Chapter Text
July 4th, 2009 - Iowa City, Iowa
Mike was never a stranger to the sound of a heated argument between spouses. He'd become accustomed to the sound over the years from his parents constant fights. Whether it was because of how his father never seemed to be able to look away from the television long enough to give his mother any attention, or because they couldn't agree on what color they should paint the guest bathroom. No matter the cause, it always seemed to end the same.
What Mike wasn't used to was being in the middle of those arguments himself.
“It was one thing, Micheal! I asked you to bring home one goddamn thing and you couldn't even do that! What did I ask you to bring home?”
Mike scowled. His wife, Carol, seemed to think he was an idiot.
“You told me to get meat for burgers! That's what I got! I don't know why you're freaking out.”
“I told you to get ground turkey, Mike! Gretchen has a beef allergy. What am I supposed to give her now? You can't do the simplest things. You don't listen to me!”
Carol threw her hands in the air in frustration, desperation apparent on her face. Where did this come from? Why was she so upset about a simple mistake? Who made a burger with ground turkey anyway?
“This is ridiculous. You're being ridiculous.”
That seemed to only make things worse. Carol went silent for a moment, tears forming in her eyes.
“I'm the ridiculous one. I’m ridiculous? You couldn't even get the one thing that I asked you to get and you're calling me ridiculous.” She shook her head, speechless. “I really don't know why I even try anymore. I don't know what I'm doing here…”
Mike stared at her, confused and annoyed. He could tell Carol had too much to drink already. The Fourth of July party was a poorly hidden excuse for her to day-drink, one of her favorite pastimes lately.
“You're supposed to be making the food. That's what you're doing here.”
“I want a divorce.”
Mike stared at her blankly, expressionless, as if his brain had short-circuited. He truly wasn't thinking when he spoke next.
“You're going to divorce me over some fucking ground turkey? Are you serious?”
Carol screamed, “It's not about the turkey, Micheal! It's how you treat me! You're not romantic, you don't try, you don't listen, you won't even tell me that you fucking love me! Do you remember the last time you told me you loved me?”
Mike huffed, “I say it!”
Carol was sobbing now. Mike could tell he was hurting her, driving the knife in, twisting it until he couldn't anymore. But he couldn't seem to care. He didn't know why this meant so much to her. It was meat.
“Nineteen ninety-one, Micheal. The last time you said the words 'I love you’ was when you proposed in nineteen ninety-one. You haven't said it since, you haven't shown it since then. And now… now I'm done. I'm done trying to be the perfect housewife. I'm done trying to be enough for you. I want you out of my fucking house.” Carol sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes as she turned away.
Part of Mike wanted to reach out. To grab her and hold her, tell her that he loves her and he's sorry. But he knew that wouldn't be true. Deep down he knew this was coming for a few years, but never expected it to actually happen. So Mike only stood there and watched her light brown hair blow as she opened the sliding door to the backyard and walked outside.
The fireworks began soon after that, but Mike only heard them through the walls of his bedroom as he took out a box from the back of his closet and read through the letters hidden in there for the millionth time in the past twenty years.
November 18th, 2009 - Iowa City, Iowa
It’s always sunny in Iowa. Except for when it’s not. And the rain always seems to match up with when Mike is already having a shitty day. It started that morning when his nine year old daughter, Willow, decided that she didn’t want to get out of bed to get ready for school the first time that Mike had come into her room to wake her up. Or the second, third, or fourth time. By round six they were already running twenty minutes late and Mike had spilled coffee on his shirt and had to change.
After they had finally managed to get ready and out the door, Mike noticed the second car still sitting in the driveway. He cursed and stomped back inside, demanding his older daughter, Jude, get up and dressed as well. All attempts were futile with the sixteen year old and Mike was at his wits end with the two girls.
Adjusting to single life had been incredibly difficult. Not only for Mike, but for his two daughters as well. Clearly. The ink on the divorce papers wasn’t even dry yet when Carol had packed her bags and decided that she needed a “vacation”. She failed to mention, however, that this vacation would last over a year and she would be thousands of miles away at a beach in the Bahamas while Mike, Jude, and Willow tried to continue their life as normal.
Mike wasn’t necessarily sad about the whole endeavor. Yes, getting along without Carol had proven to be difficult, but Mike found that he didn’t need her. As shitty as he sounds, he really only missed coming home to dinner on the table and having his laundry cleaned and folded for him. But he figured if he really missed it so much then he could just hire a maid.
The biggest problems came with his daughters. Neither of them had out-right said that they hated him yet, but Mike really got the feeling that they did. Jude was especially close with her mother, and trying to get her to listen to Mike was like trying to teach a fish to climb a tree. Jude spent most of her nights making long distance calls to their mother and not giving two shits about how outrageous the phone bill would end up being at the end of the month. Not to mention how often she would go out now that Carol’s parents had gifted her a car for her sixteenth birthday. A cherry red convertible, nicer than anything Mike had gotten at her age, and much more expensive as well. Mike knew that the only reason they had done that was to try and show him up after the divorce. In-laws were never that kind without ulterior motives.
