A Life of My Own

         You think you know a person through and through to the center and back out again, but then one day you wake up and that person you thought you knew disappeared like steam in the air. That person you knew was gone forever, and you never thought you would miss them until you can’t even see the faintest sign of them, and you almost forget what that person was like. You wish day after day that a light from the person before would just glimmer through enough to make you smile, but you know you’re never going to see them again.
         You never know what you get yourself into until you know a person as well as I had. Or as well as I thought I had. I thought I had him figured out, enough to accept a proposal. No, I knew I had him figured out. He was a nice, athletic, considerate man who loved his mother and family, who put my needs before his, who tried to teach me things, encouraged me to be better, listened to me. He was the perfect man; he was good-looking with his picture perfect blue eyes and blonde hair. I loved him, and he loved me or so he said.
         I wiped the mirror of the hotel bathroom clean from the fog that had accumulated from my amazingly hot shower. I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out how I would cover the purple discoloration on the outskirts of my right eye. The swelling had receded, but not the memory. I looked at the scar on my stomach. I looked at the scars on my arms. I looked at the crack on my lip and the bruising on my shoulders. As tears started to form I quickly regretted wiping down the mirror. It was hard to look at myself anymore.
         I recounted all the happy memories of our life together, short as it was, while I dried myself and got dressed. As the remaining fog cleared from the mirror, I thought of our engagement and our wedding. As I covered the bruises as best as I could, I thought of our honeymoon and how perfectly purple and pink the Hawaiian sunset was. As I spot cleaned the bathroom after my session, I thought of how he moved me from my family and any amount of civilization for that matter. I thought about how quickly the man I fell in love with faded. While I scrubbed the floor tiles that would be given a once-over by the man who changed, I thought about how I still to this day wished to see a glimmer of who he used to be. I scrubbed until my fingers were raw.
         I left the bathroom quietly, leaving it cleaner than it was before we got here but knowing it wasn’t good enough or that there would be one thing wrong with it. I erratically cleaned the bed and the area around it. I washed the windows and dusted the television set. I swept the balcony and picked up the tiny bits of dirt on the carpet with my bare hands wishing that Dyson would invent a compact portable vacuum cleaner. I swear if it were possible when we went out to eat, he would have me go back into the kitchen and cook the meal we would eat and then clean the kitchen once it closed.
         Never did I think I would end up in the situation I was in now. I had always dreamt of a man, of my wedding, of my life as a stay at home mom. It was so different in reality than it was in my childhood dreams. I never imagined having to live a life of lies upon lies. I never lied as a kid, my mother always said that honesty was the best policy and I believed her. Now I found myself lying to my mother about how happy I was. I lied to the cashier at the grocer’s of how I got the split lip. I lied to his co-workers about how great of a guy he was as I served them a meal that took me all day to plan and prepare. I didn’t even know who I was through all of the lies. I was buried in them, almost suffocating from the depth.
         I anxiously anticipated him walking in the door after his luncheon with business partners from work. I knew there was something I didn’t do right or something that was out of place. I scoured the tiny economy-suite to clean and dust anything and everything and make sure it was perfect to where he couldn’t find anything wrong. Everything was in place and I had already called housekeeping for fresh towels and in-house dry cleaning service. Considering I had no car and wasn’t allowed to leave the premises, I had to take advantage of whatever options the hotel provided.
         He couldn’t leave me at home; he never left me at home. We had no children so I didn’t have a reason to stay home without him. He didn’t trust me to be by myself. Normally in marriages the partners involved trust each other with such a deep trust it makes you choke up with tears of happiness. You would think that after five years of devotion that I would have gained some kind of trust but I’m just not that fortunate. I have an allowance which is sometimes not enough, even though my husband does quite well. I have no say over the bills or the actual finances. The only things I buy are groceries, and if I ask nicely I can go clothes shopping. That happens only once in a while, and I have to be on a good behavior streak. He checked the phone records sadistically. He somehow figured out a way to record every conversation over the phone, so instead of asking me what I talked to my mother about, he already knew.
