I nodded, thankful he could see it.
“But I was determined to make it work. To be the loving glue that kept our family together the way my mom had been. Chloe was in the wind, and my brothers were kids. So I bent over backward trying to be perfect. To please everyone and be the best at everything.
“Got a full scholarship to U Maine. Got my bachelor’s in three years and went straight into earning a master’s in elementary education.”
“Impressive.”
“But after college, Dad expected me to move back home. To Heartsborough, Maine. The town has been struggling for years, and opportunities are limited. The idea wasn’t appealing. But Donny was there. His dad owned the last surviving privately owned sawmill in Maine. Our fathers did a ton of business together, and their family was a big deal.”
“And Donny? Did you fall for him?”
I laughed. No. I absolutely didn’t. I was naïve and flattered by his attention, nothing more. “I was twenty-two. My brain was not fully developed,” I explained. “He swept me off my feet, and before I knew it, I was planning a wedding. It made my dad so happy that I was marrying Donny. And at the time, I believed he was a good man. He was funny and kind and he looked at me like I was a prize.”
“You are a prize,” he growled, his lips brushing my bare shoulder.
“Then I had three kids by the time I was thirty. I gave up teaching because working full time while raising my babies almost completely alone wasn’t easy. And that was before Donny’s constant criticism. I never did enough around the house. He wanted me to be a full-time nanny and maid and somehow magically make six figures at the same time.”
“What an asshole.”
I shrugged. Stupidly, I thought it was mostly reasonable. “I never fought back or questioned him. My kids gave me a purpose. A place to put all the love I’d been storing up since my mom died. But marriage…” I closed my eyes and dug deep for the little strength I had left after this long day.
Only a few people knew this story, and while I’d told itto police and lawyers and therapists, getting the words out was still a challenge.
“Marriage to Donny was the price I had to pay for my kids. He’d rage and scream at me. Nitpick and criticize incessantly. I was always walking on eggshells, and at some point, I decided that I must have been a fuck-up who did everything wrong.”
Amazingly, I wasn’t crying, and saying it out loud made me feel lighter.
“I chafe every time I hear the word lazy. It sends me into a spiral. Because he called me lazy every day.”
“You? Lazy that is literally the last word I would ever use to describe you.”
“Logically, I know I’m not,” I said. “My therapist had me keep a list of my accomplishments on my phone and look at it every day for a year. I’ve done the work, but when someone so young and vulnerable is manipulated the way I was, the negative self-talk and self-image are hard to shake. Year after year, things got worse. He drank more. Stayed out all night more often. Got angrier about little things. Started taking it out on the kids. And then things escalated.”
A low rumble worked its way up his chest. “What did he do?”
“He’d push me once in a while. Shove me. Shake me sometimes. With the girls, it was mostly just moving them out of the way a little too aggressively or yelling. It didn’t take them long to figure out that they were better off out of sight of him. But Julian was so little.” Emotion welled up inside me, making my eyes water. “And he was struggling so badly. We didn’t get the diagnosis until he was four and a half. Before that, I didn’t know how to help him. And then?—”
The words clogged in my throat. The tears were streaming down my cheeks in earnest. I could heal from a lot of this, and logically, I knew it wasn’t my fault. But I would never forgive myself for letting it go so far.
“Donny hit him. Smacked him in the head because he was acting ‘weird.’”
Josh’s body went rigid, his usually kind eyes murderous. “What the fuck?”
“That’s when a switch flipped inside me. I started fighting back. But that just made him madder. I told him to get out. I threw things at him and threatened to call the police.”
“Good for you.”
“No.” I could see that day so clearly, and each time the memories came to me, it was like being stabbed in the heart. “It wasn’t. I should have left the house with the kids and gotten a restraining order. Instead I was a massive, naïve idiot.”
“Celine. You can’t blame your?—”
“He came back angrier,” I interrupted. “Showed up at the house, dragged the kids out of bed. Threw Julian down the stairs and then—” A sob got caught in my throat, my entire body shaking.
“He tried to strangle me,” I whispered. “He had his hands around my neck. Left terrible bruises.”
His face crumpled. “Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
“Ellie hit him with her hockey stick, and when he let go of me, she and I rushed to the bathroom, where Maggie was already holding Julian tight. I called my sister, and she’s the one who had to tell me to call the police.”
