never capable of being.
As the sluggish, overly medicated years ticked by my daughter grew from a beautiful little girl into a young teen, and I watched my son from afar. I would see him as often as possible, always comforting him when he needed it.
One time I became lost in his despair- when he tried to take his own, precious life. The thought forever haunted me. I could never erase the images of his still form beneath the willow, where his father and I had first touched freely. I almost died, and would have gladly sunk into the pond never to resurface had he not come back to me.
With every passing age he looked more and more like his father, a scrawny youth that promised to be a glorious man one day soon.
My heart broke the day he was diagnosed with bipolar. Mother allowed me to come and explain it, and Hannah told me of her sadness that she couldn't find the words to relate to him.
Olivia was a shadow to her father whenever possible, but she grew to realize she was exceptionally feminine and tried to mimic me.
My unintentional frustration with her waned over the years. Wherever I expected to see Mother in her, Olivia showed me the softness of her father. I fought myself daily to believe her kindness and innocence was a deep strength though I thought Parker weak for the same attributes.
I watched with shame and guilt as the facade that had become my personality began teaching her and molding who she would become. A small, defiant voice in my head warned me many times to teach her to be independent and learn her own power, but I was so afraid of her leading a life with my hardships.
I taught her to be lady. I always taught her to treat her husband with love , regardless of her own wants. I showed her to never try to have her own life.
I despised myself for it. I couldn't have a healthy relationship with either of my children but had become good at lying to myself.
As my daughter grew so did technology. Phones turned from huge burdens into almost microscopic needs. Heavy televisions became sleek and easy to install. I could even carry a computer in my arms.
The need for William grew with every passing day I counted, and then more after I gave up. I learned how to search the internet and for a long time refrained from entering his name with the keys at my fingertips.
The day I finally did I regretted it.
I hadn't known Mother was stopping by. She often did to make sure Olivia wasn't becoming the brazen young lady I turned out to be. I had known the fifteen year mark was arriving, and was curious about his chances for parole.
I sat at my mirror, making my face for Parker for when he came home. He always loved feeling special when I put an extra effort into my appearance. I had grown to love him as a friend over the years, wanting his happiness.
Olivia sat behind me, watching as always, as I tried to hide the faint lines appearing around my eyes.
When had I started to get old? If William did get released, would he still think I was beautiful? Would he still love me after seeing Olivia, the product of my betrayal to him?
I waited until Olivia left the room before opening Parker’s tiny laptop.
The web search pulled up and I slowly typed the name- William Hugh Chainbers. I had never been good with the keyboard and felt even older as I realized my daughter could type faster than me. I pecked at the keys like a confused chicken, wondering why the letters couldn't be in alphabetical order.
A shadow from behind me danced on the screen. I spun to find Mother glaring over my head at the words.
She didn't say anything. She left the house with the promise of a storm brewing behind her.
Days later I thought maybe she had let it go, seeing it as the innocent curiosity that it was. Mr. Stan, the butler of our home, and I sat together on the sofa in the den.
I saw his newspaper. The headline read 'Convict Days Away From Parole Stabbed.' I asked for it with shaking hands.
Mr. Stan gave me a worried look as he realized what I had seen. I didn't know if he recalled my story from years ago across the tops of similar articles or the stori
es on the news, but he seemed to understand my urgency.
I read the page with angst. It told of William being attacked in the prison. Because he had fought and one of his attackers was wounded, his hearing was pushed back another four years.
I ran for find my phone to call Mother. When her voice rang out and she heard my hysteria, neither of us understanding my words, she laughed maniacally.
I flung down the phone. The little slip of black and glass shattered. I raged through the house, grabbing the keys to my barely used car.
I didn't prepare for the trip. I didn't stop to think. I didn't even brush my hair. I jumped into the compact black vehicle and sped away, trying to get to my mother's throat as soon as possible.
Chapter 43- Hydrangea
As the tires screeched to a stop in front of her house a couple of hours later, I flung open the door. Hannah rushed down the front steps, trying to calm me.
I stormed past her, refusing to be stopped up to the third floor. The door to Mother’s study was open. She leaned back when she saw me. She had been expecting me.
She stood and walked around her desk, humor in her eyes I hadn’t seen for years.
“I thought we were past this.” My voice was stuck in the high screech of exasperation and grief. “Why would you do that to your own brother?”
Her mouth spread as if ready to bite. “I did it to protect my brother from you.”
“I simply wanted to know he was safe. You overreacted.” I couldn't imagine how she must have concluded that having him stabbed was a form of protection.
Her teeth grinded. I wanted to knock them out. Her face twisted in disgust. “This is your fault. If he had been freed you would have pulled him down again. You would have forced yourself on him again like a disease.”
“Yes, Mother,” I hissed, my voice vicious. She shifted as my body inflated with anger, “I forced myself onto him. I cast a curse on him to love me. I fucked him so good he couldn't help but gain a terrible, unhealthy addiction.”
Her knuckles slammed into my jaw.
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