Chapter I

The House on Willow Street

Written August 5, 1918

Everything that troubles me now began in 1917. At the time, it seemed ordinary enough, even gentle in its way. I did not yet think of it as a turning point. I thought only that I was moving forward, as expected, into the life that had been prepared for me.

I believed myself fortunate. I was young, well provided for, and surrounded by assurances that my future was secure. I had reached an age where marriage was no longer a distant thought but a subject that followed me everywhere, sometimes spoken aloud, more often quietly assumed. Like so many young women before me, the life I was expected to live felt like the only possible choice.

I believed myself in love, though even now I hesitate over that word for this relationship. What I felt seemed earnest enough at the time… My parents approved of the match, especially my father, and so I told myself he must be a decent man. Mr Charles Evenson… I hoped the certainty would come later, once my life with him had taken its proper shape.

He wrote to me each week, speaking at length of his ambitions, his plans, and the future he intended to build. There was certainty in his words, an expectation that life would arrange itself according to his will. I admit I was swept up by that confidence, imagining the adventures we might one day share. Perhaps we would travel. Perhaps I might document each journey with my photography.

I kept every letter he ever wrote to me, certain that one day I would show our grandchildren the early days of our courtship. But as time passed, I have come to understand that I have another reason for holding on to them. The thought of discarding those letters feels impossible. Within them lives a version of Charles I have not seen since our wedding night, the charming man who wished to have me as his wife. To discard proof of that man would be to admit that he had never truly existed.
That he was, in truth, beyond redemption.

As I read his letters, so often a strange combination of charm and his hunger for power, I remember feeling a quiet resistance rise and fall within me. His ambitions spoke solely of his own advancement, and not of the equal partnership I had imagined for a husband and wife. There was little room in his letters for curiosity about the life his future wife had already lived, or for any consideration of her own ambitions. Despite this, I told myself I was being foolish. I was engaged to be married, a certain amount of unease before a wedding was to be expected. Yet the feeling remained, even on my wedding day. Still, I said nothing. It was not my place to question him. What woman confronts a man about his ambitions? A preposterous thought.

It was only a few days after our wedding when the abuse began. His cruelty, both in word and in deed, increased by the day, until I could no longer bear it in silence. Finally, I turned to the only people I believed might protect me: my parents. Yet they urged me to be patient. To remain agreeable. To avoid making a fuss. Charles, they reminded me, came from a respectable family, and I ought to be grateful for what he provided. What I endured, they said, was simply a woman’s burden. “Keep quiet”, they said, my mother assuring me it would get better as time passed, and my love for him continued to bloom. And yet, in the months that have passed since that conversation, I have found myself unable to love him as I believe a devoted wife ought to. I have tried to be patient. I have tried to feel gratitude. I have tried to will affection into being. But my thoughts have continued, unbidden, to drift toward another man.

The memory of that doctor from so many years before lingers within me. Even now, with Charles gone to war, those thoughts return more often than I expect. I was told the doctor left town not long after my leg had healed, and even today, I have caught myself wondering where he might be now. At times, I consider how different my life might feel if our paths were ever to cross again. Yet I doubt he would remember my name. I was only sixteen when we met, after all, and I can only imagine the number of patients he must see each day. In any case, if Charles were ever to discover that my thoughts had wandered to another man…

Even so, I cannot deny the emotions these memories stir within me. They feel almost wild in nature. Adventurous. Full of an excitement I have not known since my more youthful days, when I would run around with my friends, getting into all manner of trouble. And now, it is not my husband, but this kindly doctor who sends my thoughts into a quiet flutter.

And what would the doctor make of this photograph? I have found myself looking at this more and more, this photograph taken a few days after my twenty-second birthday. A gift from my family, for a woman about to be wed and start a family of her own. I remember the sitting well: the careful arrangement of my dress, the instruction to remain still, the expectation of composure. Smiles, I was told, were unnecessary. A portrait was meant to show steadiness.

At the time, I thought little of it. It was simply something to be done. Only now, a full year later, do I notice how young I appear, how certain, how untouched by doubt - and how unaware I was of what lay ahead. Perhaps that is why I am continually perplexed by it. I see innocence in this younger face. I was naïve. Beyond this, I see a young woman too willing to trust, too ready to believe herself safe simply because she was told she was. A lamb being led to slaughter.
How foolish I am to have been swept away by the charms of my husband!

The last letter I received from him bore a postmark from France. That was more than a month ago. Though I do worry for him, I am ashamed to admit in these pages that I have found a measure of peace in his absence. I no longer startle at every sound. I no longer feel the need to look over my shoulder.
And if I am to be honest, there is a small part of me that hopes he does not return.

My days before marriage felt lighter, filled with a kind of careless excitement. My friends and I spoke often of the future, wondering where we might find ourselves in ten years’ time, how many children we would have, and what sort of men we might one day marry. I miss those days. Now, they seem almost unreal, as though they belonged to another life altogether, like scenes observed through a silent picture show. My life has come to revolve around my husband. Even in his absence, my thoughts return to him, and to what awaits me when he comes home. Though I am filled with shame and guilt over the darker turns of my mind, a part of me still longs for freedom…
If only to feel it one more time.

Perhaps these thoughts are nothing more than the quiet wishes of a married woman who dreams for a different life.
Few would remember the spirited girl I once was.
Fewer still the young woman from the house on Willow Street,
known then as Esme Anne Platt.