She Used to Be

By Jodi Newby

"If you enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry, Mad Honey, or It Ends with Us, you will love She Used to Be." 

 

Sometimes, the answers you've spent years searching for are found in a single afternoon's conversation.

 

At thirty-two, Leah Anderson is experiencing an identity crisis. Feeling powerless and unsure where her marriage, career, or friendships stand, she seeks solace from her Grandma Maddie, fully expecting to be placated with the usual array of biblical advice, which Gram, now in her nineties, is known for. Instead, she discovers that she doesn't know her grandma as well as she thought.

 

As Maddie comes to see how powerless Leah feels, she decides to share her true life story with her granddaughter, including the years when every aspect of Maddie's life was dictated by men—first her cruel grandfather, then an undeserving man who stole her heart. Leah is the first person she's ever trusted with the intimate details of her experience, and while Leah thought Gram had led a simple, happy, uncomplicated life, she soon realizes that people's realities are made up of far more than meets the eye.

 

The question is, will Maddie's shocking revelations give Leah the courage she needs to mend her own life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jodi Newby
• Release date: May 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987361245

Book preview

1

LEAH

Oh how she loved autumn! It was one of the primary reasons she’d chosen to stay in Indiana after finishing college a decade prior. There were days when the sun shined so brightly off the gold, amber, russet leaves that her heart swelled with the beauty of it. She loved waking to crisp morning air, only to be rewarded with a surprising burst of warmth in the afternoon. In her mind, there was not much better than a fall day in Indiana. What could be better than spending the day with friends bundled under layers of cozy sweatshirts and scarves, jammed into a crowded stadium while cheering hopefully for their alma mater’s football team—never discouraged by the fact that they had one of the longest losing streaks in college football history—followed by an evening huddled under blankets, lamenting the inevitable loss and drowning their sorrows in cheap beer as they warmed themselves around a roaring, crackling bonfire.

Many of those friends had left for cities more glamorous, climates more temperate. But not Leah. She longed for the changing of the seasons, the ever-present reminder of the cycle of life, the steady, unchanging sequence of change, so she stayed. She found it comforting to know that certain things in life could always be counted on, supposing she was a creature of habit in many ways—most ways, really. She had always been most comfortable when things went as they always had—that is to say, exactly as they should. One of the only concessions she’d been willing to make was trading in her cheap beer for something a little more flavorful. Anything else was too much of a stretch, too uncomfortable. She preferred to be snuggly swaddled in her easy little comfort zone.

As she drove from her home on Lake Michigan to her grandmother’s house in rural Central Indiana on a beautiful fall day, she was lost in a world of self-evaluation. Something in her life was off. This, she was willing to admit. Exactly what was off, she was still in denial about. Thinking back to this day more than a decade later, she would realize these thoughts were what prompted her to head to Gram’s house that day.

She considered the character traits of different people, how such different things made people happy. Not just her husband Mitchell and herself, but everybody. What prompted people to choose the lives they’d chosen? Had she been asked that day, she would have said she firmly believed that people do choose their lives. And she would have stated this because that is how she thought people would expect her to feel. The truth of the matter, however, was that she rarely allowed herself to think about her choices or what she wanted. Most of the time, she did what she thought she ought to do, regardless of her own desires.

Leah did love driving though. She preferred it over flying. In fact, if she were traveling somewhere she could get to in less than a day, she’d definitely choose to drive. She loved that driving forced her to sit, to be still with her thoughts, something she avoided most other times. As was typical of her two-hour drives to her grandmother Maddie’s, Leah’s thoughts began to wander to her own happiness. Had she chosen the life that was giving her the most happiness, the most fulfillment?

As she headed south down I-65 in the silver Lexus coupe Mitchell had given her for her thirtieth birthday, she felt like a fraud in so many ways. Two years later the car still felt ostentatious and ill-fitting. Mitchell and Leah had had many conversations about vehicles, and she’d told him countless times that she disliked sports cars.

You know that makes you kind of boring, right? he teased. How can you not like sports cars? C’mon! Everyone likes sports cars!

Every time they shopped for a vehicle for Leah, they had the same discussion. He wanted her to get something flashy and fast, and she always chose the comfy sedan. She wasn’t just being practical; it was what she genuinely wanted. Besides, she could fit significantly more catering supplies in a sedan than in a sports car, and that interested her much more than trying to impress people with a flashy car. Plus, she was not interested in driving fast. How many times had she sprinted through a downpour to return her shopping cart—she never failed to return her cart, no matter how terrible the weather—completely drenched after wrestling supplies into the tiny trunk and back seat of that stupid car?

Guiltily, she remembered the morning of her thirtieth birthday. Mitchell had excitedly blindfolded Leah and led her out to the garage. Obviously, the trip to the garage was a dead giveaway that he’d gotten her a car, but she was genuinely shocked when she took off the blindfold and saw the silver sportster with a giant red bow on the hood, like something straight out of the cheesy car commercials she hated.

