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She was concerned, of course, when Nancy asked her and Ted if she could speak to them in the kitchen. Holly and Mike had just been sent to bed, though Karen knew that her son would be up for another few hours reading or listening to music he thought she couldn’t hear from across the hall.
She was concerned when Nancy didn’t take a seat at the table, even when they’d left it open for her. Instead, her oldest daughter stood before them with her hands curled into fists at her sides. She stood straight as an arrow, whole body stiff and unnaturally still. Her eyes were focused on something past both Ted and Karen.
She wondered when her little girl had begun to look like a soldier.
Karen smiled, tried to look encouraging. Tried to be the mother she hadn’t always been.
Next to her, Ted sighed. His eyes were tired behind his glasses. Bored, almost. He’d brought the day’s newspaper with him, even though Karen was sure he’d read it back to back twice already. Nancy and Holly had done the crossword together.
If her husband wasn’t going to take an interest in their children’s lives, Karen was going to have to do it for the both of them.
“What is it, honey?” she asked. “You can tell us anything.”
Even as the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t true. Hadn’t always been true.
But she wanted them to be true. She was trying. Because something had happened to her children. Something they hadn’t been able to talk about until the earth cracked open beneath their feet and monsters crawled out, and she still knew there were things they hadn’t told her. Might never tell her.
“There’s something I have to say,” Nancy began, voice hard but steady, “and you’re not going to like it.”
Ted’s eyes narrowed, attention snapping from the paper to their daughter in record time.
“Are you pregnant?”
Karen would be lying if she said that hadn’t been her first thought. It filled her with this near-suffocating sadness, the idea that Nancy might end up like her one day: counting down the days until her children went off to college so she could divorce her husband without completely destroying their lives.
Nancy scoffed. “Wh– No, I’m not pregnant!”
“It’s because you’ve been hanging around those trailer trash types,” Ted continued, either oblivious or uncaring. Karen closed her eyes, took a deep breath to keep from reminding him who he married, where she’d grown up. “Byers and what’s-his-name. The murderer.”
“Jon and Eddie are my friends,” Nancy seethed, “and neither of them would ever hurt anyone. Ever. But that’s besides the point! I’m not pregnant, I’m– I don’t…”
Suddenly, Nancy was just a kid again, her kid, looking lost and afraid and totally unsure of herself.
Ted opened his mouth to respond, but Karen rushed to beat him to it, shot him a quick glance that hopefully said shut the hell up before you lose our daughter.
“You can tell us anything, Nancy.”
Nancy shook her head. Karen watched as her walls built back up, back straightening, jaw setting, fingers twitching.
“I’m not pregnant because I don’t like boys,” she announced. “I’m a lesbian.”
Karen’s heart dropped. She knew what her husband would say even before he said it.
“Not in this goddamn house you’re not,” Ted shot back. He didn’t seem to care that Nancy’s face crumpled at his harsh words.
“Ted–”
“I think I’d rather you be pregnant. Then I’d at least have a whore for a daughter instead of a dyke.”
Tears gathered at the edges of Nancy’s lashes. Karen ached to wipe them away.
“Fuck you,” Nancy hissed.
Ted’s eyes went wide. He nearly knocked over his chair when he shot to his feet, his face red and blotchy. Karen wondered how she had ever convinced herself to love him.
“What the hell did you say to me?”
“She said fuck you, Ted,” Karen repeated. She looked up at him and his shocked expression and let out an honest-to-God laugh. She stood to face him. “And she’s right! You think you can talk to my child that way? After ignoring her for eighteen years? After all that’s happened the last few months? She could be dead! Fuck you.”
“Karen–”
“So what if she’s a lesbian?” she continued. “She’s just as intelligent and kind as she was ten minutes ago when you insulted her friends. She’s still our Nancy. My Nancy. If you can’t handle that, then I guess you should call your lawyer. Because I’ll be getting a good one.”
“Karen, what… You can’t be serious! Karen!”
Ignoring Ted still spluttering and raving behind her, Karen finally wiped away her daughter’s tears. Nancy leaned into the touch.
“Mom?” she asked. Her eyes were wet, her voice shaky. “Do you really mean that?”
Karen nodded, smiled warmly. “Of course, honey. You’ll always be my girl. Don’t you know how much I love you?”
All the tension left Nancy’s body in one fell swoop as she sagged against Karen, arms wrapping so tightly around her that Karen thought she might stop breathing. She ran a hand over Nancy’s curls, shhing and cooing like she had when Nancy was only a baby.
Slowly, Nancy pulled away. She sniffled and sent Karen a little smile. It was nothing more than an upward tick of her lips, but it was a smile, and nothing could convince Karen otherwise.
“Thank you,” Nancy said. “I love you too, Mom.”
Before Karen could reply, Nancy reached out and swiped a thumb under her left eye. She blinked, suddenly aware that she’d been crying as much as Nancy had.
She laughed a little at herself.
“We’re a bit of a mess,” she said. “Why don’t you go splash some cool water on your face and start packing a bag? I’m going to call your Aunt Rosie and see if she’s still got that guest bedroom open. I’m sure Mike won’t be thrilled about sharing a room with Holly, but it’s probably the best we can do right now.”
