Chapter Ten
Linden
Iwake up with hair stuck to my cheek and a stiff shoulder, confused because I’m curled up in my puffy egg chair in the living room. I hardly ever sit in this chair, let alone fall asleep in it. The last thing I remember is going outside last night to cry without Avery hearing me.
Her dad contacted me last night for the first time since we left him, and he got out of rehab. It wasn’t a pleasant call.
Turner was different four and a half years ago. He charmed the pants off of me. Literally.
We were only casually dating a few months when I found out I was pregnant with Avery. I was scared to death, but he promised everything would be okay and that it would all work out.
I walked the stage at my college graduation 12 weeks pregnant, and I cried the whole day.
Now, I wouldn’t change it for the world because I love my girl so much, but then, I was sure that my life was over.
“Avery, you up?” I call down the hallway even though I can already hear Barney playing from her toy room.
“Good morning, Mommy,” she sings, running out of the room with a muffin.
“Where did you get that?” She’s eaten half of it already, and I’m stunned. We don’t even have muffins in the house.
“Mr. Jack gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Earlier.” She munches into her muffin, dropping beige crumbs all over the floor.
What the hell is she talking about… With my blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I peek out the window towards Jack’s house, but I don’t have to look far. He’s in my driveway with my car jacked up, working under the hood.
“Stay inside, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“Kk.” She skips back to her playroom, and I tiptoe out the front door. It’s only 8 a.m. I am not awake enough for this.
“Uh, good morning,” I say groggily.
He wipes his hands on a rag before closing the hood. “The fuel pump got here about an hour ago. Should be all set now.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Jack, please. You’ve done more than enough for me. I can give you some money.”
“I don’t need your money, Linden.” He doesn’t look at me as he collects his tools, but I can tell something is off. He seems more distant than usual, which is odd because he is already the most distant person I’ve ever met.
“Um, okay. How about breakfast? As a thank you.”
“I already ate. I tapped on your back door earlier to get your keys because I thought you’d be up, but Avery answered and said you weren’t.”
Ah, that explains the muffin. And I need to remind her not to open the door for people.
“I feel like I owe you,” I admit.
“You don’t owe me a thing. You don’t owe anyone anything. Do yourself a favor, and take this chance to get away. Run from this place now that your car is working.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand, Jack.
I can’t. I don’t have anywhere to go. My parents’ house caught on fire a few years ago, and they live in a studio apartment now.
They’re on a fixed income because my dad is disabled.
They can’t help me. Besides, I can’t leave.
They won’t let me.” I shove my finger in the air, pointing to the house on the hill that looms over me and all of my decisions.
“They are exactly why you should go.”
“You don’t get it. No one gets it. I am stuck just like I always have been. Stuck growing up in a poverty. Stuck with a man I didn’t even love because I got pregnant. Stuck in this town because my in-laws threaten to take my daughter from me every time I breathe wrong.”
“They’ve threatened to take Avery from you?”
I scoff. “That’s the least of it. They have more money than God.
They convinced me to marry their son, and they swore they would take care of us, but the second that he went off the fucking deep end, they abandoned me.
They told me I was lying when their son came home drunk every night.
They ignored me when I begged them to get him help.
They dismissed all of his symptoms of mania and delusions that made him attack me countless times in my own home.
The one time I finally had the nerve to report him to the police, they got it swept under the rug before the charges were even drafted.
They can win any legal battle. They can turn any judge against me! ”
His jaw sets, and he rips his hat off of his head as if he might throw it, but he stops, stiffly righting it low on his forehead instead.
“I’m sorry,” he states deeply.
I use the blanket to swipe the tears from my cheeks that fall anytime I get this angry.
“They said if I go anywhere with Avery that they’d track me down and take her from me,” I admit more calmly.
“If I don’t let them visit with her at least twice a month, then they will sue me for custody.
I am doing my best, and if you cannot understand that, then I don’t care.
I appreciate that you fixed my car and have helped me out…
a few times now. But do not patronize me. There is no easy way out.”
He nods in understanding, and I wrap my blanket around my shoulders tighter.
“And your ex? Where is he?” He asks, staring off in the distance as if he can locate him with sheer will.
“He was in rehab for the past few months. A dual recovery program for substance abuse and mental health. Avery asks about him sometimes, but he doesn’t care about her like he should. Like she deserves. He only does what his mother tells him.”
“He laid his hands on you?” His voice is so low and menacing; it unnerves me, making my stomach twist in a knot.
When his eyes flick to mine, I swallow thickly before I can respond. “Doesn’t matter. He never hurt Avery, and we got out.”
