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The day of your wedding, you believed you were happy.
Jack had been the only man in your life up until then, so it made sense that you would eventually marry; you had been dating since high school. Your parents looked down on his, sitting stiff and apart from them at the head table; your doctor father in particular could not think of one word he wished to say to them and gave every impression of being bored by the whole ordeal, scribbling on his napkin and barely touching his meal. Earlier, when your mother smoothed the veil down over your eyes, she told you that Jack was the best you could have done. Misunderstanding, you smiled; she sighed and cupped your face with both hands.
“If only you’d been clever, Ellen.”
Your smile faded.
“Mother?”
“Good looks, but…” now she appeared to be speaking to herself. “... if only you’d… you could’ve… that would have been something.”
With a sad shake of her head, she dropped her hands and walked away; you swallowed the hard lump in your throat and turned to the mirror. Your cheeks were reddening with the heat of your anguish, tears making glass of your eyes; closing them, you did your best to pull yourself together. No need to make a fuss. Your mother would soon forget all about this and be amazed that you were still upset, as if talking about one’s hurt feelings was just terribly gauche.
Everything was much easier if you simply swept all the unpleasantness under the rug. Breathing in, you put a smile on your face. This was supposed to be your big day - no tears today, unless they’re happy ones.
*
Both of you were ecstatic when Edward was born; Jack had said he would be happy so long as the baby was healthy, but you knew he was particularly thrilled to have a first-born son. Named Edward for your father, and Henry his middle name for Jack’s father.
Sadly your son would never get to meet his namesake; he had passed away from a congenital heart defect not long after you and Jack were married. According to his own doctor, it was remarkable that he had lived for as long as he did. Your mother, taking his death harder than you thought she would, was now bent on drinking herself to death. When you visited her with Edward, you urged her to get healthy for the sake of him and any future grandchildren. Though it was only midday, she was already drunk and waving a bottle of cooking sherry defiantly in your face.
“I don’t care, Ellen. I want to be with Ted.”
“But…”
“One day,” she hiccuped, “maybe you’ll understand…” she giggled. “But I doubt it.”
Looking down at your son, who was looking around the room with a studious expression, you smiled and let the poison slide off you. Water off a duck’s back, Mother, water off a duck’s back. It would take until a week before Susan’s birth for your mother to finally achieve her goal. You knew she would have scoffed at the thought of you naming your only daughter after your favourite childhood doll, but despite that and everything else, you still gave your baby the middle name of Marie, for her.
*
You and Jack had been thrilled to discover that your son was a genius.
So used to feeling like a failure to your parents, you wished they could have been alive so that you could push Eddie at them, to their faces. Look what came from me, you could have said, he came from me. From us. Look at my beautiful boy. Never being lauded as intelligent yourself, you were able to appreciate it in others without a trace of rancour or competitiveness. His glowing reports would go on your refrigerator, and when it was sufficiently wallpapered, you took to pasting them in an album. The only minor complaint from his teachers was how withdrawn he was; how he showed no interest in making friends. You shrugged this off as a by-product of genius - your father had been the same. Jack would disagree with you on this point, firmly stating that the boy needed friends, that it wasn’t normal not to have friends. After all, he had had plenty of friends at the same age.
“But he’s special, not normal,” you would smile. This was a discussion you had often; what began as a smile from Jack degraded into a sneer, and what began as pride soured into suspicion.
“Weird, more like.” Jack’s approach to Eddie worried you, sometimes. You feared he might be being too hard on the child, but he wouldn’t hear of it and instantly cut you off.
"I don’t tell ya how to deal with Susie, so don’t bug me about Eddie.”
And with that the subject was consecutively opened, and then closed. You never found the courage to bring it up again, fearful of rocking the boat a second time. Besides, what did you know about raising a son?
*
Friends, family, they all bled into the background and when you noticed how alone you had become, the poison had seeped into your husband so gradually that you didn’t notice until it was too late. Now all you had left was your husband and your children, for better or worse.