         As I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for him to come back, I thought about my life and where I could have gotten out. The truth is, I can’t get out, and I never could. I know I’m going to find a way someday, but I’m not smart enough. I don’t have the resources. He tracks everywhere I am and everything I do. He has people follow me and has repeatedly accused me of having an affair. That of course I was smart enough not to do, but he still accused me of and punished me for it. I remembered the night of our wedding in excruciating detail. It was, after all, the last night I was ever truly happy.
         “I can’t imagine marrying anyone so beautiful. I only ever dreamt of women like you, and now that I have you, I can’t ever imagine being without you. I’ve never been this happy,” he whispered into my ear as we were laying bare in the moonlight on his parent’s private beach in Hawaii. We flew directly from the morning wedding and the lunch reception to Hawaii to spend our wedding night in paradise.
         I was so blissfully happy with him right there. Life was so perfect. I knew he was going to take good care of me and love me like he promised.
         “I love you, I’ve loved you since I first saw you. I can’t wait to start a family, I can’t wait to paint the kitchen, I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and know that this isn’t a dream.” I meant every word I said to him. I was so unaware that the moment we got back from the honeymoon I would spend most of it hiding in the bathroom wondering where I went wrong or what I did to deserve this.
         The wedding night is the place I go to when he gets mad at me. I find myself reliving that night and the day before as a safe place. It makes the abuse easier to endure when I have something happy to think about. I just tell myself that it will be over soon and that he doesn’t mean it. Sometimes I tell myself that I deserve it, that I really did something wrong and that what he is doing is justifiable. Now I know that nothing he has done to me was right in anyway. I can’t remember the moment I realized it, but it was like I woke up one day and decided that it had to end somehow. One day when I was cleaning the already spotless house I was so mad that I didn’t know whether I was going to run from him or somehow kill him. I had never contemplated taking someone’s life, and as a devout catholic I never would honestly consider it. I figured that his punishment would be better left in God’s hands. I decided to run, I didn’t know how or when, or even where to, but I knew I had to.
           I heard footsteps in the hall. They were distinct this time, not the same ones I’ve heard all day. They were different. Haunting. Stalking. Closing in. Coming for me. I heard them get closer as I sat on the edge of the bed. I wanted to run out the glass door and jump off of the second story balcony but I stayed stiff in my place as a lowly home-maker. I heard the key card slide through the reader and I watched as the handle turned.
         “Welcome back, honey. How was your meeting?” I asked with honest care.
         He stood at the door after closing it, threw his brief case on the floor next to the door and glanced at me. His eyes trailed from me to the room, inspecting silently. He took a step forward and peeked into the bathroom. “It was fine,” he said, awkwardly calm. He went further into the bathroom, only entering it half way but glancing over every single detail while he contemplated my worthiness.
         I sat there almost shaking, but trying not to show my fear. One thing I had learned over the years was to never show him I was afraid because it only fueled him. He liked knowing I was afraid, he liked having control.
         “I’m surprised. It looks pretty good in here. You’re really getting the hang of the whole cleaning thing.” He spoke emotionless, his words flowing through me and past me.
         “I hoped you would like it,” I said with a slight smile.
         He noticed I was shaking a little bit. He walked over to me, dropping his suit jacket over the chair next to the dresser on which sat the television. My eyes fell to my lap, staring at him was another thing that fueled him. He took his hand and lifted my chin so I was looking at him.
         “What are you scared of? Am I really that bad to you? I think you have it pretty well with me, don’t you think?” His question was playful, like I was the dying mouse beneath his gripping claws.
         I nodded, closing my eyes slightly. He moved his hand from my chin to my eye, stroking my bruise. It then went to my lip, brushing my scab. His eyes never left where his hand had been. He leaned down to kiss my lips and I remained still as a statue. My lips didn’t even move. “You know I love you, right?” he asked me.
         “Yes, I do. I love you, too.” I could barely utter the words anymore, knowing that they were one of the many lies I was telling these days.
         He started kissing me again. “I’ve had a really long day.”
Boy you don’t even know it, I thought. 
