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Karen Childress has always been one to go with the flow.
Mother asks her to become a cheerleader? She becomes one.
Mother asks her to not have such good grades because no one likes a know it all? She goes from As to Bs and Cs.
Mother asks her to stop hanging out with Joyce Maldonado so much? She stops going out with one of her closest friends.
Her friends tell her that she should accept Ted Wheeler's advances? She does, sneaking out with him during class and acting like she's in love when she feels none of it.
Whatever society asks, Karen Childress goes with. What Mother wanted, what her friends wanted, what her boyfriend wanted. Simple.
(Karen Childress was 18 when she graduated in 1960, and her suggestion of going to college was immediately shot down by Mother.
She never brought it up again.)
Karen Childress is 23 and Ted Wheeler, her boyfriend since high school, is back from Indianapolis, with a degree in accounting and a job already secured here in Hawkins.
Mother invites him for dinner, and Ted is perfect.
Too perfect.
But Mother likes him, praising him for his college degree and his job and the stable life he is going to lead.
Father approves of him, says that he is a hardworking young man with a brilliant future ahead of him.
Ted shakes Father's hand, compliments Mother for the dinner, and kisses Karen on the cheek in a polite manner and then leaves.
(As if she hasn’t let him do much more during breaks in high school.)
“Theodore is an amazing young man, Karen.”
Mother is standing behind her as she watches Ted leave the driveway.
Karen nods, not really present, “He is.”
Mother rests a gentle (heavy) hand on Karen's shoulder, “Should he ask, you should say yes, Karen.”
Karen knows what Mother is talking about. Except Karen isn't even sure she wants to, but when has she even not done what Mother wanted of her?
Karen Childress is 24 and has been dating Ted Wheeler since she was 16, even if in the years between 18 and 23 they didn’t see each other much.
They're going to Enzo's tonight, and Karen knows why.
Mother does, as well.
So, Karen puts on her best dress, perfectly styles her hair, flawlessly puts on her make up and is all smiles and lovely looks when Ted rings the doorbell at eight sharp.
Ted exchanges pleasantries with Father and Mother, promises to “Have her back by ten, Mr. Childress.”, and the two of them leave.
The car ride is silent, until Ted glances at her at a stop light.
“I like the dress. Is it new?”
No.
“Yes. I'm glad you liked it.”
She doesn't really care.
“Your hair is also nice. Did you cut it?”
No. She hasn’t cut her hair in almost a year now.
“Just the tips, I didn’t expect you to notice, Ted.”
The light turns green and just like that Ted's attention is back on the road.
They take the best table, and Ted immediately orders them the best (and most expensive) wine they have to offer.
Dinner is a mostly silent affair, at least on Karen’s part.
Ted is talking about how he’s set for an imminent promotion at his boring accounting job, droning on about a co-worker who thought he could get the promotion before Ted.
Karen nods in the right places, hums when appropriate and laughs when expected of her.
After they order dessert, Ted clears his throat.
And asks her the question Karen has been dreading since Ted came over for dinner last year and Mother told her she should say yes.
Karen Childress is 24 when Ted Wheeler asks her to become Karen Wheeler.
And Karen doesn't love him, never has, but what can she do?
She's not getting any younger and if she wants to get married (she doesn’t) and have children (this she knows she does), Ted is the ideal person to do that with.
He has a stable job, would be able to provide and she wouldn't have to work.
Besides, Mother already told her what to do.
So, when Ted gets on one knee and asks, “Would you marry me?”
Karen says what is expected of her.
“Yes.”
It’s supposed to be a perfect match. The only problem is Karen Childress doesn't love Ted Wheeler. Then again, when she says yes she becomes Karen Wheeler, and Karen Wheeler is Ted Wheeler’s loving wife, so it all resolves itself.
(Karen Childress’ last day was a bright sunny day in 1966.)
It’s 1967 and Karen Wheeler is 26 when she feels genuine joy for the first time in years.
She’s exhausted, spent, and hates everything about her body, but the moment she has her beautiful daughter in her hands it all stops mattering.
Her entire world narrows to the face of her daughter, her thankfully healthy daughter, and when her baby opens her eyes Karen’s immediate reaction is to coo at her.
“Do we have a name for the baby?”
Karen doesn’t know which of the nurses asks, but before she can open her mouth Ted replies, his voice firm and void as it always is, “Nancy Margaret Wheeler.”
The nurse nods, jotting down the name on her clipboard.
They had decided on a name a few weeks ago when Mother had brought it up, asking if they had any ideas.
They hadn’t known if it would be a baby girl or a baby boy, but…Karen had always known it would be a girl.
A mother's intuition, if you will.
Karen had chosen Nancy herself, hadn't even chosen a male name because she knew she was carrying a girl.
Ted had immediately made it clear that if it was a girl she'd be Margaret and if it was a boy it would be James.
Boring, Karen thinks, but whatever, he conceded to have his parents’ names be their middle names, and had let her decide the baby's first name.
