I Dare You To Read This Book.

My Very First Marriage

u/notyourcure1d
I met my first husband when I was sixteen. For me, at least, it was love at first sight. Gabriel was everything a girl- a woman, really- would want in man. He was tall, handsome, witty, and hardworking. His voice alone was breathtaking. I had to clamp a hand over my mouth as I listened to the voicemail he left on our phone, responding to my call about the babysitting position, to keep myself from gasping in girlish glee. I knew he was going to be the one. When I met him and his wife at the time, Sabrina, I knew they simply weren't right for each other. For starters, she was older than him. By five years.
My Gabriel was beautiful at twenty six; he didn't look a day over twenty. His wife was thirty one, and looked closer to forty. She was haggard; putting on weight, her thin hair already streaking gray. He couldn't have been pleased with her anymore; you could see it in his eyes. Such gorgeous eyes, too. Hazel, flecked with gold. She was oblivious, rambling on about the hours she worked- worked! Maybe if she had been home, with the children, she would have had more time to keep up her appearance. Oh, I know men pretend they like their wives out in the workforce. But they always grow to resent it. Always.
At sixteen I was stunning. I had thick dark hair gathered back in a neat ponytail, wisps escaping around my heart shaped face. I spoke softly and demurely, the way I knew men preferred, no matter how much they pretended to want someone loud and crude and demanding. I wore a simple blouse and skirt, impeccably ironed. Meanwhile Sabrina slouched on the couch next to my future husband, in faded jeans and an old college sweatshirt. I had to resist the look of thinly veiled distaste threatening to slip onto my face. Instead I kept my focus on Gabriel, as I assured him, sweetly, but confidently, that I had plenty of experience working with small children, and that his two, Theo, the five year old, and Asher, the four year old, would be no trouble at all.
I went home with a smile on my face, because I knew I'd already won him over, even if he didn't realize yet. He called the next day, and I spent the rest of the summer essentially living in their home. Sabrina ignored me, sneering at me the same way she sneered at her housekeeper, Silvia, and the men who worked on the lawn. If she ever arrived home before Gabriel, she'd escort me out of the house and to my waiting ride almost forcibly, looking me up and down as if to make sure I hadn't stolen anything. It didn't bother me as much as it should have, because her sons, sweet boys that they were, already adored me.
Theo was a happy-go-lucky little boy, rambunctious and loud at times, but good-natured at heart. Asher was shy and quiet, but very inquisitive, always so wide-eyed. I adored them, and so they adored me, because I paid them more attention and showed them more love than their mother could have even if she tried. I was the one driving them to and from day camp. I knew how they liked their snacks, and what TV shows they liked best. I set up the sprinkler for them on the lawn. I read them stories and gave their stuffed animals voices.
Gabriel, always so caring and conscientious, always took me aside and thanked me whenever he got the chance. He worried that they weren't paying me enough, or taking up too much of my time.
"Norah," he said one day, as the sun's last rays filtered through the living room windows. He'd come home early from work, and the boys and I had greeted him at the door with wide smiles. Without Sabrina there, it was almost like we were a real family. It gave me such hope for the future. "I don't want you to miss out on anything- I mean, you are going into your senior year, right?"
"Oh, Mr. Edwards, I graduated early," I smiled softly. "I'll be seventeen in September."
He got an odd look on his face at that reminder, of my youth, but I understood.
"You just seem so much older," he confessed, as the boys watched Mickey Mouse in the background. "I don't think most girls your age are anywhere near this responsible."
I just shrugged a little with a quiet laugh, and went to get Asher a new juice box.
Sabrina, mistrustful shrew that she was, insisted they let me go at the end of August. I knew she suspected something, but there was nothing for her to point a chubby finger at. Gabriel and I had never behaved inappropriately towards one another, not once, aside from the occasional understanding glance exchanged, or subtle smile. I overheard one of their arguments as I slowly slipped on my shoes by the door.
"I don't know what you're implying," Gabriel snapped at her in the kitchen, "But Norah has done more for our family-,"
She barked a laugh of disbelief. "You're unbelievable! She's not Mother Teresa, Gabe, no matter what you-,"
He didn't like being called Gabe. I knew that. I would never call him Gabe- why would anyone shorten such a lovely name?
