Page 49 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
“You know I don’t like it when you lie to me,” Colin says, a whispered hiss that rings sour in her ear.
She feels his warm breath against her skin, and she squeezes her eyes shut, wishing she were somewhere else, anywhere but here. Her mind takes her, unbidden, to the first time Colin hurt her. Sebastian was so young then. He wasn’t sleeping through the night and Georgina felt as though she might die from the exhaustion. She wished she had the kind of mother who would fly up to New York to help her, to teach her how to do this. She wished that she hadanyonewho could help her. She loved her son, but she didn’t know how to do this. She didn’t know how to cope with the unexpected depression that haunted her after his birth. Weren’t new mothers meant to be blissfully in love, humming lullabies in rosy nurseries as they rocked chubby infants in their arms? What was wrong with Georgina that she always felt like she wanted to cry? That there were days where she couldn’t even find the strength to shower? That when Sebastian would squall and scream for hours, she didn’t have the motherly instincts to know how to soothe him? She felt like she was lost in it, drowning in the isolated gray days that stretched into long, sleepless nights.
Colin had been of little help. He was in the running for junior partnership at his firm that year, and he’d essentially been living at the office. Georgina could tell how stressed he was. She could feel him changing—the way he’d snap at her over the smallest things, the way he’d come home from work and drop his briefcase at the door and immediately trudge upstairs, hardly stopping toacknowledge Georgina or the crying baby on her hip. Georgina knew Colin’s job was a demanding one, but she’d needed his help. Couldn’t he see that she needed him? Couldn’t he see how lonely she was?
Georgina remembers the night it all changed, the night she realized just how alone she really was. Sebastian had woken in the dark, early hours of the morning and Georgina could hear him crying, that high-pitched scream that seemed to punctuate her every moment. She cringed. She knew she should go to him, but she was so tired. So very tired. When was the last time she’d slept through the night? Maybe she’d feel better, more like herself again, if she could justsleep.She rolled over, pulling her pillow over her head, blocking out the noise.
Colin grabbed her shoulder, shaking her awake. “The baby is crying.”
“Huh?” Georgina pulled the pillow away. She must have managed to doze off.
“The baby. He’s crying,” Colin repeated, irritated now. “Don’t you hear him?”
“I need to sleep, Colin,” she insisted. “I’m tired all of the time and—”
“Ineed to sleep,” he barked. “You’re tired? You’re home all day long!Ihave a client meeting in the morning, and I can’t be up listening to this all night!”
“So go put him back to sleep!” She rolled over, indignant. Sebastian was Colin’s son too.Hecould get up with him for once.
Colin yanked the comforter off Georgina’s body, and the rush of cool air pimpled her skin. “What kind of mother are you? You’re just going to sleep while your baby cries for you?”
Georgina sat up, her eyes flashing with anger as she glowered at her husband in the dark. “Maybe I am!”
Suddenly his open palm collided with her cheek. He’dhither. Colin hadhither. They both sat there in the dark, stunned into silence for a moment while the realization washed over her.
“I’m…oh God, Georgina, I’m so sorry.” He pulled her to his chest.
Georgina sat rigidly in his arms, trying to make sense of what hadjust happened. This wasn’t Colin. Sure, he could be moody at times, but he’d never been violent before. He wasn’t a monster. He was Colin, the man she loved, the man everyone was always telling her she was so lucky to have. And shewaslucky…wasn’t she?
Colin cried, his warm tears soaking through the thin cotton of her nightgown, and the feeling of it on her skin brought her out of the state of shock she’d been in.
She wrapped her arms around him, consoling him, though she wasn’t sure why.
“I’ve just been so stressed at work,” he said, sobbing. “And with the baby waking us up every night, I—I don’t know what came over me. I’m not that person, Georgina. Please tell me you know I’m not that person.”
He looked at her, his eyes glittering with tears, silently pleading with her to forgive him. Georgina had never seen Colin like this before, vulnerable, afraid. He was giving her a rare glimpse of who he was behind the strong facade he always maintained.
“I know,” she said, her hand rubbing circles on his back.
“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, his voice cracking with remorse.
“We’re going to be okay,” she said, as if speaking it aloud could will it into truth. What Colin did…it had been an accident. They were both sleep-deprived, dealing with the stress of being new parents. She knew her husband—he wasn’t a bad person. He’d just made a mistake.
Georgina silenced the little voice in the back of her head that told her that this wasn’t normal. That mistakes like those should never happen. What would she do if that voice was right? If she’d made a mistake in giving up everything to marry Colin?
She listened to the sound of her infant son’s plaintive cries. He needed her. And she couldn’t do this on her own. Most of the time she felt like she could hardly make it through the day, so how was she supposed to start over? How would she provide for her son with no career, no support, no one she could turn to? She couldn’t. She had to believe that Colin was telling her the truth, that it would never happen again.
“I’m going to make this right,” Colin swore, clinging toGeorgina’s arm as she got up to tend to their son, and she’d wanted more than anything to believe him.
The next day, he came home with a gold necklace.
“Get undressed,” he demands now. No sign of the remorse he once felt at the pain he caused her. It seemed to get easier for him over time, his outbursts more frequent, his apologies less sincere until eventually they’d stopped altogether.
Georgina complies, her eyes avoiding his, her face burning with shame as she unbuttons her blouse, lets her skirt drop to the floor. She can’t look at her husband, doesn’t want to see how much he’s come to take pleasure in her shame.
Georgina wonders whether something happened with his latest mistress. It’s been so long since Colin looked at her in this way. Yes, Georgina knows about Colin’s many affairs. But they’re of no consequence to her. It was only a matter of time before whoever this person was saw his true colors. And good for her for getting away while she could. Georgina is just biding her time until she can do the same.
She’d tried leaving him once before. It was after Christina was born, when she realized she couldn’t blame the stress of Colin’s job for the darkness in him. He hadn’t laid a hand on her in almost a year, since before she’d gotten pregnant for the second time, and that was just long enough to allow her to convince herself that it wouldn’t happen again. Until it did. She can’t recall now what pushed him over the edge that day, why he’d struck her in their kitchen while Christina napped in her crib and Sebastian played on the floor of the living room, pushing metal cars across the carpet. But she remembers the way he’d looked at her afterward, the way she no longer saw guilt in his eyes but disgust. She remembers the way Sebastian had stopped playing, the way he looked, curiously, at his mother, as if waiting for her to show him how to react. She’d smiled at Sebastian, assured him that Mommy was okay, that he should go back to his cars, but she knew then that she’d have to leave.
