Chapter 12 - WHAT LUKE ACTUALLY WANTED
Luke asked through attorneys for a settlement conference.
Caroline did not want to see him.
Her lawyer asked a different question.
“Would seeing him help you make decisions?”
Maybe.
So they met with counsel present.
Luke looked thinner.
His arrogance remained.
That surprised Caroline.
She had imagined exposure would make him smaller.
Instead it made him defensive.
“You turned private pain into evidence,” he said.
Caroline stared at him.
“You turned injuries into accidents.”
“You think every miscarriage was my fault now?”
“No.”
The answer stopped him.
Caroline continued.
“I don’t know medically what caused every loss.”
Luke looked almost relieved.
Then she finished.
“But I know you assaulted me during each pregnancy and lied about it afterward.”
His jaw tightened.
“You hit me too.”
“No.”
“You pushed me away.”
“When you grabbed me.”
“There. You always have context for yourself.”
Caroline almost laughed.
That had been his favorite strategy for years.
Flatten the difference between resistance and aggression.
Between fear and control.
Between an accident and a pattern.
She placed copies of his emails on the table.
“Why did you hide the fact they were boys?”
Luke stared.
For the first time that afternoon, he lost composure.
“You weren’t stable.”
“Why keep telling me I couldn’t give you a son?”
He looked away.
“Luke.”
No answer.
Caroline waited.
Eventually he said, “Because after the second loss, you started talking about leaving.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You thought I was the problem.”
“You were hurting me.”
“I was under pressure.”
“Answer the question.”
Luke’s hands tightened around each other.
“If you believed your body was the reason, then at least we still had something to fix together.”
The words were so nakedly selfish that even Luke seemed to hear them after they left his mouth.
Caroline felt nothing for several seconds.
Then clarity.
He had not been protecting a dream of fatherhood.
He had been protecting the marriage on terms where Caroline blamed herself.
May you like
The imaginary missing son was the leash.
And Luke had known the leash was built from a lie.