You love it, right? He asked without waiting for an answer. See, I know you better than you know yourself!

She feigned excitement, realizing how fortunate she was that they could afford such a luxury. To complain about what type of car she received would make her a really, really bad person. Right? I mean, who does that? she wondered rhetorically. However, she still had to question why he’d selected this car when he knew how much she disliked it. Did he not know her at all? Or did he just not care what she liked? Was it all about him?

Thinking about her life with Mitchell, she knew they had lots of things—too many, really. Mitchell had been quickly and steadily climbing the corporate ladder at the investment firm in Chicago where he worked. Even though it was just the two of them, Mitchell insisted they purchase a very large house on Lake Michigan.

It’s important, he reasoned, for my clients to be able to look at me and trust that I’m good at my job. Why would anyone trust me with their investments if I live in a shack and dress like a bum? And so that meant looking successful. This meant custom-fit suits, Italian shoes, and Rolex watches as well as season tickets to the Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks. Apparently, this also meant having a wife who drove a flashy silver Lexus.

They had more things than they needed, but where these material goods seemed to make Mitchell feel fulfilled in some way, they made Leah feel more and more like a phony, more and more guilty, more and more empty, more and more lonely.

She tried to be understanding of Mitchell’s motivation. She was, in fact, very proud of the life he’d made for himself. Her mind went back to when he told her about his childhood the night they met.

2

LEAH

After she graduated from college, Leah knew one thing for certain: she was not going back home to Parkersburg. It wasn’t that she disliked home, not in the least. She loved her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was more that she felt restless when she was there. Like something was missing. So she followed the only thing she could think of that made her feel connected: water.

While she’d have loved to head to a coastal area, that was definitely too far outside her comfort zone. When her college roommate, Bethany, suggested they rent a place with a view of Lake Michigan, she jumped on it. Of course, as it turned out, the only view they could afford was through the small window above the bathroom vanity, and only if they stood on tiptoes on top of the toilet. Still, Leah loved living on her own, and she thrived being close to the water. Bethany and Leah both got jobs at one of the casinos in the area, Bethany in HR and Leah in one of the restaurants. When it was warm enough, they spent their days at the beach. Their evenings were spent working at the casino, and most nights when they got off work, they’d hang out with coworkers at one of the casino bars, paying for one out of every three or four drinks. Soon their coworkers became friends, and soon those friends became family.

Leah and Bethany befriended another pair of young women who worked with them at the casino. Holly and Jenni were also renting a condo close—but not close enough—to the beach, so the four of them decided to pool their resources and rent a true beach house. The first six months, regardless of the temperature, Leah kept her bedroom windows cracked so she could hear the waves crashing on the beach. She couldn’t get enough of the sound; it was intoxicating. It became like air for her. On her days off she would sit on the beach, even if it meant she was wearing a parka and wrapped in blankets, and she put together a business plan for her dream: her own catering company. Yes, she’d done this work in her college classes, but now that she faced the reality of it, she realized there was much more to learn and much she wanted to change.

Often Bethany, Holly, and Jenni would beg her to put away her plans and go out with them. They teased her that she was the oldest twenty-three-year-old they knew. Dressed ready for the club, they threatened to kidnap her and take her out with them. Sometimes she went, but most of the time, she did not. Sometimes the three of them all came home at the end of the night, but many times one or more of them did not. At any given moment, one or all of them had a significant other in their lives, but so far no one had piqued Leah’s interest.

About a year and a half after they all moved in together, two years after graduation, Leah, Bethany, Holly, and Jenni went into Chicago for dinner. It was a beautiful summer evening, and the restaurant was packed, so they waited at the bar for their table to be ready.

There sat a man with some coworkers. He was perfect. Having just gotten off work at the investment firm—the one he would later brag had quickly scooped him up straight out of college—he was dressed in a perfectly fitting navy suit. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. His dark blond hair was a little out of place, which Leah would learn was caused by his habit of wringing his fingers through his hair when he was having a frustrating day. He’d had such a day at work—that was one of the first things he told her after introducing himself to her at the bar.

Hi, I’m Mitchell, he said confidently, and you are stunning. That was the night they met.

Leah ended up ditching her friends and had dinner with Mitchell instead. They assured Leah they didn’t mind, as they could see she was clearly smitten, and one of the purposes of this girls-night-out was to try to convince her to set up an online dating profile. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought they somehow orchestrated this chance meeting. They’d been trying for ages to fix her up with the perfect guy, to no avail. You’re way too picky, Bethany often said. When they saw Leah’s immediate attraction to Mitchell, they figured their work was done.

Mitchell and Leah sat at the restaurant for hours talking about everything under the sun. It was one of those magical nights that only seem to happen in the movies. He was suave and funny and interesting, as well as interested. He was taller than she was, too, which rarely happened when she was wearing heels, and she loved that this allowed her to stand confidently at full height, used to trying to make herself smaller.

