Elm Creek: A Readymade Family, Volume 2

🌺1🌺

ONE

December 2000

Sycamore Heights, Arkansas

Sycamore Heights was a wealthy, upper-class neighborhood that boasted of extravagant homes best described as mansions or manors, top security, and the living dream of those who could only fantasize of the life behind the high walls. Such was the life of Charity Williams Dawson, young wife and expectant mother, a dream come true, yet one that was beginning to feel like a prison.

Charity, just nineteen, was neither exceptionally beautiful nor repulsive. When measured by societal standards, she could even be described as plain. She was too lanky and bony in build; she was neither tall and willowy, nor small and petite; her fair skin had a scattering of freckles that danced across her nose, and her face was too angular; her golden locks that fell below her back were too straight and her hair seemed to hang limply; and her aquamarine-blue eyes were unremarkable and her lashes too short. To outside observers, it was a mystery what had attracted Kevin Dawson—heir to one of the most reputable oil companies of the country, son and grandson to two of the most well-known oil tycoons of the region, and most sought after bachelor women before he had even reached eighteen—to her.

When daylight streamed into the lavish bedroom she occupied, stirring her from sleep, she woke up to find herself alone as always, the other side of the bed both empty and untouched. It was the same she woke up to most days.

Since she’d married her husband and childhood sweetheart, Kevin Dawson, they had never truly shared a room and bed, at least not for a whole night. Kevin availed himself of the physical benefits of marriage, but always left as soon as he was satisfied, behavior that had always confused her and made her feel more glorified prostitute than a beloved wife. Now he wasn’t even doing that. It had been at least two months since he’d visited her bed and his bedroom, connected to hers by a door, was always locked against her—not that she would have dared to visit his bed. Their sexual encounters were always unpleasant and even humiliating for her.

However, outside of the bedroom, he had usually been pleasant and even fun to be with. Acquainted with him since she’d been just five years old, Kevin had immersed himself so deeply in her life that she couldn’t exist without him. He was her best friend and only friend. He’d been her companion, support, and confidant for years. So even though marriage to him hadn’t turned out to be the dream she’d once believed it would be, she held on. With her parents gone—though what had happened to them still remained unclear—he was the only one she had left and the father of the child growing in her womb.

But things had changed lately. He was neither lover nor friend. He didn’t spend time with her, and if they crossed paths, he was cold and icy for reasons unknown to her. For the most part, he ignored her. The duration of time he spent away from the house gave her the niggling suspicion he was spending time with another woman. Since his teens, he had never been one to hold himself to the moral standard her upbringing had instilled in her. It wasn’t too far of a stretch to believe the Kevin who had enjoyed the sexual favors of countless girls during his teens would go back to that life once he lost interest in her. The men in his family weren’t known for their fidelity, so it was probably too much to hope for from him. She should have known better to choose a man with that kind of past, but her infatuation had blinded her to what marriage would truly be like.

About a year ago, she had been convinced that she and Kevin, though of extremely different backgrounds and upbringing, were in love and meant to be, despite her parents’ arguments that the gap between their upbringings was too vast and he was not the dedicated Christian she was. In the last few months, as he both ignored and neglected her, it seemed as if she had made a mistake, but it was too late to go back. Lately, she even wondered if she’d chosen the wrong man, for before she’d married Kevin, another young man had been interested in her, whom her parents had approved of, but she had chosen Kevin over him. However, she usually felt guilty when those thoughts came to her and dismissed them quickly before they could take root and bring up regrets that could not be changed.