She ignores the look in Ted’s eyes, the one that tells her that he had wanted a boy, and instead focuses on the miracle in her arms, “Hi there. Hi Nancy.” She can’t help but coo at her daughter’s cute expression, the way she scrunches up her tiny nose, “I’m your Mama. Hi baby.”
It’s a foreign feeling, the love blossoming within her.
It’s one she hasn’t felt in so, so, long, to the point she doesn’t even remember it.
(She knows that’s a lie. Because she had last felt love when she had been in Joyce Maldonado’s presence.)
Karen Wheeler is 27 and tired.
She hadn’t underestimated how hard motherhood would be.
No, what she had foolishly done was overestimate the help Ted would be willing to give.
Which is apparently none.
Because he’s out working the whole day, and when he’s not he’s in the living room in front of the couch complaining about the crying and the whining and the mess. And at night he won’t move a muscle because he has to get up early, so he can’t get up and shush Nancy back to sleep.
Needless to say, Karen was alone in this.
Mother had come by once, while Karen was still in the hospital.
She had looked at her granddaughter, had looked at her daughter, and had asked, “Her name?”
Karen, still dizzy and reeling from everything, hadn’t even been able to rely on Ted to answer because he’d already left, back to the office.
Voice raspy and itchy, she had struggled to speak two measly words, “Nancy Margaret.”
Mother had raised an eyebrow, but had kindly (oddly) refrained from commenting on the choice.
Instead, her eyes had lingered on her daughter once more, before she shook her head and said, “Sit up properly. You look like a mess, Karen.”
Now, a year later, Karen still feels like a mess. but at least she doesn’t have Mother telling her the obvious truth in that perpetually disappointed tone of hers.
Currently, she’s cooking dinner, while bouncing a crying Nancy on her hip, all the while trying to not come apart and start crying herself.
Because God help her does she feel close to tears.
Because she had wanted children, more than anything, but…
She had perhaps, naively, thought she wouldn’t be left alone.
Sniffling, Karen kisses the crown of Nancy’s head as her beautiful baby girl settles down.
“It’s okay, Nance, Mama’s here.”
Her attention is on the simmering pot for a whole entire second, before her world narrows back to her daughter, who is now looking at her, a small and kind of sticky hand resting on Karen’s cheek, opening and closing her mouth before jumping slightly and declaring to the world, “Mama!”
Love, Karen decides, is a beautiful and wonderful thing.
Karen Wheeler is 29 when she sees Joyce Byers for the first time.
She remembers, a few years ago, hearing that Joyce Maldonado was marrying Lonnie Byers.
Karen had never liked Lonnie, who always drank a bit too much at parties.
(She supposes she can’t judge that anymore, not with the ever present bottle of wine in her kitchen. But unlike Lonnie, Karen never lets herself go. She has a daughter to care for, after all.)
She doesn’t know if he’s changed, but she hopes so, since Joyce has married him.
Point is, Karen is dropping Nancy at daycare when she sees Joyce for the first time since graduation back in 1960.
Joyce is holding a small boy in her arms, and Karen doesn’t even need to ask to know that he’s Joyce’s.
He has that same kind air to him that Joyce has always had.
Karen’s attention is pried away from the sight of who was once her best friend by Nancy’s tugging on her blouse’s sleeve.
Her baby girl is dressed in a lovely baby pink summer dress, a matching bow in her hair, and Karen can’t help but coo at how adorable she is.
Nancy shrugs her off, her nose scrunching up adorably, “Ma? Can I go now?”
Nancy loves going to the daycare. (Probably because the alternative is staying home. Karen can’t blame her.)
She smiles, bright and honest, and kisses her daughter’s forehead.
“Yes. Be good, Nance. I’ll see you later.”
Nancy nods, giving Karen a kiss on the cheek before running inside.
“So that’s why she looked familiar.”
Karen turns around, startled, and finds herself face to face with Joyce.
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!”
Joyce has an apologetic smile on her face, and Karen feels a smile tugging at her lips in response.
The boy that had been in her arms is nowhere to be seen, probably inside by now.
“Oh, don’t worry Joyce! I saw you had a little boy with you?”
Joyce smiles, full of love and warmth and pride in a way that feels…motherly.
(Has Karen ever looked like that?)
“Oh yeah, that’s my son, Jonathan.”
Jonathan.
“How old is he?”
“He’s three. Me and Lonnie are expecting, too.”
Joyce isn’t showing, at all.
Meaning she’s probably just gotten pregnant.
She coos, “Oh, congratulations, Joyce! It’s going to be a spring baby, then?”
Joyce laughs, the sound soft and airy, “Yeah, we’re due in March. I’m hoping for another boy, honestly. Lonnie says he doesn’t care much, but I can tell he doesn’t want a daughter.”
Karen nods along, “Ted was hoping for a son, but oh well. I’m just grateful she’s healthy.”
She motions towards the car park, and Joyce follows after her.
Karen and Joyce have always been widely different, even back in high school.