Worse came when Eddie was fourteen - right on the cusp of becoming a man. He was looking more like you by the day, though his serious green eyes were aided by a set of glasses he had needed since he was eight. Much of the time he had to be roused from hunching in a corner, his nose stuck in a book. The only person he showed not a flicker of irritation at being interrupted was Susie. You felt a bite of envy for her in that respect - Eddie was clearly devoted to her, and she to him. It was like they were comrades - and you wondered what had made them tight like that. As far as you were concerned, everything was fine.
Lost in your own little world as you washed dishes, you didn’t register that Eddie and Jack’s bickering was more heated than usual until it was too late. Turning, you saw Jack looming over his son, every muscle tensed with rage and face wild in a way you’d never before seen. Susie’s worried eyes were only on Eddie, his arm held in front of her, holding her back. Eddie was shaking as he held his ground, terrified; your body went cold, realising this was dangerous new territory.
“Please, Jack,” you managed. “He’s just a boy.”
Jack didn't even glance in your direction, totally ignoring you like you didn’t exist. The morsel of courage you mustered went up in smoke as you wrung a tea towel between your hands, frozen in place. As for what happened next you couldn’t say - you would admit it to no one, but you were too spineless to look. Then Susie started to scream; you woke with a start and ran for the telephone.
*
Should you have done something?
You dickered over that point, again and again, not realising that the immediate action was more important than the deliberated thought - and so time passed. Stymied by your own cowardice, you took to sleepwalking through your life; don’t rock the boat, don’t make a fuss. You wished Eddie wouldn't provoke his father: surely such fervent hopes could become a reality, if pushed into the world with as much desperation as you felt.
For your son's part he withdrew yet further, grew cold and hard; he would look straight through you. Did he blame you? He never said it out loud, but the way his lip curled in your presence you felt sure that he must. Surely he had to realise that the best thing to do was to try and avoid conflict?
Oh, he and Jack would still fight, but Eddie looked more like your father than ever when he quickly grew bored and walked away. But Jack couldn't have that, and then... but Eddie would only laugh; nothing touched him anymore. The thought of coming to his aid never occurred to you: while still a teenager he acted so much like a man you felt that he and Jack were fighting out their differences, like men do.
Though you knew he was looking to leave, you selfishly wished he wouldn't. Thinking the same, Susie would look at him with worry, as if she could lock him in place with her gaze. No one knew what went on in the Nashton house - by your doing, they never would. Constantly, you impressed on your children your adage that no one needed to hear about your dirty laundry. Susie would say nothing, but Eddie, with his seemingly tattooed black eye, would scoff and call you revoltingly bourgeois, whatever that meant. To your great relief, he never told: what would people have thought? Picture perfect image, that was what had to be done. The thought of the whole of Duluth... talking about you made you feel itchy.
But the seeping boil was finally lanced the day that Eddie left. He simply disappeared into the wind, without a word. Susie wept like she was dying: you’d never witnessed such grief. All you could do was lay your hand on her shoulder as you couldn’t give any comfort; the lies felt like ash in your mouth. You had to watch her suffer and wait for her to get over it, as you would also have to.
When Jack suggested that you should tell people your boy was dead, you let it pass, again, without a fight. When Jack went to work, you finally let the ocean of tears come as you put away every photograph of Eddie, everything that reminded you of him. Grasping his last high school portrait in your shaking fingers, you looked into the haughty eyes of your teenage son and finally realised why Eddie despised you. It was because you put your children last. Not that you had put them behind your husband, but because you had put them after yourself. You were too afraid to take your babies and leave, because you were too afraid of what people would think.
*
In time, you came to believe that Jack was right. It was simpler, taking Eddie out of the frame.
Better than people finding out the truth, which was well away in a big box out of sight. You moved on with what your life had become, feeling it was far too late to change things. Jack seemed happier, or at the very least less irritable, which gave you pause. When you thought about that, you had to agree that it was for the best, Eddie leaving. After all, he made Jack so angry that he would act out and upset things, and Eddie was never willing to compromise, not even as a child. Yes. Clearly Eddie was the problem. You would all be better off without him. Now that he was gone, everything would be fine.