My father's car had broken down right before my last day, so Sabrina offered, very uncharacteristically, to drive me home. I sat silently in the seat beside her, my bag in my lap, looking straight ahead. She drove aggressively, and kept looking over at me more and more in agitation. My refusal to show even the slightest sign of nerves must have infuriated her, because she pulled over shortly before we reached my street.
"I've seen the way you look at my husband," she snarled at me. "I know what you are, Norah. You can pretend all you like to be some- some good Christian girl, but you're just a pathetic little slut. And I won't let you destroy my marriage- my home."
I just looked at her until she started driving again, and waited until she'd pulled into my driveway. "Mrs. Edwards, I would never try to separate what the Lord brought together," I promised her in full earnestness as I stepped gracefully out of the car. "I'll leave that up to you."
The look on her face made it all worth it.
I heard through the local grapevine that December that the divorce papers were already being signed. It had all happened much faster than even I could have predicted. I bided my time, taking classes at the local community college, turning down offers to go out with regretful smiles from every boy or man who approached me with lust in his eyes. Gabriel would come for me, to ask for my hand. I was sure of it. I told my father as much, all the time. My mother died when I was very small, you see, and so it had always been just me and him. I loved him as much as any daughter can, and he taught me the true working order of the world, how to tell right from wrong, the wheat from the chaff.
"I'm so proud of you, Norah," he told me, squeezing my hand tenderly. "You've blossomed into such an upright young woman. I know you'll be a wonderful wife and mother."
"I'm going to try my best," I assured him.
Gabriel waited until my eighteenth birthday, like any good man would, before he called on me. Don't mistake his character. He was always a good man, not some degenerate, preying on a young ingenue. He simply saw that I was too good to pass up. I was going to be his salvation. He was so, so nervous.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he admitted to me, as we walked down the block, past pastel colored houses and neatly trimmed lawns. "I- I just feel such a connection to you, Norah. I'm twenty seven, and I've never- I've never felt this way about anyone. I don't know how to explain it to you."
"Gabriel," I said sweetly- by that point he had insisted I not call him Mr. Edwards anymore, although I felt first names before marriage was a bit premature- "There's no need. You love me, and I love you. That's all that matters. I want to be there for you and the boys, from the altar until death do us part."
"Sabrina will kill me when she hears about this," he laughed a little ruefully. "God, what will people think? I-,"
"Let them think what they want, if their gossiping tongues give them some satisfaction. We know what this is." I leaned up- he was so much taller than me, all broad shoulders and long legs- and cupped his face with a small hand. "A happy ending."
He kissed me as an ice cream truck trundled by in the cool September evening, playing a lilting melody.
We married in the winter, as snowflakes spiraled down from the sky. Gabriel's family refused to attend, although I knew that in time, they would come around just as he had, but my father looked on proudly as we were pronounced man and wife. Theo and Asher sat in the front pew, little legs dangling, smiles enormous. My heart was so full I felt like it was fit to burst.
I wanted to give Gabriel a child of our own, but he said there was no reason to rush. We didn't honeymoon, but instead focused on settling me into the house. A few neighbors gawked as he carried me over the threshold, the boys shouting and laughing and darting around us, and one of them stopped by a few days later, when he'd gone back to work, to see if I 'needed anything'.
She was in her early fifties, and the concern radiating from her was palpable. She seemed almost unnerved by the sheer joy emanating from me as I showed off the newly repainted kitchen. "Dear," she said, over coffee. "If there's anything... anything I can ever do for you, please call me." She slipped me a little card across the counter, and I looked at it curiously, then burst into laughter. It was the number for one of those women's shelters, were disgraced wives and mothers steal their children away from their fathers to, before trying to convince the courts that their children don't deserve a whole family.
"Oh, Mrs. Benson... I appreciate it, I do, but you just don't understand," I told her calmly.
"Norah," she said, and her voice was high and frightened, as if I'd threatened her with violence. "My daughter is only a few years older than you. Please, think of your future."
"This is my future. And I can't wait."
