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“Her name is Meghan.” He spat the word out like a curse. “We met in my senior year of high school, back in Texas. She was a transfer. All the boys wanted to be with her — she was blonde, blue eyed. Gorgeous. Looked like, well, like Henry.”
“She sounds pretty,” I murmured, trying not to let my disappointment be too evident.
“On the outside, sure. We fell hard and fast. She didn’t have any friends, so I broke it off with all of mine so that we could be lonely together. My grades started to decline, I got distracted. It was me and Meghan — nothing and nobody else. The day after we graduated high school, we went down to the local courthouse and got hitched.”
I whistled. “So you were eighteen?”
“Yup. Looking back, it was insane, but that wasn’t so unusual for my neck of the woods. You got married young, you left school and worked at the local plant, you popped out babies, you bought houses. Life happened at an earlier age.”
I listened, nodding every few words or so, understanding why Carter had been so quiet.
“We were about a week into our marriage when I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. We’d never lived together before — we’d been in high school — but our parents had pooled some money, helped us get a little house. A starter place, you know. Living with Meghan changed things. Or rather, it changed me. I was finally able to see that she wasn’t a balanced young woman. But by then, it was too late. She was angry. She was controlling. She was manipulative.”
Carter was looking straight ahead, focused on the road.
“Again, where I come from, things are different. You don’t get a divorce unless… well, unless nothing. You don’t get ‘em. We were stuck together, just two people who hated one another, doomed to this loveless marriage for the rest of eternity.”
My mouth pulled back into a grimace. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah.” His gaze was a mile long and a lifetime wide.
“So…” I chose my next words carefully, hoping I wouldn’t live to regret the question. “So you’re… you’re still married?”
He choked out a strangled laugh.
“I don’t understand, Carter.”
“Well, Meghan wasn’t just dissatisfied with our marriage. She was dissatisfied with life. She was often at the lowest of lows, but within the flick of a switch, could get to the highest of highs. She wasn’t evil because she was mentally ill. She was a cruel, bitter woman who also happened to have a messed-up brain. It was a perfect storm.”
He smiled weakly, cleared his throat and continued.
“Meghan made me wash all the dishes. It was just easier to do as she said than to spend all night fighting over the hows and whys, then I watched her smash them on the floor one by one. She would lock me out of the house because she needed ‘alone time,’ and that alone time would stretch on for weeks. Once, she accused me of sleeping with another girl, then tried to take a hot poker to my — um, my unmentionable areas, and, y’know, brand them.”
“Carter… Jesus.” I shook my head, restraining tears. It was all coming together. “I’m so sorry.”
“She believed both that she deserved to die, and that she was a god, absolutely invincible. And then along came Henry.”
I sucked in a breath. Somehow, in this whole story, I’d forgotten that a woman like this was giving birth to a child, especially one as sweet as Henry.
“But Henry’s so…”
“Yeah, he takes after me in personality.” This thought made Carter smile, though that evaporated as he moved on in the story.
“Henry was about one month old, and let me tell you, when he came into my life, he brought more sunshine than I could’ve ever imagined. It was like my world lit up. He even blotted out Meghan’s shadows. Henry was so small, so precious, so joyful. The moment he was born, I knew I’d devote the rest of my life to keeping him safe and happy. It’s that fast, becoming a parent. Even when you’re tired and cranky and stressed, you look at your kid and you just know that they are, without question, the most important thing ever to walk the planet.”
“That’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“It’s just true. Anyhow, when Henry came, I knew that if I couldn’t leave the marriage for myself, I’d leave it for him. He deserved better. My son deserved better.”
Emotion pinched Carter’s words tight, locking his jaw. I’d dropped my hand from his shoulder as he’d begun the story, but now, I gave his arm another squeeze.
“I’m okay. Feels good to say something,” he murmured in a low voice, before continuing. “In retrospect, I should’ve thought it through a little more, figured out a better game plan. But I just wanted to leave, and leave immediately. So I told Meghan one night — not even a special night, just one I picked at random — that I was leaving and taking Henry. I told her that she could have the house, which I’d saved for my whole life, if she would just let us go in peace.”