Joyce was in theatre, being who she wanted with who she wanted.
Karen was a cheerleader, being what others wanted of her with people she was expected to be with.
They had fundamentally different lives, and if Karen is honest she always envied Joyce’s unapologetic being.
(About a week later, Ted tells her that it’s time to try for a boy.
Karen hated him for that.
Because as far as Ted is concerned it’s not about wanting a baby, but it’s about the need to have a boy.
Why? Because it’s what is expected .
And Karen hates it more than anything.
Still, she doesn’t voice any of her thoughts, instead following Ted into the bedroom.)
It’s 1971, Karen Wheeler is 30 years old, and she’s holding her baby, her beautiful son, and she promises to love him with her whole being and for all her life.
When her baby opens his eyes, blinking at her, Karen feels a spark of the joy that had dwindled in the four years since Nancy was born.
She ignores the satisfied look on Ted’s face, because she knows it’s there for all the wrong reasons, and instead focuses on her son.
Michael James Wheeler.
It had been a difficult pregnancy, unlike what Nancy’s had been, and Karen had genuinely been scared for Michael.
But no, she thinks as she once again counts his fingers, looks at his perfect face and his cute eyes, he’s healthy.
He’s healthy and Karen had never been more grateful.
She’s about to set Mike in his crib by her bed when Nancy comes in.
“Mama!”
Nancy had been a huge help during her pregnancy, which is wrong in so many ways because her daughter is four years old.
It should say something that the literal child cared for her more than her own husband did, but if there is one thing Karen is exceptionally good at it’s turning a blind eye to Ted’s flaws.
“Hey there Nance. How’s my little girl?”
Nancy walks closer to the bed, hesitantly looking at her newborn brother, before turning her gaze back to her mother, “Is that the baby?”
Karen smiles, scooting a little to the left so that Nancy can settle next to her.
“Yes, this is the baby. Meet your little brother, Nance.”
Nancy climbs up, struggling only a little, and immediately turns back to the baby, peering at him with so much curiosity in her eyes.
“What’s his name?”
“His name is Michael, honey.”
Nancy nods to herself, “Michael.”
She says the name, as if she’s testing it, how it sounds and how it feels.
Karen smiles at her, a hand gently resting on her head, “Mama chose it. Do you like it?”
Nancy immediately nods, and Karen thinks that she is as happy as she could ever be, her two children right next to her.
Karen Wheeler is 35 years old when she meets William Byers.
It makes her laugh, the fact that Mike had immediately made friends with Joyce’s kid.
She supposes it’s just the air of kindness that Joyce and her kids have to them.
It’s the air that had attracted Karen to Joyce years ago, and it’s apparently the same one that brought Mike to Will.
Admittedly, Karen had been a little concerned about Mike when she dropped him off that morning, her son’s first day of kindergarten sneaking up on her with the heavy realization that Mike is almost five years old.
Because Mike has always been a little particular, preferring to keep to himself, making up all these stories when he plays with his toys.
But her concern had clearly been for naught, because she sees Mike come out with a kid trailing after him, their hands cutely grasped together.
The moment she sees him, Karen knows he’s Joyce’s, just like with Jonathan.
Mike stops in front of her, a huge smile on his face, and Karen’s heart melts at the sight.
“Mom! Mom! This is my friend! His name is Will!”
The boy very shyly raises a hand, letting out a meek, “Hello.”
“Hello there Will.”
And that’s how Will Byers became a regular guest at the Wheeler house.
Ted’s only comment on the matter had been ‘Lonnie’s?’ and a grunt, but Karen pays him little mind, instead happy at how much her son brightens up whenever he’s with Will.
It’s also the perfect opportunity to actually reconnect with Joyce, something Karen has been wanting to do for so long.
It’s more often than not that Will comes home from kindergarten with Mike, staying until dinner when either Lonnie or Joyce comes to pick him up.
Or, if it’s a Friday, he stays the night, going back home only after Saturday’s dinner.
The worst night of Karen Wheeler's life happens when she's 37.
Ted had been especially unsufferable at dinner, one snide remark after the other, and Karen hated the way Mike seemed to shrink under his words. It certainly didn’t help that it was just them, Nancy staying at Barbara’s house for the night.
Her husband kept going on and on about how Mike should be spending time outside, playing with a ball like all other boys instead of hunched over a book as he appears to prefer. It’s getting on Karen’s nerves, and it’s getting to Mike too, because Karen can see the way her boy is holding back tears, because they both know that if he cries it will just be one more thing for Ted to complain about.
“I’m just saying, Michael. Young boys your age are getting into sports. It’s just what boys do.”
Karen knows her children both inherited her quick temper.
The only difference is, Nancy also inherited her mother’s self control and filter.
Mike hasn’t.
“Can I go?”
Ted is obviously about to say no, about to spit some other snide remark and Karen can’t deal with it anymore.
“You can, sweetie. I’ll be up shortly, okay?”
Mike doesn’t need to be told twice, immediately bolting upstairs.
