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Karen Wheeler has made choices in her life. The big ones, the life-altering ones, she capitalizes.
Retuning to Hawkins was a Choice. Marrying Ted was a Choice. Trying to listen to her children and let them lead their own lives while keeping them safe is a daily Choice.
Her first Choice, when she was finally able to make it, was cutting off contact with her parents and getting the hell out of dodge.
When Nancy brings home a friend after graduation, drops a duffle bag on the floor and says she needs a place to stay for a while, Karen recognizes the importance of this Choice.
“Another mouth to feed? What are we, the Marriott?”
Ted peaks over his newspaper and catches the eyes of Chrissy Cunningham. She smiles bashfully, blinking her big doe eyes.
Atta girl, Karen thinks.
“I’m so sorry to intrude, Mr. Wheeler. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and Nancy is always telling me how generous you are when you let Mike’s friends stay over.”
Ted lets out a humph, pulling his paper back up. “Yes, fine. Have a good night, ladies.”
Karen exchanges a wide-eyed look with her daughter, but she knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. With a shrug, she waves the girls away, and Nancy takes Chrissy down to the basement to get her settled.
Chrissy gets a job at Family Video with Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington, picking up as many hours as she can over the summer. When she’s home, she helps Karen with the housekeeping and watching Holly. Karen had protested at first, but Chrissy insisted she help to repay them for helping her, and soon she has Holly tumbling more than she walks. Ted takes the afternoon off work to get her a bank account.
Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin take her out with them to the movies and the pool and whatever else teenagers get up to the summer after they graduate. Sometimes, a boy with wild hair and rock music blasting from his van windows drops her off. She would protest, but the boy turns down the volume and waits in the driveway until Chrissy is inside, and she can’t scold a boy with good manners.
“Who is that?” Karen asks the third time it happens. Chrissy startles, which isn’t unusual, but she’s getting better. This time, though, it’s probably because she was so focused on watching the boy walk away that she didn’t notice another person in the room.
“Oh,” she stammers, ducking her head and unsuccessfully hiding her blush behind her overhang of bangs. “That’s, um, that’s Eddie. Eddie Munson.”
Karen turns away from the dishes she’s putting away. “Eddie? The Hellfire boy?”
Chrissy nods. “Yeah. He’s— he’s different than people think he is.”
Karen almost laughs at that. She glances around the corner, checking that Ted is still asleep, before she opens the fridge. “Do you smoke, Chrissy?”
Her eyes become impossibly wider as they flit to Ted then back to her. “Uhh… not… really?”
Karen nods, grabbing two beers and leading the way to the back yard. “C’mon. Let’s have a drink.”
One of the many perks of marrying an older man, Karen thinks, is his inability to stay awake after dinner. She’s been sneaking out to this old wooden swing for a secret smoke break and a beer for years. Some days, it’s the only thing that keeps her sane.
“So, Chrissy,” she says once they’re settled and she’s taken her first deep, steadying drag. “Tell me about Eddie.”
Chrissy takes a large swig of her beer, cheeks turning pink again. “Eddie is— he’s, well, I think he’s my best friend?” She smiles, playing with the pull tab. “He’s just, he’s so nice to me. He makes me laugh. And when I talk to him, he listens, like really listens. Sometimes I think he’s recording our conversations, the why he remembers things. And he’s loud and he can be really in-your-face about things, but he’s actually really sweet.”
“Do you love him?”
Chrissy jumps. “What? I don’t think, I mean, I haven’t known him that long!”
Karen sighs, taking another deep drag. She offers it to Chrissy, who shakes her head, ponytail bouncing over her shoulder.
“The day I graduated high school, I left for San Francisco.” She smiles, remembering those days on the road with her two closest friends. “My parents thought I was just going to Indianapolis for the weekend with my friends. I haven’t spoken with them since.” She ashes into the dead plant on the ground. “My dad was a drunk. My mom was his floor mat, and she’d take her anger out on me. I swore that I would get out of this town, live on my own, and never get married. I would never let a man into my life, I would never let one walk all over me like she did.” Her head falls back, her throat burning and her head floating. “When we got to San Fran, we all found jobs at a diner. It was busy, and we were all young and pretty, so we made enough to pay the bills and go out at night. It was…” She lets herself get lost in the hazy memories for a moment, can’t contain the smile that breaks across her face. “Well, it was the 60s and it was San Fran so there’s not a whole lot I can remember, but I do remember Keith.”
