Page 159 of Mistaken Intention

“I know. I grew up quickly.”

A momentary silence descends while we all take in Lindsay’s story, and I tug on Drew’s hand, getting him to sit back down again. Hunter follows suit, putting his arm around Livia and kissing her forehead. I think he’s more shocked than the rest of us, although Ella’s leaning on Mac, too.

“If it’s not a stupid and insensitive question,” Drew says, leaning forward to look at his mom, “how was I conceived?”

Ella glances at him, and then looks at her mom. “Me too.”

I notice a frown crossing Hunter’s face, and he turns to Ella, his eyes filled with concern. I’m not sure what that means, and no-one else seems to have noticed his discomfort. They’re all looking at Lindsay.

She turns, focusing on Drew. “As Hunter got older, your father spent a little more time here. He’d maybe come back once every six weeks or so, I guess… something like that.”

“What about birthdays and Christmas… and Thanksgiving?” Ella asks.

“He missed a lot of birthdays,” Hunter says, answering for his mom. “Even I remember that.”

Lindsay smiles. “I still tried to make them special,” she says, and Hunter nods in acknowledgement. “As for Thanksgiving and Christmas, he’d often work right through them. At least, that was what he told me he was doing, and I didn’t care enough to question him. That was why I was so surprised when he came home the week before Christmas… completely out of the blue. He arrived late in the afternoon, in a foul mood. I’m not sure why, but everything I did was wrong. He hated the Christmas tree, and criticized everything I’d done around the house, the way I’d wrapped the presents, and every meal I cooked. He clearly didn’t want to be here, and after a couple of days, I’d had enough and I answered back.” She stops talking and takesa breath. “A—Afterwards, when I was lying on the kitchen floor, crying in pain and shock, I asked him why he’d r—raped me, and he laughed and told me it wasn’t rape. It couldn’t be rape, he said, because we were married. But I knew that was wrong. I’d been pushing him away, screaming at him to stop, and he hadn’t. He’d forced… he’d…” A slight sob leaves her lips and the man beside her puts his arm around her shoulders.

“Do you want to take a break, Lin?”

“No,” she says through her tears. “I want to get this over with.”

“You mean there’s more?” Drew’s voice is a shocked whisper and his mom nods her head, looking over at Ella.

“Was it the same with me?” she says, staring at her mother. “Because if it was, I don’t want to put you through having to tell it.”

Lindsay shakes her head. “It wasn’t the same… not exactly.” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Your father was seeing Doreen by then.”

“Doreen?” Ella says, sounding surprised.

“Yes. I’d known about their affair since the moment it started.”

“How?” Hunter asks.

“He fell in love with her,” she says simply.

“Um… who’s Doreen?” I ask, and Drew turns to face me.

“She was our father’s secretary while he was alive, and for a while, she was Hunter’s too… until she left, and he hired Livia.”

I nod my head, and he smiles, returning his gaze to his mom. “Your father and Doreen might have worked together for years, but after her husband’s death, everything changed between them, and finding love changed him. It was too noticeable to miss. He still hardly ever came home, but when he did, he was calmer, easier to deal with.”

“So you got along better?” Drew asks.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but we tolerated each other more easily… at least until that night…”

“What night?” Ella sits forward, as though she knows the next part of the story is going to be about her.

“The night you were conceived, Theodore came back from a function he’d attended with Doreen. She never used to let him stay the night because she had a young child, and although I know it used to make him angry, it never used to bother me, because he stayed in the city. On that night, though, he brought his resentment back here. It was late by the time the taxi dropped him off, and I was asleep in bed, although he still came barging into my room, cradling a bottle of whiskey. He sat at the end of my bed, swaying and drinking, still wearing his tux, as he bemoaned his lot.” She pauses for a second. “H—He wasn’t violent that time… just drunk and fumbling. To be honest, I think he thought I was Doreen, and while it was unpleasant, it was nowhere near as frightening as the previous time. The next morning, when he woke up and found me beside him, he was horrified by what he’d done.”

“More so than when he’d raped you?” Hunter says.

She looks over at him. “Of course. In his eyes, there was nothing wrong with what he’d done before. This time, he’d betrayed Doreen, and he jumped out of bed, staring at me and saying, ‘What have I done?’. He was terrified she’d find out, which of course she did, when I discovered I was pregnant… again. Theodore had no choice other than to tell her, although I know he was scared she’d leave him. She did, I think… or maybe she just threatened to. I can’t remember now…” Her voice fades and she sits back slightly, looking up at Drew, then at Ella, and finally at Hunter.

“If what she told me is true, she left him,” he says. “She resigned from the company and told him she wanted nothing more to do with him.”

The room falls silent, and everyone slowly turns and looks at Hunter. It’s Ella who speaks first.

“Y—You mean you knew about this?”

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