“I think its time for you to do your job as my wife.” He started kissing me all over, removing my clothes as he went. I never fought it anymore, I never rejected it. I just stayed still, letting him finish to his desire. The last time I fought it I ended up the worst I had ever been, scared both physically and emotionally.
After he was finished I started putting my clothes back on. He started kissing my neck and back, a gesture any woman would crave from her neglecting husband. I cringed inside hoping that he was done for the day.
“I do love you. I want you to know that nothing else matters to me. You are the most important thing in my life.” His lies were almost as bad as mine.
“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to explain to me, I understand.”
“Understand what?” he asked, anger in his voice this time.
I stammered, thinking how stupid I was. I should just stop talking. “I mean I understand you more than anyone, and you don’t have to tell me you love me, I know you do. I never doubt it. I’m your wife, I know you best for who you are.” I smiled at him, hoping that he would see past my attempt to talk about his abusiveness.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, that’s good.” He started to put his clothes on. By now it was nearing dusk and it was about time for us to go to a nice restaurant to eat. We would stay one more night before making the tiring eight-hour drive home.
“Pick something extravagant to wear, I’m treating you tonight.” Sometimes he would “treat” me to a nice dinner or a weekend away. I assumed it was his way of apologizing for being such a monster the remainder of the time. I opened up my suitcase and frowned. He saw the look on my face and walked over to me. I had nothing nice to wear. I never did. All that was in my suitcase was frumpy “mom” clothes that were extremely unflattering. All of the dresses he purchased weren’t for me, even though he thought they were.
“You mean to tell me that we go somewhere out of town, to a place where you know we are going to be eating out, and you don’t bring anything nice to wear? What, are you intent on embarrassing me?” The inevitable reoccurring anger filled the room with its fiery heat.
         “I don’t have anything nice to wear. I don’t own a dress,” I said meekly, wishing I was better at pleasing him.
         “Well I guess I’m going to have to buy you something,” he said, depressing rage in his voice. “There’s no way I can be seen with you in public looking like that.” He looked me up and down, disgusted with my appearance.
         As he made the reservations, I went to the bathroom to do my hair and makeup to fit the dress he was going to buy for me. It might sound silly, but I actually felt special in the sense that I deserved that dress. I wanted for one night to feel like the woman he was taking out while his lowly wife sat at home and cleaned the house from top to bottom as a nightly routine.
         We left the hotel and took a cab to the nearest designer strip mall where he had me try on dress after dress, picking out what he wanted me in. I was in the slinkiest of all black dresses and the most conservative plain dresses. He selected a dark red floor length silk dress with a gold v-neck halter and slight cleavage appearance. I liked that he wanted to show me off, but I hated that the name he would be calling me by later in bed wouldn’t be my own.
         
         Dinner was great, I was silent. The wine was good, the conversation was minimal. We left, went back to the hotel where he ripped me out of the brand new silk dress and throwing me down on the bed. He begged me to fight back, he begged me to scream. He knew I wouldn’t. He called me by someone else’s name, that which I had predicted. He told me to moan loud so the whole hotel could hear him. He told me to scream his name so that everyone knew it was him. I learned by now to do what I was told or the consequences would be worse than the present task at hand.
         In the morning, we packed and left the hotel to go back to the empty, spotless house. As he paid the hotel bill and ordered a bellman to carry our luggage to the car, I cleaned the hotel room. I re-made the bed and scrubbed the entire place top to bottom, just like I had the day before. As the bellman was loading up the luggage on the cart, he noticed my erratic behavior. “You know, we have a maid service. You don’t have to clean the room before you leave. It’s kinda their job to do that.”
         I said nothing. I knew better than to talk to strangers, let alone other men.
         “Hey, did you hear me? I mean, why are you cleaning anyways? I’ve never seen anyone clean like this.”
         I again remained silent and kept to my work, fearing that my husband would walk in and think I was striking up a conversation with the simple bellhop.
         Just as I had feared, my husband came in the room. He stared at the bellman who was standing still, staring at me.