The moment he’s upstairs, Ted turns to her.
“You baby him too much, Karen. He needs to grow up.”
Karen can’t help but roll her eyes at that, reaching for the wine bottle and pouring herself another glass.
It’s her third one since dinner started.
She’s feeling a bit buzzy, but it’s not enough to put on a smile and ignore her husband’s bullshit.
Her voice raises, “And you’re acting like if he doesn’t play sports then he’s wrong or something.”
Because that’s what he's implying, and they both know it.
Ted gives her a look, “He spends all his time reading, Karen. He barely goes out. And you keep encouraging that with all the books and comics you keep buying him.”
“OH! So I’m at fault now?”
Her glass is empty.
She refills it.
Takes a sip and breathes.
When she speaks, her tone is back to a lower register.
“I buy him books and comics because he likes reading, Ted. And he’s really smart, too. You would know that, if you had ever bothered to care.”
Because it’s Karen who had gone to meet with Mike’s teachers, it’s Karen who got to hear Mike’s English teacher praise him as one of the best students she’s ever had.
Not Ted, never Ted.
“What is that supposed to mean, Karen?”
She can’t.
Standing up, she gathers her and Mike’s plates before giving him a look, “You should know, Ted.”
As expected, he doesn’t say anything.
About half an hour later, and maybe two more glasses, Karen makes her way upstairs.
Usually Mike reads after dinner, reading a book (because comics are only to be read with Will), so Karen always checks up on him to turn off the lights and make sure he doesn’t stay up too late on a school night.
So when Karen knocks and opens the door, her brain stalls when she doesn’t see Mike on the bed, curled up around a book that far surpasses his reading class.
The bed is empty, still made, and dread pools in Karen’s stomach.
Bathroom.
Yeah, he’s probably brushing his teeth or something.
She quickly makes her way down the hall, only to find the bathroom empty too.
Frantic, she checks everywhere.
Nancy’s room, the guestroom, her own room.
Nothing.
She hurries down, all the way to the empty basement.
She goes back up, and Ted is snoring in the living room, and Karen feels like she’s going to throw up and have a heart attack at the same time.
Desperation grips her as she double checks each and every room, but still nothing.
Tears in her eyes, she makes her way outside, heading for the Sinclair’s next door.
It’s late, and she really shouldn’t be disturbing them, but she’s desperate because she can’t find Michael.
She knocks, and despite her attempt to seem calm and composed she knows her knocking was as frenetic as she’s feeling.
Sue opens the door, the confusion melting into concern as soon as she sees just who is knocking at her door this late.
“Karen? What’s going on, is everything okay? Come in, it’s cold.”
Karen hadn’t even realized just how cold it was and how little her blouse was shielding her from the cold air.
Sue leads her inside and to the kitchen, a gentle hand on her back, and Karen does her best to keep the tears at bay, “Is Mike here?”
Sue’s face pales significantly, and Karen feels her heart sink.
“Not- Not that I know of, hold on. Lucas!”
Lucas, who had apparently been watching TV in the living room, comes in, “Uh- Hello Mrs. Wheeler.”
Sue walks up to her son, “Sweetie, is Mike here?”
Lucas shakes his head, confused, “No? I haven’t seen him since school.”
Oh God.
Her son is gone, missing, and Karen has no idea how it could have even happened.
He was upstairs.
Did- did someone take him?
No, the windows were all closed.
Did he leave? But she didn’t see him coming down.
“Karen? Karen, hey, listen to me. How about you try calling Joyce, hmm? Maybe he went there?”
She numbly nods, immediately clinging to that hope even as her heart shatters at the idea, because it’s cold and Joyce lives on the other side of town, near the woods.
A phone is pressed into her hands, “It’s ringing, okay?”
She raises the receiver to her ear, and is distantly aware of Sue and Charles talking to each other in hushed tones.
The ringing stops, and Joyce’s voice comes through, “Hello?”
“Joyce.” It’s a rushed breath, because Karen feels like she can’t breathe properly, not really, “Joyce. Is- Is Mike there? Please- tell me he is.”
He isn’t.
He isn’t, her baby is gone and she didn’t even notice him leaving, oh-
“He’s here. He’s here, Karen, he’s with Will right now. He just got here, I was just about to call you.”
Karen’s world crashes, and all she can think is that he’s safe, Mike is safe, he’s with Joyce.
“Oh my God. Thank you Joyce. Oh-”
If she thought hearing Mike was fine would allow her to breathe again, she was sorely mistaken, because she feels so lightheaded with relief she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to breathe again.
“Uh- Lonnie is still out, so I can’t drive him back. And…I don’t think he wants to? He has his schoolbag with him.”
Karen could drive over to the Byers’ and get her son.
Karen wants to.
But it’s clear Mike doesn’t want to be back home, especially if he had enough foresight to take his school bag with him.
“It’s- It’s fine. I’ll pick him up from school tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
No.
“Yeah. Goodnight, Joyce. And thank you.”
