Circle of Red

The idea for this one actually came from a commenter. I'm not going to say who because I'm not sure if he wants me to put him on blast like that, but I hope you're still with me and following along. It's not as long as my usual stories, but I think I did it justice. Let me know what you guys think. ALL OF YOU, comment please! And vote! Better yet, do both! And send feedback! Just start clicking stuff! ----Shaide

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---Carol---

I held up the photograph for the last time. It was a family picture of Mark, Brent, and I. Mark and I were high school sweethearts. We had dated all through high school and had gotten married two weeks after graduation. And it was bliss, pure and utter bliss. We moved into my parent's basement and screwed like bunnies. I loved my life in those days. I loved it without any reservations. Mark was a dream. He was sweet, funny, handsome, caring. I lived for that man. And he lived for me. We didn't have much, but we did have love. We had love in excess. He joined the local police department while I attended the local college.

19 months after graduating with my MBA, I gave birth to Brent. The second love of my life. I remember being so scared as I held him. I worried about everything. Was he sick, was he hungry, was he breathing, was he happy? If there was something to worry about, I worried about it. I smile to think about it now, but I ran Mark sick for the first three months. These diapers are too absorbent, this pillow is too soft, this water is to wet! Yes, I actually said that.

Somehow we made it to his first birthday. We had settled down into a parenting groove and we were comfortable. When Brent turned two, we moved out of my parent's basement and put a down payment on our first house. It was a lovely two-story, five bedroom monstrosity that was my only warning that Mark wanted more kids. I remember his pride when we signed the closing papers.

"My son's not growing up in anyone's basement," he said, smiling.

We had five wonderful years of familial bliss after we bought that house. Not that we were perfect. We fought and argued like any other couple, but we never let that come between us. And Mark refused to let either of us go to sleep angry.

Our sex life wasn't anything to call home about, but we were each other's firsts and didn't really know any better. At least, I didn't.

As it turned out, I didn't know a lot of things. Two days before Brent's sixth birthday, I came home to find suitcases sitting at the front door and some strange woman sitting on my couch.

"Honey!"

"I'm in the bedroom, Carol."

She smirked at me and I could feel this strange woman's eyes on me as I walked into our bedroom. Mark was folding up a shirt and placing it into another suitcase.

"Are we going on vacation," I asked.

"No, I got a new job. I'm moving to Nevada to be Chief of Police."

"Congratulations, baby! So when do you want me to bring Brent down?"

"Never. Megan doesn't want him."

He said it so calm, so matter-of-fact that I didn't even understand. "What do you mean?"

"I'm leaving you Carol. I'm taking Megan with me and moving on with my life." He closed his suitcase and turned around, looking at me for the first time since I came through the door.

"What?"

"You can keep all this shit."

I couldn't think. I couldn't respond. I couldn't even breathe. 'Shit? This was our family, our memories, our life!' I fell down on my knees, my world literally crashing down around me. I could see my unborn daughter and second son, the dreams we had for our family, my hopes and future, it was all gone. Ashes in the wind.

Mark walked right past me. His wife, the love of his life, the mother of his first born and only child, was down on her knees, crying her heart out, and he walked right past me. No words of comfort, not heartfelt touch, he just kept walking.

I didn't hear the door close or "Megan's" laughter or his car drive off. I didn't hear any of that. But I felt it. I felt it down in my heart, in my soul. I felt him drive off. I felt him leave me and our son. I felt him abandon the life we had been building.

I don't know how I woke up in my bed the next morning. My son was with my mother, I had managed to call her and tell her what had happened. That I wasn't woman enough to hold on to my man. That I was so useless, he had even abandoned the son that I had given him.

Mom kept him that weekend. She kept him for the next month. Because every day I found out something new, something that made it real all over again. It was like the world wanted to shove my failed marriage into my face again and again.

Megan was a whore. And that's not me not liking her, or blaming her for ruining my marriage. That was her job. She was a 100%, real life prostitute. His partner told me that every Wednesday, for the last two years, he would pick her up in his patrol car, get a hotel room, and they would fuck for hours.

