The General's Abandoned Wife
When they called him Major General Hawthorne, Grant didn’t flinch. It was as if he’d been expecting this all along. But when it came time to decide who was leaving with them, he took our son’s hand and cast an apologetic glance my way.
“I’ll take Ryan back with me first. I’ll send for you later.” He paused, his gaze shifting slightly. “As for Lydia… my mother has taken a real liking to her, so I…”
He trailed off, waiting for my response. But I didn’t need one. I already knew who was sitting in the back of that military SUV. I knew his ghost was already in the passenger seat.
In the years since I’d found Grant, broken and nameless, he’d often complained that I didn’t understand him. His ideals, his sense of duty to a country he couldn’t remember—it was all a world away from me. Yet, when I’d place a plate of the freshest garden greens or the most tender pieces of chicken from the stewpot in front of him, he would nod reluctantly, put down the pen he was always scribbling with, and mutter about the mosquitoes in the house or the mud Ryan had tracked across the floor.
I would just nod, my silence a placid lake over a chasm of knowing. He never realized that I could read. I saw the letters he wrote, the ones addressed to “My Dearest.”
The name on those letters wasn't mine. It was Lydia’s.
So when he spoke, all I did was give him a simple, clean nod and turn to hoist the foraging basket onto my back.
“Who you take with you is your decision, Grant.” My voice was flat. “I’m heading up the mountain to hunt for morels. We can talk later.”
1
The neighborhood kids had come tearing up to our porch with the news while Grant was teaching our son, Ryan, how to practice his cursive script. Ryan’s pen had stuttered, leaving a dark blot of ink blooming on the paper.
Grant’s focus hadn’t wavered. “Ryan,” he’d said, his voice calm and steady. “What have I taught you? Penmanship is discipline. A quiet hand comes from a quiet mind.”
I knew then what was coming. Grant was about to be reunited with his family. He was going home.
Even after his family had gone, leaving us to the sudden quiet, Grant remained impossibly composed. This was the man the Hawthornes had poured everything into shaping—their eldest son. Even with his memory gone, after years of languishing in this forgotten mountain town, the polish of his upbringing, the command in his bearing, had never dulled.
And I, somehow, was even calmer than he was.
Just like any other day, I went up the mountain.
Martha, from down the road, saw me and couldn’t resist a little jab. “Audrey! You’re about to be a general’s wife, living the high life in the city. What are you still doing grubbing around in the woods for mushrooms?”
Grant had told his family he needed a day to pack, that they should come back for him tomorrow. He mentioned he’d be bringing two people with him. The whole town was buzzing, saying my ancestors must have done something truly spectacular to bless me with this kind of luck.
They’d all forgotten. They’d forgotten when Grant first washed up here, his memory wiped clean, useless at any kind of farm work. They’d forgotten that I was the only one willing to care for him, tending to him like a child. He lived in my house, and the whispers started, staining my name until marriage was the only option left. Even then, it was nothing more than a potluck with a few neighbors and store-bought cupcakes to mark the occasion.
After that, for a time, we were happy. He was my husband, mine alone.
Now he was leaving, and by all rights, he should be taking his wife and child with him.
But I knew better.
In my first life, Grant did take two people back to the Hawthorne estate.
I wasn’t one of them.
I just smiled at Martha. “The morels are especially good this season.”
The money from a good haul would be enough. Enough for me to leave this place and find a new life somewhere else.
2
When I got home, Lydia was teaching Ryan French phrases.
“You have to practice,” she was saying, her voice a soft melody. “At the academy, boys your age can already hold a simple conversation.”
Ryan was hanging on her every word.
Lydia smiled and stroked his hair. “You’re such a quick study, Ryan. Not like…”
He reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist. “It’s all thanks to you, Aunt Lydia. If I sounded like Mom, everyone would laugh at me. She talks like such a hick.”
Grant, who had been reading a book in the armchair, looked up. A slow, gentle smile spread across his face.
What a picture of domestic bliss.
I’ve seen this scene twice now. Two lifetimes of it.
Lydia was a local girl, too. Her father was a drunk who used his fists, and her mother died young. Eventually, some relatives from out of state found her and took her away to the city for school. I never understood why she came back.
At first, I was grateful to her. Ryan had been playing too close to the creek, and he’d fallen in. Lydia saw him and pulled him out. I owed her his life.
But after that, things began to shift in ways I couldn’t quite grasp.
