Chapter 3 #2
I know I have to tell him eventually. My son deserves to know what happened.
I decide to give him the kid-friendly version of the truth.
So, I leave out the part where his father held his mother by the throat in a parking lot, shaking her and screaming at her that she belonged to him.
A stranger called the police on my behalf.
“To be honest, your father made some bad choices. Choices that mean he can’t be in our lives,” I explain. “He wasn’t safe to be around us. So, I did what I had to do in order to keep us safe.”
He accepts my explanation at face value, the way he does everything. In his world, there is no reason for his mother to lie to him. He doesn’t yet understand the difference between lying and withholding information for his own good. I worry about what will happen the day he makes that discovery.
Aunt Carol stands silently in the doorway until we hear his door shut upstairs. She walks into the kitchen and pours herself a cup of coffee. Leaning against the sink, she looks at me with a critical eye.
“You might as well say what’s on your mind,” I tell her.
“You are going to have to give that boy a fuller understanding of what went on with his father. You know that, right?”
“He’s too young,” I say, shaking my head.
“He’s nine. That’s old enough to begin to understand,” she shoots back.
“I don’t know. My gut feeling tells me to wait.”
“Kids fill in the information that is missing. Right now, he is filling it with military heroes, which his father is not.”
“How can I tell him his father is in jail for trying to kill me? Maybe it’s better that he just makes his own theories up,” I tell her.
I check on Noah an hour later and he’s reading. And when I check in later I find him asleep at his regular time and I shut the door softly behind me.
Aunt Carol and I try to unwind because it’s been a stressful day.
But my phone buzzes on the table between us.
I glance over, wondering who it could be.
The banner across the top is gray and stamped with an official seal.
I zoom in, and freeze, staring at the message, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
It’s a message from the state’s victim notification service, alerting me that my ex has been granted early release for good behavior.
I read the alert over again, trying to get my head around how this could happen.
Offender: Dylan Everett.
Status change: Released, two years early on good behavior.
I thought I had two years to prepare Noah for this.
My aunt stops reading her book and asks in a troubled tone, “What happened, Linsey? Did someone die?”
I struggle to find a way to deliver the bad news, but I begin tearing up.
“Linsey. What is it, honey? No matter what it is, we’ll face it together.”
I hand her the phone, with one hand over my mouth. I can’t stand to say it out loud. She reads through all the information, before removing her reading glasses.
I shake my head. “Can you believe it? They’re releasing him two years early for good behavior.”
Aunt Carol sets the phone face down between us and reaches across the table and puts her hand over both of mine.
“Look honey, he doesn’t know where you are,” she reminds me.
Nodding, I agree with her. “You’re right. I had zero contact with him over the years. He’s never known where we live, had a phone number, email, or anything like that.”
“What about your parents?”
“I never told them I went to you. Even now I can’t believe that they sided with Dylan and told me I needed to pray harder and be a better person. Saying that I must have caused him to attack me, and that true Christians give second chances.”
I can hear the bitterness in my tone. “I knew that if they ever found out where we were, they’d tell him or his family.”
Aunt Carol nods. “My brother’s never been right in the head.
He told me I was on Satan’s list because I went out dancing.
After our father died he took his role as head of the family seriously.
I couldn’t stand living in that community any longer, so I left.
” She pauses. “I don’t know how Dorothy put up with him. ”
I see the pain on my aunt’s face. Aunt Dorothy was her sister. She died a month ago, and Aunt Carol was devastated that she couldn’t go to the funeral. I reach out and touch her hand. “Aunt Dorothy would have understood.”
“I hate to think what might happen if Dylan found out about Noah,” Aunt Carol says.
“The last time I spoke to him was before the trial when I said I never wanted to see him again. I told him I had a miscarriage because of the stress. I wanted to cut off all ties with him.”
“I’m worried that he might hire someone to track you down. Men like him are controlling and possessive.”
“He’s a felon on parole. He’ll want to establish a new life for himself. Probably find himself a good church-going girl who won’t speak back to him.”
“We still need to keep our eyes open,” she says.
“I agree. The past ten years have been good. I don’t want to have to look behind my back all the time. Noah’s father can never know he exists.”
Aunt Carol squeezes my hands once, hard, and lets them go. She goes to the freezer without asking and pulls the good bourbon out from behind the ice cream where I keep it for exactly this kind of emergency. She pours a finger of it into what’s left of my coffee.
“Drink that and steady your nerves.”
“What exactly can we do?” I ask, sipping the strong alcohol she gave me. It burns going down but I don’t care. I need something to steady my nerves.
“We don’t need to do anything tonight,” she says. “We’ll eventually need to look into getting a restraining order if we see any indication that he’s trying to track you down. We’ll retain a lawyer and get better security. Right now, we’ve got time to think through how to handle this situation.”
“No matter what it takes, I don’t want him anywhere near Noah.”