Page 158 of Mistaken Intention

“So you kept seeing him?” Hunter asks.

“Yes, three or four times a week. Sometimes even more than that… until I realized my period was late.”

“You were pregnant?” Drew says and his mom nods, just once.

“With me?” Hunter tilts his head.

“Yes.”

“How old were you then?”

“Sixteen. Just. I’d had my birthday five days before I found out I was pregnant.” There’s a collective gasp and Lindsay looks down at the floor, her cheeks flushing.

“What did you do?” Livia asks, resting her hand on her slightly swollen belly.

“I told Theodore.” Lindsay looks up again, taking another deep breath. “I’d waited until we got to his house, thinking we could sit and talk, but all he did pace the floor. After about half an hour, he drove me home again, making me promise not to tell a soul. I didn’t see him for a few days, but when I did, he proposed. He’d bought a ring, and everything… which I stupidly thought must have meant he really loved me.”

“So, you accepted?” Hunter says.

“Yes. And we were married within weeks. Not long afterwards, my mom died. She’d been sick for some time and, while my parents had been surprised – even shocked – by mydecision to marry Theodore when I was so young, I think they thought we were rushing our wedding plans so she could see me walk down the aisle. My father was devastated by her loss, and believing me to be happy and safe with Theodore, he went to stay with his family in North Carolina, and eventually he moved back there, which suited Theodore perfectly, because it meant he was no longer under any kind of scrutiny. He persuaded me it was in my best interests to drop out of school, making sure I lost contact with all my friends, and because there was no-one to contradict him, he could say anything he liked about me to anyone who asked. So, he told his friends and colleagues I was twenty, not sixteen, and that we’d known each other for years before marrying. I didn’t know he was doing any of that at the time. As far as I was concerned, we were perfectly happy together. His hours were long, but that was to be expected when he was building his business. He was doing very well for himself, too. He bought us this house,” she says, looking around and sighing. “I loved living here, even if it meant we only saw each other at weekends. He stayed in the city during the week, but I didn’t mind. I had so much fun decorating all the rooms and getting ready for our new baby.” She glances at Hunter with a loving smile and, although he’s clearly struggling, he smiles back. “Everything was going so well, or at least, I thought it was… until I was about seven months pregnant.”

“What happened?” Hunter asks.

She bites on her bottom lip again and sighs. “Your father used to come home on Friday evenings, and I’d always go to the grocery store in the afternoon to get in some supplies. I got held up for some reason. I think there was an accident, or something… anyway, by the time I came back, he was already here. His car was parked out front, and I let myself in, calling out that I was home. He didn’t reply, so I went through to thekitchen, and dropped all the groceries on the floor when I saw him having sex with another woman up against the wall.”

“Asshole.” Drew’s whisper is so quiet, I’m fairly sure I’m the only one who heard him, and I lean in to him as he hugs me closer.

“He brought a woman here?” Ella says, speaking for the first time since Lindsay started her story.

“Yes. It was a deliberate act on his part. He wanted me to find them like that… to know what he was doing. She was tall, slim, probably in her early twenties. Her underwear was… quite sophisticated. He kept his arm around her while he told me he didn’t want to sleep with me anymore. I was too fat, evidently, and he’d brought Bridget with him to keep him amused over the weekend.”

“Are you kidding me?” Drew sits forward, looking over at his mom. “He brought his lover into your home and expected you to accept it?”

“Yes.” She looks up at him. “He gave her directions to one of the guest rooms and told her he’d join her in a minute, and then she left, picking up her clothes from the floor. Once we were alone, he told me he’d been seeing her for a couple of months.” Her voice falters. “He told me she understood his needs, like I never could… because she was a real woman, not a little girl. I reminded him I wasn’t a little girl, I was his wife… and I was expecting his child, and he hit me with the back of his hand, right across my cheek.”

She touches her fingers to the side of her face just as Hunter shoots to his feet and Drew follows, the two of them staring down at their mom. I raise my hand, putting it into Drew’s, and he gives me a gentle squeeze.

“I know you’re gonna ask why I didn’t leave?” she says, looking up at them.

“No, I wasn’t gonna say that at all,” Hunter replies, glancing at Drew.

“Neither was I.”

Lindsay seems to deflate with relief. “I thought about it,” she says, defensively. “But I had nowhere to go, and no money of my own. Theodore had seen to that. My father was still recovering from Mom’s death, and I didn’t feel I could burden him with my problems. So, I buried my head in the sand and pretended it wasn’t happening.” She focuses on Hunter. “I went into labor three weeks early, which I guess wasn’t surprising under the circumstances. It was a Wednesday, so Theodore was in the city, and when someone at the hospital called to tell him what was happening, he said he couldn’t get away.”

“So you gave birth alone?” Ella asks, the experience of labor still fresh in her mind, I guess.

“Yes. Theodore arrived at the weekend, as usual.”

“Did he come alone?” Drew asks through gritted teeth and their mom shakes her head. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. He brought Bridget with him. She’d been a regular visitor ever since that first time, but after Hunter was born, I told him I’d had enough. We had a baby, and I wasn’t willing to tolerate having his lover in the house any longer.”

“What did he do?” Ella asks, her voice little more than a whisper, her face as white as snow.

“He stopped coming here altogether, although he made it clear he wouldn’t be faithful. He’d gotten a taste for other women, he said, and Bridget had introduced him to a friend of hers. It seemed she liked to share…” Her voice fades and her cheeks flush slightly. “He liked that too, evidently, and told me I could never hope to satisfy him again… so there wasn’t much point in trying. He slammed out after that and we barely saw each other. To be honest, I didn’t mind in the slightest. I had you…” She turns to Hunter. “And I didn’t need anything else.”

“You were sixteen,” he says, frowning and shaking his head.

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