She came to our house and saw Grant. He was in the yard, splitting firewood. He moved with an easy, powerful grace, his back straight, the axe swinging in a clean, perfect arc. The rhythm was like a heartbeat.
She’d walked right up to him. “Grant, you have such a commanding presence. Audrey is a lucky woman.”
I never understood the things Grant talked about—honor, patriotism, the grand sweep of history. Our conversations were about the summer mosquitoes and the winter chill.
But the barb in Lydia’s words, the subtle mockery aimed at me—that, I understood perfectly.
I just stood there, my hands feeling clumsy and empty.
Soon, Lydia was at our house every other day. She even convinced Grant to volunteer as a substitute teacher at the small schoolhouse. From then on, it was always “Grant this” and “Grant that.”
After that, whenever I’d bring him his lunch, I’d find Lydia sitting right beside his desk. I’d watch as he’d take the chicken soup I’d simmered all night and carefully ladle it into her bowl.
Ryan would be there, laughing. “Mom, Miss Lydia says your cooking is the best!”
Yes. I was the one raising them, waking before dawn to forage, trading my best finds with neighbors for an old hen. I was the one who tilled that stubborn patch of earth behind the house until my back screamed, just to coax the most tender greens from the soil. I wouldn’t even let myself eat the best parts. And now, my husband and my son were using my labor to court someone else.
In my first life, I screamed those words out loud.
Grant’s jaw had tightened, his lips a thin, hard line. He turned to Lydia and gave a slight, formal bow. “Miss Raines, I apologize. My wife is not herself.”
He looked at me as if I were the most profound embarrassment he had ever endured.
Ryan was even more direct. “If you won’t let Miss Lydia have any, then I don’t want it either!”
Lydia, acting every bit the lady of the house, wrapped an arm around Ryan’s shoulders. “Ryan, what have I told you? That’s no way to speak to your mother.”
Ryan just pouted, burying his face in her side. “I’m sorry, Miss Lydia.”
She held him close, her eyes meeting mine over his head. There wasn't a trace of shame in them.
In that moment, with my son and my husband arrayed against me, I was utterly and completely alone. An outcast.
A bitter sorrow filled my chest.
Lydia was soft and pale, with delicate hands. I spent my days on the mountain and in the dirt; my strength was a wild, unkempt thing. After giving birth to Ryan, the slender shape of my youth was a distant memory. The three of them together—they looked right. They looked like a family.
Just like in the first life. She went back with them, and no one ever questioned that she was Ryan’s mother. At first, he called her Lydia, but she’d just smile and correct him gently. “Why don’t you call me Aunt Lydia, sweetie?”
It took me far too long to understand the quiet cunning in that suggestion.
3
When I walked in with my basket, the scent of damp earth and crushed leaves clinging to me, Grant stood up and took a half-step back. The smell probably offended his refined senses.
He glanced at the basket, overflowing with mushrooms, and a flicker of guilt crossed his face.
“Why are you still doing such hard labor?” he asked. “We… we don’t need the money anymore.”
He said the last part so softly, it was almost a whisper.
In my first life, after he left, he sent money. A check arrived every month, just enough to keep me from starving in this town. Just enough to ensure I could never afford to leave it.
I didn’t bother explaining. “I’m used to it. Better than sitting around.”
I picked up the needle and thread I’d left on the table and started stitching a small sachet. The herbs I used to repel mosquitoes lost their potency after a week, and Ryan’s legs were already covered in angry red welts.
Strangely, the sight didn’t twist my heart the way it used to.
Ryan watched me for a moment, his expression disdainful. “Mom, there aren’t any bugs in the city. You don’t have to make those things for us anymore.”
No. They never had any use for the things I made.
In my first life, just before that military SUV drove away, I’d tearfully stuffed Ryan’s arms with everything I could give him—sachets, a hand-knitted sweater, his favorite carved wooden bird.
They didn’t even make it to the end of the road. The items were tossed out, scattered along the dirt track. Martha, recognizing my stitchwork, had gathered them up and brought them back to me. The look in her eyes was a nauseating mix of pity and amusement.
At the time, I thought it was Grant's mother's doing.
I saved up and bought a cheap cellphone from the county seat, just so I could stay in touch. But every time I called, Ryan was impatient.
“I have to go, my riding lesson is starting.”
“Aunt Lydia is calling me.”
I scrimped and saved again, enduring a long, rattling bus ride to visit his boarding school in secret. He saw me from across the manicured lawn. And he ran. He sprinted to a waiting black car, desperate that I might call out his name and reveal his connection to me.