He told her that he’d grown up in an extremely poor area of Chicago. His father was, in Mitchell’s words, a bum who refused to work. He’d con his way into some entry level job somewhere, and within days he’d quit, explaining that his boss had disrespected him in some way, and he couldn’t stand for that. He’d then bum around for another few months and repeat the pattern. Meanwhile, his mother tried her best to support the family by working in the kitchen of a nursing home.

He told Leah about the days when they went long stretches of time without various utilities because his mother couldn’t pay the bills. It was a regular practice, he explained, to allow the gas to get turned off every summer. His mother reasoned they could save money in this way because they didn’t need the heat, and they could simply heat pans of water on their electric stove for bathing and doing the dishes. He tried to convey to Leah the humiliation of being told by other kids that he smelled bad because his mother couldn’t afford to wash their clothes. Or being laughed at because his pants were much too short as he grew faster than the budget would allow, even with purchasing all their clothes at thrift stores. Or being singled out with the other poor kids at school to go through the lunch line as a group to receive their free lunches, a barbaric practice that schools had fortunately abolished. Or of waking early every morning before school to deliver newspapers so he could contribute some small amount of money to his mother.

Mitchell vowed he would never be like his father. He swore to his mother and to himself that he would work hard and find a way out of that life, and he would take her with him when he did.

He indeed found a way out. He had a two-pronged plan for getting where he wanted in life. First, he studied constantly and earned perfect grades. Second, he used the only thing he cared to take from his father: his height. The height that had humiliated him where his pubescent wardrobe was concerned also made him a stand out on the basketball court. By the time he graduated from high school, he was at the top of his class and the star of the team. He received a combination academic and athletic scholarship to MichiganNOT Michigan State. He would emphatically, almost angrily, correct anyone who made that mistake.

Yes, he was certain he had found a way out for both himself and his mother. Unfortunately, his mother was diagnosed with and died quickly from ovarian cancer before he graduated from college. With this, Mitchell dug in his heels even deeper.

His mother had worked all the time and was never able to attend his games. His father, on the other hand, had no obligations to speak of, but he still never bothered to attend a single game. Even though it was irrational to think his father directly caused his mother’s cancer—and he knew this—Mitchell couldn’t help but think that with proper medical care and earlier diagnosis, his mother would have had a fighting chance to beat the ravaging disease. Mitchell never forgave his father and never made amends.

I don’t even know if my father is still alive, he told Leah. Frankly, I really don’t care.

Over the course of the evening, Mitchell also forced Leah to talk about herself, which she hated to do. He asked questions and was a terrific listener. When they’d outstayed their welcome at the restaurant, he wanted to drive her back home to northwest Indiana, but she insisted she take the train.

Their goodbyes at the station were ridiculous and cheesy and not at all fitting for two people who had met just hours before, and who would, it was agreed, see each other again in two days for a Cubs game. The hours between their goodbye and the game were interminable for Leah, and for Mitchell, too, it seemed. There were several phone calls and dozens of texts, all filled with the delicious anticipation that makes the beginning stages of relationships so magnificent.

Given how close she was with her family, Leah found Mitchell’s story difficult to accept, but it was a story so far removed from her world that she accepted his word on the subject and vehemently defended his decisions to anyone who dared to question them.

Leah’s parents were still together, and, as far as she knew, always treated each other with love and kindness. They’d always been loving, attentive parents to her and Charlie, and she couldn’t imagine having a childhood like Mitchell’s. More importantly, she couldn’t imagine causing him any more disappointment than he’d already had.

As she cruised south on I-65, safely in the right-hand lane, she still couldn’t stop herself from wondering if it was enough, this life she’d chosen. With that, Leah’s thoughts quickly went down a rabbit hole. Was Mitchell giving her everything she felt she deserved? By that, she certainly didn’t mean things. And by deserved, she certainly didn’t think she was owed anything. Who do I think I am? she would question. We don’t ‘deserve’ anything but punishment. That’s part of God’s grace. And with that, all the lessons of her childhood came rushing back.

3

LEAH

Leah was born and raised in Parkersburg, Indiana, a small town that could barely be called a town anymore, even though supposedly it had once been a thriving area. Her parents, Tom and Linda, had grown up there, too. High school sweethearts, they married the summer after high school graduation. Tom worked on the farm that had been in his family for generations, and Linda was eager to be a stay-at-home mom.

They were good, honest, hard-working people who loved their daughter and son very much and did their best to raise them with strong values. They were active, lifelong members of the Parkersburg Christian Church, as were all of their friends. They lived their faith fully, which served them in most regards, but it also came with a price, especially where Leah was concerned.

Leah and her younger brother, Charlie, were taught to have servants’ hearts, to always put others before themselves, not be selfish, and always follow the Golden Rule, even when others didn’t reciprocate. God would see their good deeds, and they would