Everyone knew about it. My friends, his friends, his parents. When he would say he was working overtime, he was actually out on dates with her. I couldn't leave the house without feeling people's eyes on me, whispering, pointing at me. At church. At work. Around town. They all knew. I was the only one who had been clueless. Clueless for two whole years.

My husband left me for a prostitute. There aren't words for how worthless I felt. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror. I retreated. I collapsed into myself. I did the basics for my son and ran away to my room, crying and drinking myself to sleep.

Children are amazing. I will always thank God for my son, every day of my life. I had been depressed for months, barely going through the motions of living. Then, one Saturday morning, he walked into my room and woke me up, pulling on my sleeve. I had fallen asleep in the same clothes I had gone to work in, the smell of stale cigarettes and ashes permeated the air. Somewhere along the way, I had learned to smoke. My bedroom had become a tomb for my slowly decaying life.

"Momma? Momma? Momma, can you watch cartoons with me?"

As I woke up, I saw my son. My innocent, beautiful, little boy looking up at me, and I felt my eyes start tearing up. I was as bad as Mark. I just folded into myself and I never thought about how he was dealing with any of this. I pulled my baby into my arms and held him tight to me. How could I ever do that? How could I forget my baby?

I promised then and there that it would never happen again. "Yes, baby, yes. Let Momma take a shower and she'll be right out, okay?"

"Okay."

I took a shower, crying as the water fell down on me, and swearing I wouldn't abandon my baby ever again. I fixed us each huge bowls of cereal, and watched Saturday morning cartoons with my little boy. I laughed and held him and cried and felt more alive than I had in months. Brent had pulled me up and out of the hole Mark had thrown me down. And it couldn't have happened soon enough.

The next couple of months were hard on us. I had to sell the house. With only my income, I couldn't afford the mortgage. We moved into an apartment across town, meaning that Brent had to change schools. He seemed to take it well though. He didn't start acting out, if anything, he spent more time with me.

We spent two years in that crappy apartment. The landlord was rude, the neighborhood was bad, and the people around us were worse. I drove my son to school every morning. The last thing I wanted was for him to get used to seeing crack whores, or for the local drug dealers to get their hooks into him.

Wednesdays seem to be special in my life. At least where Mark was concerned. He asked me out on a Wednesday, he proposed on a Wednesday, and he left me on a Wednesday.

It was Wednesday, 10:34 in the morning. My cellphone rang with an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Um, yes, Mrs. Henderson?"

"Yes. Who's calling?"

"Mrs. Henderson, my name is Gerald Rober. I'm the deputy chief of police for Nash City. I'm afraid I'm calling in regards to your husband."

Husband? What?

"Unfortunately there was a situation at one of our detention facilities and when Chief Henderson intervened, he was stabbed to death by an inmate."

Chief Henderson... did they mean Mark?

"Um...okay, but why are you calling me? I appreciate it, but Mark and I have been separated for the last two years."

"Well, Mrs. Henderson, it seems that, while you were separated, you and Mark are still legally married."

That one stumbling sentence changed everything for me. I have never been a vindictive woman, my mother raised me better than that, and I would hope I was raising my son better than that, but, at that moment, I threw all of that good breeding away.

"What about Megan? Is she still with him?"

"Yes, but, because you are still technically his wife, we can only inform you. Unless you give us permission to inform her."

I could hear it in his voice that he was asking for me to do just that. "No, don't worry, I'll tell her. Thank you for you call."

I didn't. Thankfully, Brent was out of school for the summer, so I booked us two plane tickets and we flew down for the funeral. It took Megan a week to find out that Mark was dead. And by the time she did, I had already signed all the paperwork to have his pension paid out to me, his bank accounts put into my name, and the house signed over. I worked like a mad woman to make it happen. I yelled and screamed and cried and hassled and harassed.

An hour after she found out, I was at her doorstep. My doorstep. "Megan."

I don't know why, but I was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "C-Carol." I handed her the piece of paper I was holding. "What's this?" I watched her eyes as she realized. "You're evicting me!"

"You have thirty days. I'm selling the house." I stepped back so that she could see the tow trucks in the driveway. "And the cars. Except the corvette." I saw the hope begin to build in her eyes. "I'm saving that for Brent." And took pleasure to see it come crashing down.