         “Excuse me,” he said blatantly. “I believe your job is to load and carry luggage, not to eye-fuck my wife. What, you want a taste? Maybe I should let you have her. She’s not that great anyways.”
         The bellman was frozen with disgust at what he had just heard. After a minute of silence, he loaded the last of the luggage and left the room. My husband walked over to me, as I had not left my job of cleaning the room.
         “What, you’re making simpleton friends now?” he smirked.
         “I didn’t say anything to him. He just started talking to me.” My eyes never met his, and I was hoping he would believe me, knowing he didn’t want to so he had a reason to punish me.
         “Yea, that’s what they all say before they start sneaking around with low-life rats like him.” He scoffed at me and left the room.
         I was almost done with my cleaning routine. I finished up, taking the trash bag out of the can, tying it up, and leaving it by the door.
  He had the company car pick us up and drive us home.
When we got home, the house smelled of floor cleaner and the halls were dark and dim, bulging with secrets and lies no one would discover. I turned on the lights and prepared to dust the house after it sitting for two days in the dark and still air.  I was bent over, going through the cleaning supplies in the cupboard under the sink when I felt a heavy, forcing object hit my stomach and knock the wind out of me.
“So, you have a thing for bellhop’s now, don’t you?” he said, digging for reasons to hurt me.
I replied, scared and still trying to catch my breath as I crawled away from him on my back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never said a word to him, he started talking to me so I ignored him!” I begged him to leave me be, but that only enraged him more.
“You expect me to believe anything that comes out of your filthy whore mouth?” With that he bent over me, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me through the kitchen, across the hall, and into the bathroom. He slammed my head against the bathtub as I cried out for him to stop.
“You need to be punished. How could you do this to me? I have been nothing but good and caring to you, and you thank me by fucking the god damned bellman? I must have gotten there too late because if I had walked in on that, I would have killed you both.”
He lifted my head up so I could look him in the eyes, which I noticed were filled with anger and contempt. I was crying, hoping he would have pity on me and realize that nothing had happened and he was crazy.
“I love you so much, Beth. I love you so much, that I would kill for you. Do you know that?”
I was still crying, my tears mixing with the blood that was dripping down from my broken forehead. I nodded, knowing that he would do anything to keep me, and anything to make me miserable. After I nodded, he sent the back of his hand careening against my face with a force that would knock a person out cold. I saw stars momentarily, but quickly and unfortunately regained consciousness.
“If you know that, then why would you do such a thing? Huh? Why would you put me in this position? You dirty tramp. I never should have trusted you. Now you have to see what you’ve done. What you have caused! This is your entire fault.”
He gripped my hair with his left hand and dragged me screaming down the hall and out the front door, down the steps to our colonial estate. He dragged me across the gravel driveway to the back of the Mercedes he had bought only a year earlier. He propped me on my knees, looked at me and while he screamed in anger slammed my head against the bumper of the car. I cried again, throwing my hands to my face, repeatedly begging him. He fumbled for his keys in his pants pocket. Pulling them out, he glared at me.
“Remember. Everything is your fault. And I’m going to make you take care of it.”
He pushed the trunk button on the key fob and the latch released. Using both of his hands he pulled open the trunk. He lifted me off of the ground, wrenched my hands away from my face and forced my head close to inside of the trunk. There I saw the lifeless, stinking body of the poor by standing bellman.
“Look at this!” he raged. “You made me do this! This is what happens when you fuck with me!”
I couldn’t even breathe. I felt so bad that it had come to this, without me even doing anything. The body was pale, the blood was dry, but the stink was definitely present. He pulled my head backwards and upwards to face him once again and slapped me with an open hand.
“Are you ever going to realize what you do to people? How you screw with everyone’s lives? You’re a home-wrecking wench and you’re going to pay!”
He then picked me up with both hands and threw me in the trunk next to the clueless body. He slammed the trunk shut, locking the fresh air out and the wretched air inside. I heard him walk over to the drivers’ side, enter, and start the engine. The car backed out from its parked position and started driving down the road. I had no idea where he was taking me and this body, or what he wanted me to do with it.
