Wretched Love

It was my curse.

He was.

I was owned by him.

Therefore I was not entitled to any agency over my own body.

I wouldn’t tell these vultures that.

Luanne was still staring at me in challenge. She was on her third wine. They could make her nasty, more direct.

I could see it in her eyes. She wanted to push me. Taunt me a little. She saw me as meek, weak. And deep down, beneath all the makeup and filler, she was a bully. I was an expert at recognizing one now. After all, I’d been married to one for almost eighteen years.

All the years we’d been ‘friends,’ she’d made an art of bringing me down, making me feel small.

The other women saw it, of course, but they ignored it. Luanne was the unofficial leader of this group. Her husband was the mayor. He owned half the town. She was the queen of this town. She could ruin someone, even me, if she so wished. So I did my duty, kissed the ring, made sure to never stand up for myself.

I wouldn’t know how to do that anyway.

Nicole also saw Luanne readying herself to lay into me. Nicole didn’t know the rules. Nicole was a nice person.

So she stepped in.

“Kate,” she said, bringing my attention to her. “Isn’t Violet studying abroad now?”

I blinked at her change in subject, the pointed look she gave Luanne before focusing on me.

“Yes, she is,” I said. “Um, Paris. She’s always loved the city. And her French is wonderful. She left two days ago.”

I missed her like a limb. More than a limb. There was an ocean between me and my baby. I’d never been this far away from her in my life. It hurt merely thinking of it. Of how empty the house was without her.

She was all I had.

Preston and I had tried for another for years. Or so he thought. It was the one single thing I hid from him. The thing he very well might kill me for if he ever found my secret stash of birth control pills. It was the one risk I took. The one act of rebellion I took against him.

I would not bring another child into our home. I got lucky with Violet. She was sweet. Caring. Not a mean bone in her body. I couldn’t risk it with another. I was terrified if I had a boy, what his father might turn him into.

In this one singular way, the universe looked after me. He had never found the pills.

“You’re an empty nester now,” Karen grinned. “Welcome to the club.”

Most of the women I lunched with had children in college or beyond and were older than me by ten years. I’d had Violet young, and Luanne never failed to bring that up.

“Well, she doesn’t have to be,” the woman in question said. “You’re what…” she trailed off, eyes inspecting me as if I were a strange specimen, not someone she had lunch with twice a week for the past six years. “Thirty-eight now? That’s not too late.”

“Thirty-six,” I corrected, which she well knew. I also looked a lot younger than that, thanks to a religious skincare routine and the only good thing my mother gave me: her genes.

Luanne acted as if I never spoke. “Preston tells Tom all the time how he’s planning on another one with you. He wants a boy this time.” Her face softened into faux pity. “I know you two have had some trouble conceiving, but I told Tom to give him the name of the best IVF doctor in the state. Preston was going to surprise you with the appointment.” She smiled like an alligator, presenting personal information at a table of ravenous women in a feeding frenzy. “He knows how much you want another, and I expect all he wants to do is to make you happy.”

My smile was frozen on my face.

There it was. My one victory over Preston. The one thing I could hold on to. The last shred of control I had, gone.

There was no way I could get out of the appointment. I wasn’t sure what kind of tests the doctor would do, if they would be able to tell I was on hormonal birth control. Even if they couldn’t, they’d likely be able to tell Preston there was nothing wrong with me. No explanation as to why we weren’t getting pregnant. He’d argue, of course. He was good at that. He’d order them to go ahead with IVF, make sure I got pregnant.

And that was best case.

Worst case was he somehow found out about the birth control. Violet was not home anymore. She wasn’t due to come home for another six months. He wouldn’t hold back.