"B-b-but what am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go?"

"Back to the corner I guess."

She fell down on her knees, crying and struggling to breath. I knew the feeling, I knew all too well. I bent down and pulled her into a hug. When she was breathing a little more normally, I pushed her back so she could look at me. "I didn't get 30 days before you stole the love of my life and the father of my child from me. I think I'm being more than fair here. You can still have anything inside you can carry that wasn't bought with my husband's money."

I watched. I watched as she broke. I watched as those broken pieces crumbled. And I smiled. I hate to admit it, hate to think I could be that cruel. But I did. I smiled. I went past her inside the house and sat on the couch while she cried her heart out in the front door. This, I thought, was justice.

It took a month and a half, but we had time. Brent and I spent the remainder of the summer there, in my late husband's house. I had only let Megan take her clothes with her. All the pictures, all the TV's, all the jewelry. I made her leave all that shit behind.

I burned the pictures and used the fire to roast marshmallows with Brent. Not that he knew, he just smiled and enjoyed his smores. I sold the jewelry. I donated the clothes that were left behind to charity.

Between Mark's pension, life insurance, and investments, Brent and I came home with a nice 2.8 million dollars. I moved us out of that horrid apartment. I would miss some of my neighbors. Most of them had been good people who had just been in a bad situation for too long. But I was still glad to know that Brent could safely play outside in our own front yard. I set up a trust for Brent and put the rest of the money away.

At ten years old, my son was already guaranteed a comfortable life. I wasn't particularly proud of myself for what I had done. I was happy, ecstatic even, but not particularly proud. But I felt like the ends had justified the means. And the beginning justified the means. After all, if Mark hadn't abandoned us, this never would have happened.

When Brent turned 13, I started dating again. After Mark left, it took me almost a year before I had any kind of sex drive again, but I still didn't want to risk myself out there. Or make my son endure some endless line of men coming in and out of our house. But now, I had my confidence back. I really felt like I was a woman again.

---Brent---

I sat at the top of Make-out Lake. Unlike anyone else who came here though, I was alone. It was just me and Jack Daniels. It was eight o' clock on a Saturday night, too early for anyone else to be out here.

I took another swig off my bottle. Old Ben had good taste. He was the homeless guy outside the liquor store that I had paid to buy my bottle.

"You look down kid. That's a job for Jack," he said as he handed me the bottle.

I wasn't down, I was socially awkward. That's what my counselor had written in my school record. Ha, that was a joke. I wasn't awkward at all. I was completely inept. Hell, my mom had a better dating record than I did. At least she was dating. I had never had a single girlfriend.

Unless I counted Lizzy. But I refused to sink that low as to actually count her. She had gone out with me for three weeks. Three weeks right before finals. Yeah, no. I was not as desperate for self-assurance as to count that bullshit. She didn't even break up with me. She just stopped acknowledging my existence. Just like everyone else.

I took another swig and looked at the clock in the car. 8:12. Shit. I still had another fifty minutes before I could go home. Mom was going out tonight.

She was always worried about me. Why I wasn't dating? Why I wasn't going out? Why I wasn't with my friends? She told me I needed to get out more, find a hobby, meet people, and talk to girls. Like it was that easy. Just walk up to some random stranger and go "Hi. I'm Brent. I like baseball. Let's be friends." Besides, I hated baseball.

I hated sports in general. Odd right, at 6' 1" and 200 pounds, you would think I would be a natural. Which is exactly why I hated sports. I've always been a big kid but I had no coordination. Once the other boys found that out, I was always the last one picked for any game. And I wasn't the best at anything. I was good at most things, but never good enough at anything that would make the other kids notice me.

And I was shy. Extremely, embarrassingly shy.

I took another swig.

If a girl even said hi to me I froze up. As I got older, girls became more important to the few friends I had, and my lack of vocal ability in their presence became more and more embarrassing to them. By the time I was 14, I realized I didn't have any friends.

I've always had problems with the fairer sex. I use to practice on my mom. Of course, I got a lot more practice before she started dating. But still, practice didn't seem to be enough. I've actually gotten detention because some of my teachers were a little too attractive.