We drove for what felt like forever. I felt the car come to a stop and was dying for air that wasn’t clouded with decaying aroma. He clicked the trunk latch open and lifted the top. I sucked in the biggest deepest breath I’d ever had and cherished its sweet summer scent.
“Time for your penance,” he said blankly. He lifted me out and threw me to the ground, not even offering to help me up from my crumpled position. He walked past me to the rear passenger’s side door and pulled from the back seat a shovel. He walked to me and dropped it before my face.
“You’re going to dig the hole. You’re going to bury the body. You’re going to clean the car, clean all of the blood out. This is your fault. You did this. Now you are going to take care of it.”
He went to the trunk, lifted the body up from the trunk and laid it on the ground, nicer than he did for me. He looked at me with a sad, mad, crazy look and stood straight up.
“If this shithead isn’t buried by the time I get back, I’ll put you in the hole with him.”
He went to the driver’s side, entered, and drove off. I didn’t know what to do, whether I should do as he said, knowing that he would kill me if I didn’t. I didn’t know if I should take the shovel and run. I didn’t know where to run; I didn’t even know where I was. I looked up at the night sky and saw the beautiful glowing stars. I begged God to lead me in the right direction, to give me guidance in what I should do.
I knew then that it was my chance to run. I got up, still sore from the beating I had received earlier, grabbed the shovel and ran. I ran through the woods, ducking, leaping and tripping over nearly everything. I didn’t know where I was headed, but even if he didn’t know where I was, it would be better than coming back for me and killing me.
I never stopped running or moving until clear into the morning, not needing sleep until I knew I was safe. My body was tired and aching, my feet were sore from being bare and scraping against nature’s creations. I was scared to death that he would find me and drag me back through all of this debris and kill me- slowly.
I came to a cliff of which I had to find a way down. I saw a stream trickling through on the bottom, and I knew I needed to be down there. I scoured the edge of the cliff, climbing over large fallen trees and exuberant bushes.
I found what looked to be a beaten path down to the bottom. That was either a good thing or a bad thing. It could be somewhere my husband had been frequently or it could be a place that was populated by vacationing tourist. I was hoping for the latter.
I climbed all the way down to the bottom of the cliff, hoping that the stream would be clean enough to drink from. I had little to no survival skills, but what I knew was that you wanted to stay hydrated and keep thinking positive. That was mainly common sense, though. When I reached the bottom, my first thought was to sink my feet in the cool water. I did so after dropping the heavy shovel and it felt better than a professional massage. I cleaned my feet off and cooled the cuts with the miracle water, hoping that it would tie me over until I found someone or somewhere to go to.
I then drenched my face in the water and drank the cool, clean water. My stomach growled with the entrance of water. I realized then that it had been a long while since I had something to eat. I looked all around me, trying to find berry bushes or some dark place to hide. I saw a cave off in the distance, but I knew it had to be inhabited by some man eating creature. With one last splash of water on my face, I got up, grabbed the shovel, and made my way across the stream and to the cave. I peered inside, hoping that nothing would come leaping out at me and render my troubled travels useless. I muttered a “Hello?” into the cave, only to hear it bounce back at me. It didn’t look like anything was in there, so I dropped the shovel inside and declared it home base. I hadn’t a clue how far from the drop site that my cave was, but I hoped it was far enough. I decided to go out foraging for berries or anything edible before taking a restful but short nap.
I didn’t find much, maybe a handful of blueberries and raspberries. I figured I had to put something in my stomach so I took the leaves from a generic looking tree and ate them as well. I felt like a behemoth, but I had been forced to eat worse. I made my way back to the cave for a well needed nap, when I heard voices coming from the distance. Fearing the worst, I quickly ran to the cave and hid deep inside.
“Mommy, mommy! Look! It’s a bird! It’s pretty, it’s all blue,” a little girl said, quite excited about nature. I suspected from that little tid-bit that they were tourists.
“Yes, honey I see it. It’s a, um…” The mother paused for a second, before finishing her sentence. “Blue Jay, it’s a blue jay. You know in winter lighting, the birds actually look gray, instead of blue.”
