Until Death Do Us Part

I'm Not A Monster

1

I'm not the monster you think I am. I'm not the villain that the media has conjured me up to me. I never touched her. I swear to that. I loved her. But I can't bear it anymore, I can't bear people think that I would do that to her. So I have to do this, it's the only way to clear my name. The only way so that I can get this pit out of my stomach, the only way that I can put myself at peace. I am not a monster, but I am not innocent. I am a man, and I made mistakes. Mistakes that lead to consequences I couldn't have predicted.

As far fetched as the narrative I am about to share with you might seem, I swear by my mother's grave it is the truth. My name is Owen Michael Caldwell and I was born on October 18, 1980, in a small town called Eudenbriar, Illinois. My mother was a fifth-grade teacher and my father worked for a fortune 500 company. I grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood. I had a sister named Laura who was three and a half years my senior and an older brother Ben who died when I was fourteen. I had a good childhood, most writers can't say that. My profession is plagued with people who've dealt with child abuse or foster homes. But not me, I had a happy existence. My father was a Jew who immigrated from Germany shortly after Hitler took power in 1933 with his mother while his father remained in Germany. His father was killed in 1941 in Bergen-Belsen the ten years before he met my mother. My mother, a good Catholic girl named Susie O'Farah was raised in Maine before moving to Chicago following her father's heart attack and eventual death. They met at a High School dance mere days before my Grandfather was marched to his death. My father used to say she was the only thing that got him through it. My mother was the kind of woman who could make anyone feel better, no matter how shitty you were feeling. She was kind, and not a fake hallmark kind of kind, but genuine. The kind of person who always put everyone above herself also thought of herself last. It was an amazing thing to watch, just the empathy she had for other people. There was nothing fake about her, everything she said she meant. Everything she did, she did for other people.

Her parents almost flipped when they found she was marrying a Jew. And a German Jew at that. Her family was straight Irish, all the way through thick and thin. They bled Irish blood and no one else's. They were Catholic and the kind of Catholic where you couldn't show your elbow in public. She was the youngest of eight children and her seven older siblings all married Irish and Catholic. But no, she was in love with a German Jew and there was nothing they were going to do about it. They married in May 1965 and two years later my brother Ben was born. I haven't thought of Ben in a while, can't quite recall the last time I saw him. He died in a Drunk Driving accident when I was fourteen, he was twenty-seven. He'd taken after neither of my parents, neither responsible or hard-working like my father, nor my mother's empathy. He was a mess, getting drunk and hooking up with men and women left and right. When he died, he'd just found out he was going to be a father. The girl, a stripper named Rachel from Chicago who was simply trying to pay off her student debts. My parents adopted the child, a baby girl they named Hannah, immediately after she was born and raised her as my sister. His funeral, like Ben, was also a mess. One of his old girlfriends came out and screamed at him for giving her an STD, another claimed that he had been the love of her life. Nevertheless, I missed Ben. He'd been my older brother, through thick and thin he always cared for me first. Was always there for me, right until he died. I cried than both of my parents and Laura combined. Laura through her grief into her schoolwork, she to do this day claims that her success is due to Ben's death. My mother obsessed herself with the baby. She was in her late forties when Hannah was born, but you wouldn't have been able to tell. My father jumped off Navy Pier twelve days after his son's death. But despite this, this hiccup, I was still happy. Sure, as I child I missed my father immensely, but it did not ruin me. My father had had good life insurance, more than good so we were well taken care of. Laura graduated from High School in 1995 and went to Yale for Pre-Med. She always was the smartest in the family. Throughout my high school career, let's just say I am not proud of some of the things I did. I did pot and a lot of it. A lot a lot of it. I didn't play any sports, which was a surprise judging by how popular I was. I had sex, not as much as the pot but still a lot. Three girls, Lydia Barks, Myra Gordan and Hilary Bates. All three of them had had sex with almost every guy in the school. My grades weren't great, B average, occasional A. I took easy classes. My favorites had always been English, especially writing for publication with Mrs. Spinster. She was the one who taught me how to write sports, and since I couldn't play them it seemed like a nice alternative. Soon, I was writing a daily sports column for our school newspaper. I think that may have been why I was so popular. I was at every sports game, every single one. The jocks came to know me, and I became an instant hit. It's funny, people seem to like you if you constantly write about how great they are.