Nancy bit her lip and ducked her head.
“I– I already packed. I didn’t know how this was going to go,” she admitted, breaking Karen’s heart all over again. “I thought I might have to leave. If it went really badly.”
Karen could only nod. What was she supposed to say? That it never would have come to that? She couldn’t lie, not now. Not even to make Nancy feel better.
“Holly will need some help packing some clothes alongside her toys,” she said instead. “Could you get her up and ready?”
With that, Nancy bounded off. Karen turned back to her husband, who sat glumly at the kitchen table with his head in his hands.
He looked up at her, and he wasn’t sad, or even surprised. He just looked tired.
“This is how we’re doing this?” he asked. “Now?”
Karen nodded. “I’m taking the kids. You can’t stop me.”
“Fine. Wouldn’t know what to do with ‘em anyway.”
She pictured the look on Nancy’s face as Ted called her those horrid words, pictured that face on Mike or Holly after Ted similarly bungled something so monumental. She pictured Mike making dinner for the both of them, making do with only Kraft and cold cuts in the house because Ted couldn’t be bothered with the shopping. She pictured Holly crying her eyes out in her room while Ted flipped through a newspaper, completely oblivious. Her kids, all on their own.
“No,” Karen agreed, “you wouldn’t.”
She left him there to wallow in his own misery and headed upstairs. She paused at Mike’s door, the scraggly KEEP OUT! sign he’d taped to it askew.
Her knock was met by a quiet come in!
Mike sat with his back against his headboard, knees drawn up to his chest. He startled when he saw her standing in his doorway, eyes going wide and scared. He looked at her as if she might miraculously sprout claws and tear him to shreds.
“Oh, honey,” she breathed. “What’s going on?”
Mike shook his head.
“Were you listening?” His silence was an answer in itself. Karen sighed as she sat on the bed next to him. “How much did you hear?”
Her son’s face contorted in much the same way her daughter’s had.
“Not a lot. Dad called Nance– I couldn’t keep listening. I came here,” he said. “I promised I would be there for her, but I ran away!”
Mike knew, she realized. It made sense. Those two were closer than ever, had been since the earthquakes. Of course Nancy would trust Mike with something as big as that, and of course Mike would put it on himself to make sure Nancy was all right.
That’s when it clicked. Mike was angry—when wasn’t he?—but it wasn’t at her or Ted or even Nancy. He was angry at himself. In his mind, he’d let his sister down.
Karen sent a little word of thanks into the universe that she had kids who looked out for each other.
“I’m sure she understands,” she said. She reached out and put a hand on his knee, squeezing gently. “Even if you promised.”
Mike looked at her hand but didn’t shrug it off.
“I should have stayed,” he insisted. “She was only doing it for me in the first place!”
He seemed to realize what he’d said just as Karen processed it; he pulled back immediately, pressing himself even further into the headboard. The usual indignance on his face melted away into something akin to abject fear, and boy, was Karen getting tired of seeing that expression on her children’s faces.
“For you?”
“It’s nothing,” Mike rushed. “Don’t worry about it. Forget I said anything.”
“I’ll forget if you want me to, but… I’ll always love you, no matter what. Even if you’re different.”
Mike’s eyes searched hers.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Of course. That’s what I told Nancy.”
That did the trick: Mike bit his lip, and he looked so much like his sister in that moment that Karen wanted to cry.
“If Dad sends her away, he’ll have to send me too,” he finally said. He looked straight at her when he did, challenging and imploring all at once, daring her to get mean but begging her to keep on loving him anyway. “I like boys. I like– I like Will. Dad’s been saying all this shit about him, like that he’s… that he’s a fag and that his dad should’ve– It’s so awful, Mom. So Nancy said that—since she’ll be leaving for college soon—that she would tell you and Dad so that he could have something else to focus on. I didn’t want her to do it, but she said she wasn’t asking permission, and then I wasn’t there when she needed me because I got fucking scared!”
Karen reached out to him again, settling for patting the top of his socked foot.
“First of all, nobody’s getting sent away anywhere. Okay? You have nothing to worry about from me.”
Mike shook his head, dark hair flopping everywhere. “But Dad–”
“You have nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of your father,” Karen replied. “Second, you know better than to use that kind of language. You’re a smart boy, you don’t need to be talking trash like that.”
Mike sighed. “Sorry.”
He rolled his eyes and unfolded himself incrementally, his toes slipping under Karen’s thigh. She had never been so grateful for that look of irritation on Mike’s face. Anything was better than that raw, panicked fear. She’d do everything she could to keep her son from feeling that way ever again.
“I’m sorry, too. About the things your father’s been saying.” She swallowed hard. “If I’d known, I… I never would have let him keep hurting you that way. I’m sorry I didn’t see it.”
Mike nodded. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t, but Karen didn’t want to open that can of worms just now. Not when there were children to gather and packing to do.
“Thank you,” she said. She shot Mike a warm smile. “I’ve always liked Will, you know. He’s a very respectful young man.”
