Chapter 4
The first few weeks at home were a blur.
I was put on bed rest.
High-risk pregnancy, the doctors said.
The attack had put the twins in danger.
The drugs in my system meant we had to monitor them closely.
Ethan took time off work.
He cooked.
He cleaned.
He sat with me for hours, talking to my stomach.
Telling our babies how much he loved them already.
It was the man I'd fallen in love with.
The man who'd been buried under his mother's influence for years.
But I still had nightmares.
I'd wake up screaming, thinking Linda was in the room.
I'd flinch when Ethan touched my stomach.
I couldn't eat anything that hadn't been prepared right in front of me.
The trauma ran deep.
One afternoon, I was going through old boxes in the attic.
I shouldn't have been up there.
Not on bed rest.
But I needed to do something.
Anything to feel like I had control.
I found a box of Ethan's old things.
Yearbooks.
Childhood drawings.
Letters.
And then I found a journal.
It was Linda's.
From when Ethan was a child.
I hesitated.
Then I opened it.
What I read made my blood run cold.
Entry after entry about Ethan.
About how he was "hers."
About how no woman would ever be good enough for him.
About how she'd "get rid of" anyone who tried to take him away.
There were entries about his high school girlfriend.
About how Linda had sabotaged their relationship.
About how she'd spread rumors about the girl until she'd moved away.
Entries about his college girlfriend.
About how Linda had called her parents and told them lies.
About how she'd broken them up too.
And then there were entries about me.
From the very beginning.
"She thinks she can take my son from me."
"She's nothing. A gold digger. A manipulator."
"I'll make her regret the day she met him."
And then, six months ago:
"She wants a baby. She thinks a baby will tie him to her forever. I won't let that happen. I have a plan."
I closed the journal.
My hands were shaking.
This wasn't just about the pregnancy.
This wasn't just about the attack.
Linda had been trying to destroy me from the moment I'd met her.
And Ethan had never known.
He'd never known the extent of his mother's obsession.
He'd never known how many women she'd chased away before me.
I carried the journal downstairs.
Ethan was in the kitchen making lunch.
"I found something," I said.
I handed him the journal.
He read it.
His face went through a dozen emotions.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Anger.
Grief.
When he finished, he sat down heavily.
"I had no idea," he whispered. "I thought... I thought she just didn't like my girlfriends. I didn't know she was doing all those things."
He looked up at me.
Tears in his eyes.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "For everything. For bringing her into our lives. For not protecting you. For being so blind."
I sat down beside him.
"It's not your fault," I said. "She manipulated you your whole life. That's what abusers do."
He took my hand.
"It ends now," he said. "I'm going to testify against her. I'm going to tell the court everything. And when this is over, we're going to move. Somewhere far away. Somewhere she can never find us."
May you like
I leaned my head on his shoulder.
For the first time since the attack, I felt like we might actually be okay.