“It's no problem.” A beat, before she adds, softly, “Night Karen.”
The line clicks, and Karen is left with the dial tone before she puts the receiver back in place.
Suddenly, she remembers just where she is, and feels something akin to shame crawl up and settle into her mind.
She sits up, unsure of when she had even sat down, and turns towards Sue and Charles, “I am so sorry. It’s- He went to Joyce’s. It’s fine. Sorry I barged in here-”
She probably ruined what would have been a nice evening spent together, because that’s something the Sinclairs actually do and enjoy doing.
Charles shakes his head, "Nonsense Karen. You know you are always welcome here. We’re glad Mike is okay.”
Sue nods at her husband’s words, “You were no bother, Karen. I’m happy to help.”
Karen has no idea what to say to that, so she just smiles at Sue, and she can feel the wetness on her cheeks now so she has no idea how convincing it looks, but Sue returns a smile of her own, so it’s all fine.
After insisting that she’s fine to go back home, Karen leaves the Sinclair house on shaky legs.
Letting her front door fall shut behind her, Karen breathes in properly for the first time since she opened the door to Mike’s empty bedroom.
A loud snore from the living room startles her, and Karen-
Wants so much to stalk over there and scream at Ted.
Instead, she goes up and gets ready for bed, perfectly aware she won’t be sleeping a wink.
Karen Wheeler is 38, and done.
Ever since that night last year, it’s gotten so much worse.
Ted never even realized that Mike had left that night, nor does he think much of it when instead of Will coming over it’s more Mike going over, especially since Joyce and Lonnie divorced halfway through last year.
Karen instead feels her heart break, because she sees it for what it is. Her son not wanting to stay home because he doesn’t feel safe in his own house.
And it’s not just him, because Nancy is also always either at Barbara’s or at Amy’s.
What kind of mother does that make her, if she allows this to stand?
What kind of mother does that make her, if she allows her husband to continue making their house not home for her children?
So, one sunny and warm day, midway into March, when Karen spots Joyce across the parking lot in front of Hawkins Elementary, she gathers what little courage she has and approaches the woman, calling out to her, “Joyce?”
“Oh! Hi Karen. How are you doing?”
Joyce’s smile is so warm, always has been, and it always filled Karen’s heart with a warmth that only her children could make her feel.
“I’m…” Great would be a lie, and Karen…she’s been lying to herself for so long, and isn’t the point of her resolution to stop lying to herself? To others? “I’m okay. I…Do you have a shift?”
Because ever since she and Lonnie divorced, Joyce has been working so much more, struggling to maintain herself and her two boys.
Karen admires her, so much.
“Oh, no, not right now. My shift starts at ten today.” She’s silent for a moment, studying Karen’s face, before giving her a small smile, “Do you want to grab a coffee, maybe?”
Which is how Karen found herself sitting at a corner table in the outside patio of a small coffee bar across from the woman who was her best friend in middle school.
Joyce takes a sip from her coffee, before gently setting down the cup and focusing on Karen.
For some reason, when it’s from Joyce, the attention doesn’t feel pressing, doesn’t urge her to put on a performance, a role.
The dutiful wife, the doting mother, the lovely neighbor, the kind lady.
She can be…just Karen, with Joyce.
“What’s on your mind, Karen?”
She hadn’t really planned on how to broach the subject.
So, she isn’t surprised when the words spill out, not unlike the way Mike sometimes seems to let words flow out as they come to him.
“How did you do it? Get Lonnie to leave, I mean.”
Joyce’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t seem too surprised, and Karen wonders if that says something about Joyce or about herself.
Maybe both.
Joyce wraps her hand around the coffee cup, her focus back on the liquid in it before she takes in a deep breath.
“I did it for Jonathan and Will. Lonnie…he had this idea of what they should be like, how they should be…more manly, more like other boys. And he didn’t like that they were nothing like that. He didn’t like that they were more interested in art than in…playing or hunting or that kind of stuff. And- he’d call Will so many things, calling him a queer and a fairy and-”
Joyce stops short of the word, but it's fairly obvious just what other slur Lonnie had hurled at his son.
Sighing, Joyce continues, her voice quieter, “I could take whatever he had to say or do to me. He’d say I babied them, that I entertained their ‘stupidness and queerness’ or whatever. But I couldn’t stand what it was doing to my kids. To Jon and Will. Hell, I couldn’t stand how even Mike was starting to be affected by it all.”
And Karen knows, because one time Mike came back after spending the afternoon at the Byers’, all upset and when Karen asked he had immediately started crying, words rushing out of his mouth like if they didn’t he’d explode, and told her about how Lonnie treated Will, how he’d yell at him and shove him around and call him what the bullies at school call him. How Will would just shrink almost as if absorbing every single word, and how much Mike hated he couldn’t do anything single thing about it.
“So I told him that he either knock it off or he leave.”
Karen is almost scared to ask, but she does anyway because she needs to know, “How did he take it?”
Joyce laughs, a bitter sound that feels wrong coming from kind and lovely Joyce Byers, “Oh, let me tell you, he did not like it.”
