“When I got the autopsy report, it read: no evidence she had a child. That was hard. When people tell me she loved me, she just didn’t know how to show it, I think back. ’There was no evidence at the scene that suggested she had children.’”
‘I was called into the office. My mom was there, waiting to pick me up. ‘We are leaving your dad,’ she said as we walked to the car. I loved him so much, and I was heartbroken.’
‘It’s the heart! Something is wrong with our baby’s heart’ The kicking and screaming slowly stopped and he was limp and asleep.
“We hugged and kissed and told SJ how much we love him. He was emotional this time. He cried and cried saying no more pokies mommy. I want to go home. With each tear that fell from his eyes my heart was crushed a little more.”
‘I bumped into an old childhood friend. ‘What have you been up to?’ ‘I’m in rehab.’ I laughed, thinking it was a joke. Soon after, I asked him to meet me. I warned him about my appearance.’
“‘I don’t look the same as when you last saw me. I’m not doing too well,’ I said. My face was a mess. I had cuts and blood in my nostrils. In that coffee shop, I sat across from him crying. I was scared of telling anyone.”
‘There was a catch. This boy was technically a man. At 20-years-old, our sexual relationship was illegal. After hiding our meetups, I came home to find a police officer on my couch.’
“My first true love went to jail, and I became a small-town girl with an over-sexualized reputation. Teachers hit on me. Dads from the daycare I worked at stalked me. I was ridiculed, taunted, labeled easy. Enter more boys.”
‘Umm, I’m busy right now,’ he said. I describe my 11-year-old as a slug of a boy. He was playing on the family laptop, wearing sweatpants, on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.’
“‘No, you’re not,’ I said. There was a fight, moaning, excuses… the usual. He looked at me with flat eyes, his hood up, shoulders slumped, and said, ‘Why do we have to do this?’ The next day, my wife sent me this picture.”
‘While waiting to board our plane, my daughter was being her inquisitive self, meeting and saying ‘Hi’ to everyone she could, until she walked up on this man.’
“This wasn’t a short, little exchange.”
‘He’s really smart.’ I nodded in my awkward parent small talk sort of way. ‘No, I mean REALLY smart,’ she insisted, staring at me with urgency, or something I couldn’t identify.’
“Something about his behavior didn’t feel right, but it was hard to explain. Soon, every time we received a well-intended compliment about his intelligence, it felt like a knife was being twisted further into my stomach.”
‘I remember how dark and frigid the inside was. It was completely empty. Not one piece of furniture. Nothing. I wandered into a room off to the side. I walked towards it, and instantly got chills.’
“When he got off the phone he said, ‘What do you think? Should we do this?’ I asked if he had seen what was on the wall and he said no. I showed him the picture. When he looked back at me, he had big tears streaming down his cheeks.”
‘My mother said, ‘Doesn’t it bother you that she won’t keep a cleaner house?’ It was a Saturday. I was working on the dishes. I didn’t know how to respond.’
“I remember my father giving me this advice about picking a wife: ‘Stop by her house unexpected. See how it looks in there. You can tell a lot about a woman by how she keeps her house.’”
‘I SAVED HIS LIFE! I found a slight pulse. I’m doing CPR!’ My dad has always gone the extra mile. Even for our dog’s beloved teddy bear.’
“Where the hell did you get that thing? ‘He’s not a ‘thing!’ I found one of Lucky’s babies outside. I saved HIS life.”