“It. Matters.” His hard gaze doesn’t waver with his statement.
For a moment, I’m sucked into a vortex. I’m looking into a different dimension where a world exists that I can finally feel safe in.
One that I don’t have to deal with everything alone.
But that reality doesn’t exist. It never has.
“Well… Thank you for saying that,” I utter. “But please just drop it. I can’t dwell on things outside of my control. All I can do is take it day by day for my daughter’s sake. We’ll be free eventually. I have hope.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I take that as my cue that this conversation is over. But just before I walk back inside, he says something that stops me.
“You will be free, Linden. You both will.”
* * *
Four years ago…
“Are you sure we should do this?” I stop Turner before he opens the door to the courtroom.
“Of course, we should, Linden. We’re going to be a family. I want our baby to know that her parents brought her into this world as husband and wife.” He smiles gently at me, and it eases some of the tension in my shoulders.
I’ve always thought he was so handsome even though he wasn’t necessarily my type. I never went for the preppy boys, but he bumped into me at a college bar, and I couldn’t shake his attention.
He seemed interested in getting to know me, and I really liked being pursued.
Now, I’m halfway through my third trimester already, and my white knee-length dress barely zipped up. Luckily, I haven’t had any swelling, so I could still wear my favorite shoes. Baby blue suede heels that I splurged on to walk at graduation a few months ago.
“This is all just happening so fast. I don’t want you to wake up one day and feel like you made a mistake.” I don’t want to feel that way either.
“No, it’ll be fine. This way you can officially be a Scott, and you won’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll take care of everything. Hospital bills, a house. We’re going to do this thing together.”
The thought of being pregnant with a real-life baby is terrifying, but the thought of doing it alone is even scarier.
“Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.” I give him my best confident smile, but it doesn’t go far. I’ve already given up the job I had lined up after I graduated, and now I’m putting all of my faith in a boy I only met a few months ago.
We walk into the courtroom, and the only other people in here are the judge, the clerk, and his parents.
Of course, my parents couldn’t come. My dad can’t travel in his condition. The workplace accident that took his legs is the only reason I could afford to go to college, and now I’m knocked up and putting my entire life on pause.
I’m sorry, Dad…
“Are we exchanging vows?” The judge asks, and I shake my head rapidly in response.
I can feel Turner’s parents looking down at me.
They didn’t meet me until we already knew I was pregnant, and they did not take kindly to the news.
They barely reacted. You would have thought it was a cancer diagnosis with how clinically they responded.
Asking about my prenatal care, my family’s health history.
I think they hated that I didn’t come from money. They rolled their eyes when I told them I wanted to be a teacher.
They went into crisis mode immediately. I’m pretty sure this wedding was their idea.
I wish my mom was here.
I need my mom…
“Linden?”
“I’m sorry, what?” I blink towards the judge.
“Do you take Turner to be your husband?”
“Yes. I do.”
There are no rings. I told him that I was too afraid my fingers might swell. I also don’t think I’m ready for that type of broadcasting for our situation.
“Then I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Turner leans in and gives me a gentle, modest peck on the lips. Luckily, that means he probably couldn’t feel them quivering.
I’m officially a Scott.
* * *
Present…
A harpist is playing in the corner, and I’d be fine standing here in her proximity all evening. This dinner party is more quaint than the backyard soirée they had last month, but it is still much the same.
The room is filled with people that I don’t know, and Avery is being paraded around by her grandparents like a contracted beauty pageant queen. I hate it, but at least this time she’s remained in my line of sight.
“My son says that you haven’t been answering his calls,” Merrill says from beside me suddenly. She does this thing where she only confronts me about things in the middle of social gatherings because she knows I’m too kind to cause a scene.
“Of course, I haven’t. All he’s done is harass me.”
She tsks. “I doubt that.”
“Shocker.”
“He is entitled to see his child.”
“That’s odd because he hasn’t mentioned Avery once.”
“Why would he? He knows you’ll keep her from him.”
“Keep her from him? He did that on his own, and you know it.”
She looks over my shoulder, smirking proudly. “Well, that won’t be a problem now.”
I glance back to what she is seeing, and my body goes cold. Turner is standing in the foyer, scanning his eyes over the party.
“How dare you?” The hurt overpowers the anger in my heart. They might deny it, but they know what he’s put me through, and they continue to torture me.
I never expected them to love me like family, but not even getting the simplest amount of human decency has destroyed my self-esteem time and time again.
Why am I not enough to be cared about by anyone?