I'm pretty sure my mom knew what I was doing, but she never got annoyed with me. I would sit next to her and hold her hand and listen and talk. After all, my mom was the most beautiful woman I knew. She had curves and legs and breasts and when she smiled, everyone smiled. You couldn't be unhappy while Mom was smiling. Somehow she just made everything right. And when she lit a cigarette... God, there was nothing sexier.

I took another swig as I thought about her.

She didn't use a Bic. No, Mom had more style than that. She used one of those old Zippo lighters that you have to put the fluid and striker into. She would pull out one of those little white sticks and put it to her lips. Her other hand would come up and strike a flame. She would close her grey eyes, and with her lips wrapped around the cig, she would breathe in the flame and slowly breathe out a cloud of smoke. And then she would smile her little smile of satisfaction.

God. I actually hit puberty watching her smoke. I'm surprised she didn't hear my balls drop.

I always figured if I could talk to her, I could talk to anyone. That was the theory anyway. It didn't really pan out. Mom was easy to talk to. There was just something about her that calmed a person down. She didn't judge me or call me weird. She would just listen and talk.

I saw a pair of lights coming down the dirt road. Fuck. Who the hell was here this early? I hopped back into my Vette, started the engine, and drove off. 8:24, fuck. Hopefully she would already be gone. She had a date with Trent tonight.

I hated Trent. Nothing personal, he wasn't a bad guy. But I hated all my mom's boyfriends. I felt it was just a safe policy. I never tried to sabotage her relationships, but I definitely wasn't going to be helping things.

Besides, I always felt like having a huge disapproving son kept some of these guys in line. Not that Mom needed me to. There was only ever one guy who thought he was going to get out of line. David.

She was breaking up with him one night and he raised his hand to hit her. She just looked at him. That's all. Just looked at him. This hard cold stare. He withered like a flower in gasoline. I had been 16 at the time and filled with pride.

As I drove down the street, I saw Mom's car sitting in the driveway.

I'll be honest. I was only 18 and it was my first time drinking. I had no idea how drunk I was. If I did, I would never have walked into the house that night.

But I did walk into the house. Mom was sitting on the couch, wearing a tight red dress and black high heels. She took one look at me and smiled, bemused. "Really. That quickly. Go to bed, Brent."

Some part of me expected a lot worse. I mean, come on. I was drunk and driving and under-aged. I had earned some serious grounding here! But if this was the worse I was going to get, who was I to argue?

As soon as I got to my room I passed out.

---Carol---

That boy. Sometimes I forgot how grown up he was. I stroked my hand through his curly brown hair. Watching his face as he relaxed in his sleep. It killed me that, on a Saturday night, my wonderful little man was passed out at home at 8:30. I wanted him to have the same experiences his father and I had as kids. Going to parties, hanging out, Make-out Point. Maybe even getting into a little trouble with the local police. I wanted him to have fond memories of his childhood. That's what made childhood worth it. Getting into trouble, and knowing it was worth it.

I smiled sadly. I don't know who he thought he was fooling. I knew he didn't have any friends. But he went out anyway, just to make me happy. Then again, I didn't tell him I was breaking up with Trent tonight. I had only dressed up to get Brent out of the house.

It was probably the easiest break up I ever had. Trent and I both knew our relationship wasn't going anywhere. We had a glass of wine, toasted to a good run, and then he kissed me on the cheek and left. Apparently, Brent and I had the same plan, he was just faster getting there.

I tucked him in and turned off the light. Then I turned up his radio-alarm clock. I wasn't worried about punishing him. Tomorrow would be bad enough.

---Brent---

Fuck my life! Nothing could be that loud! I didn't even try to turn off the alarm clock. I just unplugged it. I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. How the hell did the sun get into my room!

My stomach was horrible, my head was killing me, and life wasn't even worth living right now. I tried to get up, but decided that life as a paraplegic was infinitely preferable. I heard my mom laughing at me from somewhere just outside the range of my personal hell.

"Here, drink some water. It'll help." I reached out blindly, refusing to open my eyes. She grabbed my hand and placed a cold bottled water and a pair of aspirin in it. I gulped it down and prayed it worked quickly. Or at the very least that it would kill me quickly.