Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
"Esme chose to forget and I don't judge her for that. I love her all the same. I am actually quite glad she doesn't have her past hanging around, taking away from her happiness and her positivity.
"She grew up in a time of arranged marriages to men much older than their wives. She married later than her peers. At the age of twenty, the fifty-eight year old Charles Evanson had the honor of calling her his wife. Except he didn't treat her with honor or compassion. He beat her daily for minor infractions. Fists for dirty dishes, kicks for late dinner. Lashes with a switch for unfinished chores. Beatings with a belt for the hell of it."
"Why didn't her family protect her?"
"In those times, it was expected of her to be an obedient wife. If she was getting beaten, it meant she deserved it."
"That's awful," I whisper. I would've chosen to forget too.
He carries on without acknowledging it. "She was grateful he rarely wanted sex, but when he did, here was no refusing. It was easier for her to lay there and suffer than refuse and get beaten while he did it. She wasn't allowed a form of birth control. It was a game of chance. She didn't want to have a child. Didn't want to doom it to a life of hatred and violence. Of course, life never goes the way we want it to.
"After three and a half years, Esme fell pregnant. She kept it a secret at first, but it became obvious very quickly. She was underweight and bruised. Her belly swelled though her cheeks were sunken and sallow, and you could almost count her ribs through her shirt.
"Near the end of the second trimester, Charles became deranged. He beat Esme for no cause, battered her with his boots, belt, whatever he could get his hands on. A kick to the stomach to her flying down the basement stairs cause her to miscarry."
Tears come to my eyes and he looks towards the sky.
"I can still remember how she looked as she laid there unconscious. The blood seeped out of her, staining her dress and collecting in a puddle beneath her. She stayed there for three days before her mother came by and called the police when Charles wouldn't say where she was."