(That evening, with Nancy at Barb’s and Mike at Will’s, Karen clears her throat halfway through a dreadfully quiet dinner between herself and Ted.
“Ted. We need to talk.”
He only grunts, but Karen forges on.
Just like Joyce, she can’t take it anymore, the way Ted keeps belittling Mike and Nancy, his son not manly enough and his daughter not ladylike enough.
“I don’t like the way you act with Nancy and Mike.”
Her husband looks up from his food, and meets her eyes, “What is that supposed to mean?”
Karen steadies herself, “It means you need to change the way you talk to them and act towards them.”
Ted sets down his fork.
He looks her over, probably taking her in for the first time in years, and Karen hates his attention on her.
Karen looks at the wall right behind him, hoping he doesn’t pick up on the way she can’t even look at him anymore, “If you don’t do that…I don’t think I can stay with you, and neither can they.”
Ted is silent for a long moment, and Karen hopes beyond what is reasonable that maybe he will take her words to heart, that maybe he will try to do better.
Instead, what he says next makes her brain stop completely.
“I think we should have another child.”
Karen doesn’t remember much of what happened after. All she knows is that she woke up the following morning, in an empty bed and sore from how careless Ted had been, and her heart heavy in her chest.
Because unlike Joyce, she isn’t strong.
Because unlike Joyce, she had let someone else decide for her.
Because unlike Joyce, when Karen took the pregnancy test that told her she’s now expecting a third child, she had simply given up.)
The years between 1979 and 1981 are…a blur.
She knows her third pregnancy had been…a struggle, even more than Mike’s had been. Maybe because Karen hadn’t felt all there. Maybe because when she held her daughter (and how happy she was that it wasn’t a boy, that Ted wouldn’t get the Mike replacement he obviously wanted) on that cold December morning, she felt…sad.
Sad that she hadn’t fought, sad that she has condemned yet another child to Ted Wheeler’s coldness.
Still, she had held her, chosen a name because Ted had left the moment the nurse said it was a girl, and smiled as much as she could at Holly May Wheeler.
Joyce had been a huge help, if she’s honest.
Mike spent so much time at the Byers’, to the point it was more likely to find him there than at his own house.
If he’s not there, he’s in the Sinclair house, and if not then at the Henderson’s.
Her baby, who had no friends and then found a friend in Will, now had three whole friends, and oh how lovely they were.
Nancy had become cold towards her father, barely speaking to him past necessity, and Karen hated how she allowed this to continue.
All this to say, Karen hasn’t been present much, feeling like she’s constantly drowning and like she emerges every now and then, before the waves reclaim her mind once more.
The motions are practiced, are automatic and have little thought behind them, but still, she tries her best with Holly.
Holly, who despite being two years old, still hasn’t said a single word.
Holly, who has always been far quieter than any child should ever be.
And here she had thought that five-years-old Will Byers was quiet.
In all honesty, that’s what saves her.
Just how quiet her daughter is.
The realization hits her like a freight train, and she decides right then and there that she’s done drowning.
It’s…
Hard.
Hard like how she imagines learning how to swim while actively drowning would be, but…
Well, they do say mothers manage the impossible for their children.
(The only thing Karen can’t seem to manage appears to be leaving Ted.)
She brushes off her mask and fits it back over her face.
She goes to the hairdresser and changes her hair style, she darkens her hair color a bit, she goes shopping for both her and her children, she does everything she can to make herself feel like a functioning member of society.
The dutiful wife, the doting mother, the lovely neighbor, the kind lady.
She hates it, but she hates the overwhelming drowning more, so she goes back to what she knows, no matter how much she despises it.
She buries herself in taking care of Holly, in doing her best to be a friend to Nancy and to be a safe place for Mike, and…she succeeds, at times. Holly eventually starts speaking to her, too (because apparently her daughter wasn’t quiet, she just was around her. because apparently with Mike she’d laugh and giggle and babble and-). Nancy would come to her for advice. Mike would, sometimes, come to her for a hug.
It’s nowhere near enough, but…it’s really all she can do, and Karen hates it.
Karen Wheeler is 46 and life has never been more hectic.
The sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana, has been hit by one thing after the other, from Will disappearing, turning up dead and then coming back, from Barbara Holland also disappearing before being declared dead, a ‘leak’ from the nearby energy lab. From the mall fire, from the Byers moving to California, from Mike pulling away and withdrawing now that he doesn’t have Will and Jane anymore, fighting every other day with his father, yelling back, desperately wanting to be heard but always ending up ignored, snubbed and even shunned, driven out of the house because he'd rather hide in the Sinclair house then spend another moment under the same roof as Ted.
(And then he stopped hiding there, where Karen at least knew where he was. Pulling away from even Lucas, his second friend, and instead hiding away God knows where doing God knows what.)
It all comes to a head while Mike is in California, and an ‘earthquake’ split the town in four and Hawkins is turned into a military zone.