“Oh my God, Mom,” Mike groaned, thunking his head against the bedframe. It didn’t hide the little smile tugging at his lips. “I can’t come out to you and talk about my crush in the same conversation, okay? It’s already embarrassing enough that I told you about it.”
“One day you’ll want boy advice, and you’ll come on crawling right back to me,” Karen teased. “Just you wait.”
Mike laughed at that, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe the conversation they were having. Karen almost couldn’t believe it herself.
She gave his leg one last squeeze before getting to her feet and gesturing around the room, which was, as always, messier than she would have preferred.
“C’mon, get packing. We’ve got to leave soon.”
“Leave? For what?”
“We’re just staying at Aunt Rosie’s for a few days until I can figure out something more permanent,” Karen explained. “I’ve got to go check on Nancy and Holly, but you can call me if you need any help, okay? I love you.”
Mike nodded. “I love you, Mom.”
Karen had barely touched the doorknob when Mike called out to her again.
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
Before she could even turn around, her arms were full of gangly teenage limbs.
Mike squeezed hard, and Karen squeezed right back.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, the words almost lost to the frills on her shirt. “I was really scared.”
Karen gripped her son even tighter.
“I know, hun. I’m so sorry.”
She couldn’t remember the last time she held Mike like this—probably years ago, after the police had fished that body out of the lake and told everyone it was Will Byers. He’d cried then, deep and painful like every sob was ripped out of him, like he’d lost something too big to name.
He wasn’t crying now, just… breathing. Karen smoothed down his hair and kissed the side of his head, briefly mourning Mike’s ever-increasing height.
Reluctantly, she pulled away.
“Can I help you pack?”
Mike shook his head. Wordlessly, he dropped to his knees and shimmied halfway underneath his bed. He emerged with a duffel bag that he threw gracelessly over his shoulder.
He must have caught the flabbergasted look on Karen’s face, because he explained, “Nancy and I made these years ago. Just in case something happened and we had to get out of town quick. Holly has one too, it’s underneath Nancy’s bed. So we’re kind of ready whenever you are.”
Karen might never know what her children had gone through, but she hated it all the same, just for forcing her babies to grow up faster than they should have.
Nancy and Holly were already waiting in the main bedroom when Karen and Mike entered. Holly slept soundly on Karen’s side of the bed, and Nancy was elbow-deep in Karen’s closet, frowning at the blouse currently in her hand. Sure enough, at the foot of the bed were two green duffel bags that matched the one over Mike’s shoulder.
“Hey, Mom,” Nancy said brightly. “Do you think this shirt goes better with the cream blazer or the baby blue one?”
Karen raised an eyebrow. “Why do I need a blazer?”
“You’ve been talking about that job opening at the news station a lot recently. I thought you’d want some options in case you decide to go in for it now that Dad won’t be able to discourage you. I’m going with cream, since you have those matching pants.”
Completely disinterested, Mike starfished on the bed, careful not to jostle Holly too much, as Nancy and Karen hurriedly put together a roster of acceptable outfits and accessories.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the crackling of Mike’s walkie talkie split through the room.
“Loch Nora Home Base to Wheeler siblings. Come in, Wheelers. Over.”
Mike groaned and grabbed the thing, putting it up to his mouth and responding, “Wheelers to Loch Nora. Everything’s fine. Might need a place to stay the night. Over.”
“Steve says use the spare key,” the voice replied. Karen was pretty sure it was Dustin speaking. “Robin wants to know how Nancy’s doing. Over.”
“She’s fine, she’s just doing girl shit with my mom right now. Over.”
Karen whipped her head around to glare at him.
“Language, please!”
“Don’t be a misogynist, Mike,” Nancy quipped. “Maybe if you let me pick out your clothes, you wouldn’t look like that.”
Mike’s retort was interrupted when the walkie crackled back to life.
“What’s your ETA? Over.”
“Hours, at this rate. They’re looking at clothes. Over.”
“Robin says someone with your fashion sense obviously wouldn’t know how long it takes to… uh, curate the right look. Steve seconds. Eddie thirds. And El says to stop being a misogynist. Over.”
Mike groaned and scrambled for the walkie when Nancy grabbed it out of his hands.
“We’ll be there in twenty,” she said. “Over.”
The voice that replied wasn’t Dustin.
“Nancy! Is everything okay? How’d it go? D’you need me and Steve to come get you? Over.”
Karen watched with interest as a light blush spread across Nancy’s cheeks.
“Hi, Robs. Everything’s okay. It’s really good, actually. I’ll tell you about it when we get there, okay? Over.”
“Okay. I love you. Over.”
Mike gagged, Nancy flushed bright red, and Karen almost cried when she heard her daughter mumble a soft I love you too into the walkie.
Then there was Dustin again, and the moment was gone.
“We’re ordering pizza. Over and out.”
Ted and his car were gone when the four of them marched downstairs, Holly half-asleep and clinging to Mike’s arm like a little barnacle. Maneuvering her into Nancy’s station wagon was tricky, considering Ted had taken off with her car seat, but with her three kids in the backseat (Holly still dozing in the middle, just in case) and their duffel bags stashed away in the trunk, Karen felt more confident pulling out of their driveway that night than she had in the last twenty years.