She left very unhappy, but I just hummed as I closed the door behind her.
Of course there were some adjustments to be made. Gabriel liked things done a very specific way, and he would sulk about if I wasn't done with all the housework when he came home. And the boys had their moments of rebellion and typical childish defiance, but I quickly straightened them out. Perhaps Sabrina was too weak-willed to discipline her children properly, but I knew the importance of maintaining a firm hand with the little ones. Within a few months they were the pictures of loving obedience.
Of course Sabrina, with her ridiculous custody agreements and lawyers, continued to be a thorn in our sides. She found a small, insignificant mark on Theo at some point, and you would have thought she'd seen me try to drown the boy. Fortunately, the social worker didn't see any real issue in it- Theo always healed quickly, and by the time she got around to 'examining' it, the bruise was barely visible at all. Besides, Sabrina never helped her case- always hurling venom at me, and in front of the children, as well!
"You whore!" she spat at me outside the court room one day, looking as if she wanted to hit me, and shaking off her lawyer's hand on her shoulder. "Manipulative little whore! You'll get yours, you bitch. Trust me."
I just looked at her sadly, shaking my head a little. "Mrs. Edwards, please- you're scaring my sons."
Theo and Asher sat on a nearby bench, huddled together.
She did hit me then, hard enough that blood trickled out from between my lips. I assure you, the judge didn't approve of that in the slightest.
Unfortunately, the stress seemed to be getting to Gabriel. He... changed. He started to drink, he put on weight, he picked up more hours at work until he was barely home at all. I didn't know what I'd done to make him so miserable, but he assured me it wasn't me. Still, the way he alternatively snapped at me and ignored me said otherwise. The happy home I'd hoped to build together crumbled. Clearly, Sabrina was the issue.
Like any devoted wife and mother, I resolved to do something about it. Peanuts had never been allowed in the Edwards home while she was there; her allergy was very serious. But I knew how much she liked to eat, and it wasn't very difficult to discover where she was working and leave an anonymous gift of brownies. I heard her throat closed up with the second greedy bite.
Suspicion turned to Gabriel, much to my displeasure, but there was also the string of boyfriends she'd had since the divorce to consider, and with some coercion from a friend of my father's in the police force, eventually one, never the most mentally stable man, broke down and confessed.
Theo and Asher were heartbroken, but I was there to console them, as always.
But Gabriel didn't get better, even with Sabrina gone from our lives forever. He drank. And drank.
"I don't know... I don't know what you did to me," he sobbed one night, lying beside me in bed. "But I... this isn't who I am, Norah. I can't be. I can't... you were just a kid, Christ. Why'd you have to always... you were so sweet."
"I'm your wife," I whispered to him, voice trembling a little. "I knew I was going to be your wife from the very beginning. Why are you so upset? We fell in love. It's as simple as that."
"It's not," he moaned, rolling over to face away from me, like a child throwing a tantrum. "It's not, it's not, I fucked up. I fucked up. God, why did I-,"
I had to leave the bedroom and sleep in the boys room. I couldn't stand to hear any more of it. The Gabriel I had loved, and who had loved me in return, was gone. That much was obvious. I saw no other solution other than the one clearly lying before me, like a path in a dark forest. The following week, I helped him, drunk, into his car, and in the seat beside him, guided him, slowly along the dark roads, to the nearby river and the lonely bridge. The water churned underneath us.
"You were always so good," he slurred to me. "So good and... and nice. I don't... deserve you." He ended in a pathetic mumble, shoulders hunched like a little boy.
Where was the man I'd married? I looked at him searchingly, looking for some sign, but found none. "You don't," I agreed, and splayed my hands against his chest.
He sank very quickly. I cried until my eyes were sore as the police arrived, and I explained breathlessly how he'd forced me into the car, and how I'd watched in horror as he plunged over the edge. They were all very sympathetic.
The boys went to their grandparents, my one regret. But then again, I had no desire to be a single mother. What kind of family would that have been? I went back to college and eventually moved into another state, picking up a new name- Margaret. In fact, with every marriage after that, my name changed, both first and last. I was Natasha. I was Leah. I was Sara. I was Elizabeth. I was Charlotte.