They're my good, kind boys.
They are impressionable.
They arewatchingus.
They have fantastic outward influences in their grandparents, Aunt Taylor, Uncle Silas, and Uncle Trace, Noah’s art teacher and Liam’s basketball coach, Trey.
But inside our home, with me, they are absorbing everything—the silences, their father missing dinners and Liam’s basketball games. They listen halfheartedly to every apology I make for their father's absence.
Am I showing them how they should treat their future partners by allowing this marriage to continue?
Am I showing them how to treat the person they love?
Am I demonstrating what love looks like?
Even worse, am I showing them how they should expect to be treated?
They deserve betterparentsthan this version of us. I'm holding on to the rope tightly, calling for help, but no one is pulling me up.
No one is trying to save me.
And maybe that's the truth I've been avoiding all along: no one will save me,I can only save myself.
It's a terrifying thought, because there's always been someone catching me as I fall.
I had just turned eighteen when I saw those two pink lines.Atlas and I had no real plan beyondus together forever.
After the Walmart incident, I started living with the Durants. My mama told Diane I wasn't allowed back in her house, and Diane had said that was just fine, because she wasn't letting me set foot in that house again. She sent Atlas and Emmett to pack up all my belongings.
That night, all four of us made a plan. Atlas and I said that we considered abortion and adoption, but we would be keeping the baby, and we were getting married.
Atlas would still go on to attend technical school to earn his mechanics certification, then work from the ground up at one of his dad's garages.
I was going to attend the local community college to get my bookkeeping certification.
I was always good at quick math and did the books for the owner at the ice cream parlor I worked at since I was fifteen. I finished my certification when I was about seven months pregnant, and worked at the auto shop for a month before Liam decided to make his early appearance.
God, we were so young.
I was terrified throughout my pregnancy—of turning into my mother and failing this little boy and my husband, of not measuring up to Diane as a mother.
But I wanted that baby so badly it hurt. He was half Atlas—the boy I'd loved longer than I knew what love was—and half me.
A physical manifestation of how much we loved each other.
"He's so lucky, baby," Atlas whispers in my ear, standing behind me and caressing my six-month pregnant belly. Ever since I started showing, Atlas couldn't keep his hands off my bump.
Our son kicks hard at his hand, and he barks a laugh, "See, he knows. He has the best Mama in the world."
Tears sting at the memories. Nobody had ever called me the best anything before Atlas.
With my mother, it was disappointments and reprimands for not being good enough, not measuring up to her standards.My father was no help and told me to mind my mother, that she just wants the best for me and that’s to be the best.
With Atlas, I was the best because I was Wendy.
He would always call me the best girlfriend, the best wife, the best mother.
Where did that man go?