She turns to look at Chrissy, watching her with those big blue eyes. “Keith was my Eddie,” she says, hushed like it’s a secret. Which, she figures, it kind of is. She can’t think of the last time she’s talked about him. “He was a wild thing, but he was sweet on me. I mean, really sweet on me. Wrote me songs and everything.” A prickling starts behind her eyes, and she blinks it away. “He had dreams. Was gonna be the next big thing, a rising star. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but he was fine with that. We were living without the pressure of expectations and that was everything.”
Chrissy shifts next to her, placing her beer the yard before she tucks her knees against her chest. The swing rocks them gently, a warm summer breeze playing with their hair. “So, what happened?”
Karen shrugs, taking one last drag before dropping the butt in her empty can. “What usually happens. People grow up and move on. One of my friends got knocked up and moved back, just a few towns over. The other found his life partner and never left.”
Chrissy rests her cheek on her knees. “What about you and Keith?”
“I used to write stories, when I was younger. Silly little things full of adventure and romance. Helped me forget about my life. I told Keith, and he said I didn’t have to stop. He was the first one who told me I could be a writer. He supported me, thought my stuff was the best thing he’d ever read. It took me a year to finish my first book, and then I spent the next three trying to convince anybody to buy it. In the meantime, the bills piled up. Keith was still playing the same bar circuit. And I was just a waitress. No college degree to fall back on, no real plan for my future. One day, Keith tells me he thinks it’s time to move on.” Chrissy gasps, and Karen smiles. “He meant move out of San Fran. With me. He thought we might have better luck in LA. But I was tired. Tired of fighting to just exist. Tired of being told no. So I gave up. The day before he left for LA, I hopped on a bus back here. Got a job as a receptionist. And I met Ted.”
Chrissy frowns. “Did you love him?”
Karen sighs. “Love is— well, it’s complicated. And it’s not the same for every person. I love my children. I love my home. And I love that Ted is able to provide for us. He’s never mean, and he loves our kids. He lets me live my life without holding me under a microscope. He loves me, even if he has an odd way of showing it. And I love him for that.”
When Karen was three months along with Nancy, she’d marched up to Ted on a Saturday morning and handed him an address. He’d been quiet on the drive there, and after she’d stared at her childhood home for half an hour, just as the tears started to flow, he’d said nothing as he drove her home. He had held her hand the whole way back, only releasing her to pay for the fast food he knew she was craving because she asked for it three times a week.
“Ours isn’t the kind of love you fall into. It’s the kind to choose, the kind to build up and work on. Keith and I were drawn to each other. We fit together without even trying. I don’t know if that’s soulmates, or true love, or something else. But it was special. And it’s not the same thing I have with Ted.”
“Do you regret it? Leaving Keith?”
Chrissy’s eyes have overflowed, tears tracking down her cheeks. Karen pulls her in, tucking her into her side just as easily as she holds her other children. “No,” she finally says. “I don’t regret leaving Keith. But I don’t think I’d regret staying with him, either.”
“He terrifies me,” Chrissy confesses. “He makes me feel more like me when I’m with him. I’m scared I already love him. But what if—what if I open up to him, and I’m too much for him? What if I’m not enough?”
“Chrissy.” Karen pulls away, cradles the girl’s face in her hands. “You are enough. Just as you are now, you are enough. I know it’s hard to believe. It took me a long time to get my mother’s voice out of my head.” Chrissy’s face collapses, her head now fully supported by Karen’s hands. “You are so, so strong to have survived this long without letting it harden your heart. Don’t let her control your life any longer.”
She pulls Chrissy against her chest, lets her stain her top with her teal-tinged tears. When the worst of it passes, and her breathing evens out, Karen leans down to whisper in her ear. “Let him love you, Chrissy. And let yourself love him back. Love him as long as it feels right. And when it doesn’t, even if it hurts, then it’s time to let him go.”
Chrissy shivers. “It’s doesn’t— he doesn’t feel like someone I could let go of.”
Karen feels her own tears building, and she stops holding them back. There are times where it’s okay to have a release. “Then hold on to him with both hands, Chrissy. God knows you deserve it.”