“Whoa! It’s like a Houdini birdie!” the little girl replied with enthusiasm.
I figured this was my cue to go out and meet them, hoping they could help me in some way. I climbed toward the light, peeking out to see which way the mother and child were. They were directly to the right of me, coming out of a clearing behind the tree line. I slowly crawled out of the cave, hoping they wouldn’t be startled by my battered appearance.
“Excuse me, excuse me! Miss? Please I need your help.”
The woman gasped when my face became clearer as I got closer to them. She looked at my scrapes and blood-soaked hair. She looked at some fading bruises and some fresh ones.
“Oh my Lord! What happened to you?” She asked in astonishment.
“It’s my husband,” I said. “He’s done this for years, and I have a problem. I’ve run from him but I’m afraid that he’s going to follow me. I need your help; I need somewhere to stay, and some way to get away from him. Can you help me?”
The woman studied me for a second, concluding that I was not lying, and I was definitely not a sadistic murderer on a rampage. If I had brought the shovel with me, I was sure she’d think differently.
“It is so odd that it was I you had run into. I am actually a member of a battered women’s shelter. My daughter and I took a vacation to get away from all of the negativity, but I can’t leave a person to be possibly killed by her husband. Come with us, we’ll bring you back to the cabin. My husband is waiting there for us. If we get back in time, he’ll have breakfast ready.”
“That must be nice. My husband never cooked a day in his life,” I replied. I wish I had experienced a loving husband, but I was not as fortunate as she.
We walked along the path they had come down, trudging through the thick forest until we got to a little quaint cabin on the river. I had been so caught up in what had happened the night before that I forgot to even ask where we were. It turned out we were about twenty miles from where I lived, and where I knew I would never go back. As we got closer, a familiar car stood out in the parking lot- the Mercedes.
I stopped in my tracks, afraid to go any further.
“What’s wrong, are you okay?” the woman asked me.
“That car… That Mercedes… Whose is it?” I asked monotonously.
“Oh, that’s my husband’s car! It’s very nice, he got it about a year ago and we absolutely love it! We just drove down here late last night after he got back from his business trip. Why do you ask?”
I was shocked. The license plate was exactly the same, the color, the dents from where my head had hit previously. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to tell her the truth. I knew she wasn’t going to believe a word I said.
“I need to tell you something. Is your husband around? I would like this to be private, please.”
“I’ll go check, you wait right here, okay?” she said.
“Thanks. Oh, and don’t mention anything about me, I’m begging you. I hate the attention.”
The woman looked a little worried, but she agreed and went inside the cabin with her daughter. I moved backward towards the tree line to hide myself from anyone’s view. A few moments later the woman came back out, looking for me. She walked up to me by the trees.
“He’s down on the dock fishing. I haven’t spoken to him, but it looks like he’s just gotten there. He’ll probably be a while.”
“Okay,” I started. “You are probably not going to believe me, but that Mercedes belongs to my husband. I can prove it. Do you have the keys?”
“Um, yes, I carry a spare one with me in case he gets locked out,” she said. I could see the nervousness in her eyes and hear it in her voice. I hated to do this, but I was really counting on her help.
“Open the trunk. I’ll prove it to you,” I urged.
We walked over to the car, completely out of sight from the lying husband below. The trunk clicked open and I lifted it up to reveal the bloodstain I knew he wouldn’t get out by himself. The woman gasped and almost fainted. The stench had gotten worse from last night.
I told her the entire story of last night and the business trip we were on. I told her about the bellman and the most recent bludgeoning I had received. I matched my wound on the side of my face to the dent in the bumper. She was tearing and scared, wondering how she could have been a hidden factor in my torture.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say,” she cooed to me.
“All I need is help. I need money and I need a ride somewhere where I can get away. I need to leave, I’ll never come back. I promise.”
The woman stared at me and then nodded. “Wait right here,” she said frantically.
I stayed crouched by the car as she ran inside to get things that would be useful to my disappearance. She came back after about ten minutes and calmly walked to my place on the ground.