Willow, however, clung to her father’s coat tails like never before. A new fear had gripped her now that she had realized her parents could up and leave like nothing happened. She was terrified that he would end up leaving her as well. He knew this because she would make her way into his room at night and crawl into his bed with him, sobbing her eyes out and begging him not to leave her. He would lay awake with her until she fell asleep, promising that he would never leave her side. That he would always be there for her.
Mike frequently thinks about his daughters. How they're the only good things to come out of his marriage with Carol. He would do anything for them, and worked hard to provide for them. He spent countless late nights at the office to get as much overtime as possible to afford everything they could ever need and want. This, however, was apparently not appreciated by his boss.
“You're fired.”
Mike’s stomach sank as he sat in an uncomfortable chair across from his boss. Who knew two words could make him feel like this? Three syllables to change the trajectory of his entire life. One day he might be happy about this, but that day was certainly not today.
“I don't understand.” Mike took a deep breath, “I've worked here for years. I've stayed late, I've done everything I can.”
His boss shook his head, his hands folded neatly on the mahogany desk sat between them. A wooden barrier between worlds. A symbol of class divide. What a stupid symbol. “I'm sorry, Micheal. Truly, I am. Your work has been appreciated, but budget cuts are necessary for growth. You're no longer needed at this company.”
Mike’s head buzzed, words fading into white noise. Something about severance, packing his things, a check he can expect in the mail. He silently stood from his chair and made his way out of the office, grabbing the few things he had in his cubicle and passing his former coworkers as he walked out of the door for the last time.
His expression was blank as he climbed into his PT cruiser and stared out the windshield. It was almost time to pick up Willow, but he couldn't move. What was he supposed to do now? He would lose the house for sure. His kids would hate him. Carol would have to take custody. He could always just call Carol and explain what happened. God, imagining how smug she would sound made his stomach churn. There was no way he could—
He felt a faint buzzing in his pocket. His phone, it was ringing. Mike robotically took it out of his pocket, not checking to see who was calling before flipping it open and answering.
“Hello?”
“Micheal! It's mom, honey. How are you?”
Mike snapped back to reality with a slight gasp. His mom, why was she calling? Had she heard the news already? They wouldn't have called her to tell her, would they?
“I'm, uh, fine. Hi. Why are you calling?”
His mom scoffed over the phone, “Can I not just call to talk to my son? You rarely ever answer me anyway, I wanted to check on you and the girls. I'm sure it's been hard since Carol left. But listen, sweetie, I also wanted to talk to you about something.”
Mike leaned back against the headrest and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah mom, listen, I’m a little busy right now—”
“I'm sure you are, but Micheal we're having a reunion at home. Everyone will be here, all of your old friends. I wanted to invite you to come home for the holidays. I'm sure they would love to meet Jude and Willow.”
Mike grimaced, this conversation was not helping his churning stomach. “Mom—”
His mom cut him off again, “I know what you're going to say, but please, Mike. You haven't been home in twenty years. I'm always the one that has to come to you, I just want to see my family. You don't have to get gifts or anything. Everyone is coming out next week, they'll all be here until the new year. Jane, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Will, their families… just think about it, okay?”
Mike sighed, the thought of going back to Hawkins alone made his palms sweat, but the thought of seeing everyone again after twenty years on top of that made his heart beat rapidly in his chest.
“I'll think about it.”
He could hear the smile in his mom’s voice, “Wonderful, I'll leave you alone now, but let me know if you need any help getting here. We're all excited to see you! I love you, honey.”
Mike said his goodbyes and cursed after they hung up. What an awful day. He was already thinking of ways to get out of this as he started his car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading to pick up Willow from school. He could lie and say that one of them had gotten incredibly ill with something that would last over a month. Or maybe he could fake his death. That was possibly a little dramatic, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And this was certainly a desperate time. It had been twenty years since leaving, twenty years since he had seen any of his old friends, twenty years since the worst trauma of his life, twenty years since making the biggest mistakes of his life.
When he got to the elementary school, Willow clambered into the back of the car and handed Mike a drawing.
“What’s this?” Mike asked as he looked down at the picture. Willow had always been a great artist, especially for her age. Mike looked at the three people in the picture, obviously meant to be himself, Willow, and Jude. They were holding hands, a typical family portrait.
“It’s a drawing I made in class. We were supposed to draw our family that we’re going to be with for Thanksgiving. But I didn’t think that it would be anyone except for us this year since mommy is gone.”
Mike’s heart sank as he looked back at her sad face in the rearview mirror, her dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail that he had attempted this morning. Her big hazel eyes stared back at him for a moment before she looked out the window, obviously holding back tears.
Mike sighed and sat the picture in the passenger’s seat next to the items he had taken from his desk earlier that day. He was going to regret this, he knew he was going to regret this, but he did it anyway.
“No, actually. We’re going to see Grammy. And a lot of other people that I should have introduced you to sooner.”