And just like that her house becomes more lively than ever, the Byers staying with them.
And Karen finds ignoring the alluring call of a wine glass much easier, finds fighting the storming waters trying to drown her so much easier.
Joyce, Will and Jonathan are lovely, and they're so good for her family that Karen really doesn't mind the extra mess.
Mike is finally back, even if he sometimes appears so far away even if he's sitting at the dinner table, but Will is very good at keeping her son grounded and present.
Nancy is happy, and Karen knows just how much Ted disapproves of Nancy's decision to break up with Steve and get with Jonathan, but Karen is nothing but happy for her daughter, who gets to actually love who she wants.
And even Holly is so lively now, chatting up a storm with Will and Mike about this and that and even involving Karen in whatever she deems of utmost importance at the moment.
Even Karen can admit to at least to herself how much she loves having Joyce around.
But then Holly starts acting up, the teachers happy with her school work but worried about her imaginary friend.
And Karen wonders, idly, why she's the only one that knows about it, why Holly didn't tell Mike given how she usually tells her older brother everything.
And the house is uncharacteristically empty that evening, and Karen’s head is too full after her fight with Ted who doesn't even know his daughter's age for goodness sake, so maybe she indulges a bit too much with the wine, and maybe she doesn't hold as well as she used to, what with having drank little to no wine since the Byers moved in, and maybe she's a bit drunk as she prepares a bubble bath for herself to try and unwind (and sober up) before going to check up on Holly.
And then her world is turned upside down the moment her daughter runs in, screaming bloody murder, and Karen finds herself face to face with a- putrid and monstrous thing that wants to take her daughter away and Karen will be damned before she lets anything like that touch any of her children.
But Karen is ultimately powerless as she always is, and despite her best attempts she can't even move a finger, lying in a pool of her own blood as the thing takes her daughter away, leaving Karen to drown in the overwhelming stench of iron.
She's swimming in and out of consciousness when Nancy, beautiful lovely Nancy, and the timid yet kind Jane come in, terror in their expressions, and Karen hates how powerless she is, how she's leaving her children to deal with this.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Karen is discharged from the hospital early into December, in time for Holly's eighth birthday.
(Ted is expected to be let out in a week, taking a bit more to recover from his induced coma.)
She comes home to a patched up house, a huge amount of settlement money (government hush money), and three deeply traumatized children.
Nancy sits her down the first evening she's back, and tells her everything.
Starting from what happened to Will Byers on November 6th 1983.
Once Nancy is done, Karen’s first instinct is to hug her daughter.
And Nancy breaks in her arms, wailing like the child she didn't get to be, growing up far too soon, faced with death and monsters while still in high school.
She cries her heart out, because the last month has been hell, trying to keep it together as everyone around her broke, as Holly woke up screaming, as Mike would try his best to help but would ultimately drift off into his own mind, swallowed by grief, as her parents were in the hospital, as Jonathan grieved his sister, as-
Point is, Nancy cries her little heart out, and Karen does her best to croak out words of comfort even if her throat is screaming at her in agony.
Her second instinct is to go to Mike, who is blankly staring at an open book in his lap, Holly dozing off next to him on his bed.
(A lot of things from his room are gone, a foul reminder of what attacked her house. The missing closet, the blue walls not white because whoever replaced them couldn't be bothered to paint the wall in her son's favorite color)
It takes a moment, but eventually she finds herself in the living room, sitting on the couch with her children.
Her and Nancy are sitting, shoulder to shoulder, while Holly has her head lying in her mother’s lap and Mike has his in Nancy’s.
Nancy is playing with Mike’s hair, and no one comments when Mike starts crying without a sound.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Karen wishes more than anything she could say life goes back to normal, now that everything is said and done.
But no, that would be a blatant lie.
Holly screams herself awake every other night, Karen can’t sleep through an entire night without bolting up, the phantom taste of iron in her mouth and a putrid stench in her nose, Mike is a shell of himself that seems to be retreating every day more and more, Ted is acting as if nothing happened, Nancy is dreading having to leave for college much more than what is normal and-
Karen can't do much about it.
She stays with Holly until she falls asleep, she goes to the bathroom, washes her face and mouth and checks on her children before forcing herself back to bed, she reassures Nancy that it's okay, that she can visit whenever she wants and that everything will be fine.
The one that leaves her well and truly helpless is Michael.
He drowns in his grief, morbidly welcoming the sensation, and Karen has no idea how to help him back ashore.
They all try to get him to come back, but it's useless.
No matter how much she, Holly, Nancy, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Max, Jonathan, Joyce, anyone tries, Mike seems to prefer drowning.
He drifts through school, no longer the star student he was, he stays in his room, and then disappears without warning, sending everyone into a frantic search.
Sometimes it's Holly who finds him.
Other times it's Karen, or Nancy, or Will.
Or maybe it's Max, Lucas or Dustin.
A few times it's Jonathan or Joyce.
On rarer occasions, it's Hopper, Steve or Robin.