And for a while, you could convince yourself that it was. Good little Susie followed your lead and married the man she dated throughout high school. After she and Dodd gave you two grandchildren, precious Carrie and Samuel, you told yourself you had everything you needed and never dared question the validity of that statement: so used to being a supporting character in your own life, you recognised the same trait in your daughter and felt comforted. There was always a sadness to Susie, a hole in her heart, but you never sought to probe at it: you knew who put it there and couldn't bear to touch your own wound that, while scabbed over, was sitting just beneath the surface.
Yours was a relationship rooted in a mutual faith that neither of you would bring up anything unpleasant: especially not the loss of someone irreplaceable you weren't allowed to name. Instead, you both moved about your lives seeking to make as few waves as possible. However, when she left Dodd, you were genuinely surprised. Not because you thought their relationship was perfectly fine, but because you never realised Susie could be so brave. Not for the first time, you envied your daughter.
*
And then one day, Susie came to see you. She told you that Eddie had been in town to see Jack in the hospital, another eventuality that you had never considered: you had always thought your son far too self-centred to think of anyone but himself. He never had before, so why now? She told you about Eddie, gushed about how handsome he was and that he appeared to be thriving; she told you how he had utterly charmed Jack’s nurse, shaking her head at some private joke. Susie had a sparkle in her eyes you hadn’t seen in… you honestly couldn’t recall when, which jolted you.
Well. You had never dared to read anything about Eddie, frightened of what you might find out, so you had a nebulous image of your son. All you knew for certain was that he was a criminal - but how could he be charismatic, too? It seemed impossible to you: lawbreakers had to be repugnant. And yet, Susie wouldn’t lie to you about something like that. Her happiness was infectious, and you couldn't help but get excited because surely he must be coming to see you, next. A chill took over the room as Susie said nothing. Her eyes, just like Jack’s, lost their twinkle and looked at you with only pity. Susie took out her purse and pulled out a newspaper clipping.
"Do you know what he's been up to, Ma?"
Shaking your head, you smiled like it was obvious.
"Of course not."
"Take this," she murmured, handing you the clipping. "And go see Pop, for heaven's sake. Pull your head out of the sand, just once."
"What do you mean?"
Shaking her head with lips pursed tight, Susie stood up.
"I have to go get the kids," she said, striding out and leaving you none the wiser.
Looking down at the clipping, you read: Edward Nygma Appointed Deputy Mayor. Catching sight of the photograph, you caught your breath.
"Eddie," you whispered, touching your fingertips to his grey cheek. Susie was right: he had grown so handsome, and with his chin lifted, he laughed right into the eye of the camera lens. Eddie was the spitting image of your side of the family, with the cursory dash of Jack no one could see in greyscale: that perfectly coiffed red hair. Confidence radiated out of him, even when his image was pressed into newsprint.
Deputy Mayor? Now that was certainly something to be proud of - that must be your influence. Smiling, you pictured this handsome son, on bended knee, seeking reconciliation with his dear mother after all this time. Especially because it was his father who pushed him away; Jack’s absence would bring him back. Despite what Susie believed, you knew one hundred percent that your husband was dying; what she didn't know was that the thought of it is a relief to you, a panacea. Not the death itself, but all the possibility wrapped up in the after. What you can't face is the getting there, the degradation of the man you loved: you never closely examined the state of said love, but since you stood by Jack all these years, did your duty, then it must be true.
Once his poison is released from this world, your friends and family will come back when it finally happens, rushing to comfort you at the funeral; they definitely only stayed away because of Jack, and no other reason. Not only would loved ones return to you but soon you could go out to plays, the theatre, or to the ballet, maybe go out dancing - all the things you wanted to do, before. Now, you could be happy. These thoughts comforted you; surely everyone knew none of this was your fault.
Yes. Jack was the problem.
Once he was gone, everything would be fine.