Watching his retreating back, I finally understood. It wasn’t the scent of the herbs that had faded. It was his heart.
After that, I never tried to see him again. Not until he was a man.
By then, years of hard labor had caught up with me. The doctor said I didn’t have much time. I called Grant. After a long silence, all he said was, “I can arrange for a hospital for you.”
But I didn’t want treatment. I just wanted to see my son one last time.
So I put on my best dress, spent my last savings on getting my hair done, and went to his lavish eighteenth birthday party.
“Ryan,” I’d whispered, my voice trembling. “Don’t you remember me? It’s Mom.”
He had Lydia on his arm, looking at me with pure disgust. “Who are you? Why are you here, trying to ruin my family’s celebration?”
Grant stood nearby, saying nothing.
The cold, calculating cruelty of the wealthy was on full display. In that glittering ballroom, I was a rat scurrying from the sewer. Security guards escorted me out, leaving me on the curb. A speeding truck’s headlights blinded me.
Lying on the pavement, staring up at the indifferent night sky, a single tear traced a path through the grime on my cheek. What a cruel joke my life had been.
And then I blinked. And I was back. Back on the very day his family came to find him.
This time, I would not be that pitiful, pathetic fool.
4
So I didn’t plead with them to take the sachets, didn’t try to force my care on them as I had before.
I just spoke calmly. “I know you don’t want it. This is for Daisy.”
Ryan was clearly thrown. I could be strict with him, but I had always doted on him, always offered him the best of everything first.
He pouted. “Daisy’s not a good kid. She’s disrespectful to Miss Lydia! Why would you make something for her?”
Daisy was one of the few children in the village who wasn’t completely enchanted by Lydia. As a result, she was often an outcast at school. The truth was, she’d never done anything to disrespect Lydia.
She just liked me more.
She said I smelled nice. Like growing things.
Grant used to say that, too. He’d bury his face in my neck and murmur that I smelled like “life itself.”
But in the end, it was Lydia’s perfume he chose.
A few days ago, I’d seen the welts on Daisy’s pale little arms and promised her I’d make some sachets.
If my own family didn’t want what I had to offer, someone else would.
I continued my steady stitching. “I’ll make things for whomever I please.”
Ryan’s face clouded over. “You’re mean! I’m going to go find Aunt Lydia! She’s taking me into town to eat at a real restaurant. She’s going to teach me how to use all the different forks.”
His eyes darted toward me, a flash of childish malice in them. “You’ve never had a fancy dinner like that, have you, Mom?”
I didn’t look up from my work. “No, I haven’t. You go have fun.”
His jab had landed on empty air, and he didn’t know what to do. Before, I would have been consumed with jealousy. I would have insisted on tagging along, desperate not to be left out of my own son’s life.
I had nearly died giving birth to him. In the haze of pain, I’d gripped Grant’s hand and gasped, “Save… save the baby.” For all the years that followed, I truly believed my child was more important than my husband.
But in the end, it was Ryan who delivered the killing blow.
5
After Ryan stormed out, a petulant thundercloud, Grant moved closer.
“Audrey. Are you angry with me?”
His voice was low, reasonable. “If you are, take it out on me. Don’t involve Ryan.”
He sighed, a sound of put-upon patience. “We leave first thing in the morning. Let’s not make this unpleasant for everyone.”
Unpleasant?
The word struck me, and for a moment, the world felt distant. After they left in my first life, my existence had been scrubbed clean of all joy. And now he had the audacity to stand there and tell me not to make things unpleasant.
That day, just like the last time, Grant’s mother had arrived, her body frail from illness, having traveled a thousand miles to see the son she’d lost. But the moment she saw me standing beside him, her face contorted into a mask of pure revulsion.
She let out a shrill cry. “Monster! Get that monster away from him!”
I froze, stunned. I knew I wasn’t a beauty queen, that a family like the Hawthornes would likely look down on me. But I had never expected this.
One of their entourage sighed and explained to Grant, “She hasn’t been right in the head since you disappeared.”
Though Grant’s memory hadn't returned, the primal bond of mother and son was there. A look of profound pain crossed his face.
But then the unthinkable happened. His mother’s gaze fell on Lydia, and her entire demeanor softened.
She reached for Lydia’s hand, her voice trembling with affection. “Sophie,” she whispered. “You’ve come back.”
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