(Never had Ted gone out to look for his son.)
He seems shrouded in guilt, greedily welcoming it, and Karen has never been more scared, her son so far out of reach that no one (not even Will) can get him.
Graduation is approaching and Karen has lost count of how many meetings she's had with Mike’s professors over the last year about how Mike’s grades have sharply dropped, about how he's a brilliant student who seems to not have any plans for the future.
She’s worried, because she knows Will is going to NYU, that Dustin is going to CalTech, that Lucas and Max are going to UCLA.
But Mike?
Mike seems to have completely given up on the mere idea of a future, and Karen hates it because when he was younger he swore up and down he would become a writer, that he and Will would go even to college together.
So, her and Nancy had quietly sent a letter to NYU, and now April just started and Karen is staring at the envelope in the mail, sent from New York and addressed to Mr. Michael J. Wheeler.
Steadying herself, she goes up the stairs and stops in front of Mike’s room.
Knocking, she calls out, “Mike? There’s mail for you. Can I come in?”
She genuinely expects to be met with silence, or maybe with a ‘go away’ or a ‘leave me alone’.
Instead, she hears a quiet, “Come in.”
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Karen opens the door, the envelope tightly in her hands.
Mike is on his bed, an English text book cracked open in front of him and notebook in hand.
She carefully sits down on the edge of the bed, “Homework?”
Mike hums, his voice quiet like he hasn’t used it in too long, “Yeah.”
“I see.”
She knows he won’t be happy, she knows that, because she and Nancy had considered the risks the moment they chose to apply for him.
Clearing her throat, she hands him the envelope.
He raises an eyebrow, and his confused expression is immediately replaced by a carefully blank look the moment he sees the sender.
“I never wrote to NYU, Mom.”
His voice is still low, but it has an…edge to it, now.
“I know.”
“Then why would they send me a letter?”
Smoothing out nonexistent crinkles in her dress, Karen motions for him to go ahead and open it.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but refrains from doing so, and instead does as she asked.
Karen already knew he had been accepted, based on the envelope’s size.
That, and she also had no doubts her son would get in.
There’s a thump as Mike slams the letter on top of the still open textbook and shoots up to his feet, his expression showing emotion for the first time in too long.
Morbidly, Karen thinks that even the fury on Mike’s face is better than the blankness that has taken permanent residence there.
“You had NO right! Let me guess, this is your and Nancy’s doing, isn’t it?!”
His voice is verging on shouting now, and Karen is glad that the letter at least arrived when it was just them in the house.
“Yes, it was.”
The contrast between her calm voice and Mike’s increasingly furious tone is jarring, but Karen can’t bring herself to stop him when this is the most emotion he’s shown since November 1987.
“WELL YOU HAD NO RIGHT! You don’t get to do this mom, you don’t get to decide for me, not you and not Nancy and not Will! You all need to stop pestering me! I’m fine, and I can take care of myself just fine. I don’t need you to- to decide shit for me!”
“What would you have decided, then?”
Mike is silent for a second, and Karen takes the opportunity to forge on, “Would you have decided? I know you didn’t send any application letters. What was your plan, then? What did you plan on doing after college? Tell me, Michael.”
She wishes, desperately, that she’d been wrong. That maybe Mike will tell her about this plan he has for himself.
Instead, he looks hurt for a moment, before rage comes back, a practiced and easy mask Mike always falls back onto to shield himself.
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!”
It’s not working, he’s not listening, it’s-
“THE POINT IS I’M WORRIED, MIKE! I’m scared! Terrified, even. You- You look like you’ve given up, Mike. Like you deserve to rot away, like you don’t deserve to fulfill your dreams, like you can’t become a writer like you’ve always wanted. I’m scared, because everyone can tell you’re- you’re losing yourself and we want to help but you won’t let us! I’m sorry I did this, I know I shouldn’t have, but what other choice did I have?!”
Mike blinks at her, and Karen hates the tears streaming down his flaming red cheeks, hates she’s having this discussion in the first place, hates the world for being so unkind in the first place.
And just like that, Mike’s expression crumbles, the fury leaving him like it was never there, and he falls as if it was the only thing holding him upright.
Karen is quick to catch him, and they both hit the floor with a soft thud.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t- I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t-”
He breaks into ugly, loud sobs, and Karen knows he’s crying about so much more than just this, but she only holds him, gently playing with his curly hair as he wails and screams his heart out.
(Hours later, after he’s cried himself to sleep, Karen allows herself to cry, too.
The following morning, Mike tells her he’ll write back to NYU. He tells her he’s sorry, that he doesn’t want to worry her anymore. He still disappears, he still worries her, he still scares her, but he tries, and Karen couldn’t ask for more.
Before long, It’s September, and Mike is packing up his stuff, ready to move to New York.
And Karen is scared, honest to God terrified, but…she needs to trust Mike.
So, she tells him to call at least two times a week, and lets him go, reassured by how much more lively he’d grown over the summer.)
(What a mistake that turned out to be.)