“Get in the car. We’ll drive to the train station and I’ll pay for your ticket wherever you want to go. I have connections to an underground hiding program for abused women who want to disappear. I have compiled a list of numbers to call when you get where you want to go, considering there is a group of people like this in every state. I have supplies here, clothes, and money. Is there anything else?”
I almost cried at the kindness and understanding. “No, that’s perfect. What are you going to do about him?” I motioned toward the monster sitting on the dock.
“You let me handle him. To be honest our marriage has been failing for the last couple of years, mainly because he’s been gone so much. I have already talked to a lawyer about a divorce, so you don’t need to worry about me.”
We both got up simultaneously and walked around the car. She drove as I explained my side of the story, and the marriage. I explained when we got married, how long we’d known each other, and how long my abuse had been going on.
It turns out she had been married to him for ten years. He had been basically estranged from them, but had been home enough to maintain a relationship with their daughter. In layman’s terms, I was the affair. She said that he had never been rough with her; he had actually been close to a saint. He was a good father, but he was just not personable in any way. She had fallen in love with a funny sophisticated man, and over the years it seemed like his personality was drained from his soul.
We talked all the way to the train station, becoming almost like sisters considering the circumstances. Once we arrived, she handed me the bag that she had stuffed with items for me and opened her door. I followed, trailing behind her in the busy lobby of the station. We waited in line for a little while, giving me enough time to decide where I wanted to live for the rest of my life. I didn’t have much of a choice mainly because there was a limited amount of cities that I could get to with a train that was leaving fairly soon. If I wanted to go to Denver, Colorado, I would have to make a bunch of switches that would make my trip longer than I wanted it. I chose to move to Seattle, Washington. I would live in a suburb or an outer city. I was never cut out to be a full-time city girl, and I ached for the fresh air. It may be the wettest place in the states to live, but I’ve lived through worse. I could always move to California if I didn’t like it. When we got to the teller, she purchased my one way ticket to Washington while wishing me the best of luck. The train didn’t leave for another half an hour to my luck, but she waited with me anyways. She talked about how stupid she was, and how she couldn’t believe that she had been completely blinded by all of this.
I felt sad that our lives had been so completely twisted together and apart at the same time. I wasn’t surprised that he would be part of something like this. It turned out as well that their residence was about three hours away from where I had called home. It was perfect though, she never knew me or met me, and I never knew or met her. For being such a malevolent prick, this guy was smart.
The train came a little ahead of schedule and began to board while I prepared a quick goodbye. I appreciated everything she had done for me, and everything she was going to do without knowing it. Her kindness has set fourth a series of motions towards my new eventful and happy life.
We hugged tightly and briefly. I picked up my bag off of the bench we had been seated on, and began to walk away. I thanked her again and again, eternally grateful for everything. I finally turned all of the way and walked toward the train. I handed the man my ticket and hopped on board. The attendant directed me to my quarters, a one bed, one person closet space, but it was perfect. I looked out the window one last time and waved goodbye to my life I would no longer know. I went back into my room, closed and locked the door, and sat on the couch opposite my temporary bed. I decided to go through my bag.
Inside I found a few sets of clothes, a pair of shoes, socks, and a purse. The purse contained money, counted out to be about a thousand dollars. I was shocked, considering that was the largest amount of money I had ever set eyes on. Also in the bag, there was a quickly packed lunch. She had included a couple of water bottles and a few separate things to munch on besides the lunch. I noticed a folded up piece of paper with a few telephone numbers scribbled on them, each with a state next to its number. On the back were simple directions for what to do when I get to the city, who to call, and what to start doing now. I had to come up with a new name for myself; I had to come up with a background story of who I was and where I came from. It was hard to talk about those things when everyone who looked at me saw the bruises and the attack marks on my face. I decided I needed to go to the bathroom and clean myself up. I needed to change clothes and clean my face of all the blood, which was still in my hair as well.
The train started moving, giving me hope the further we got away from my past. I grabbed a change of clothes she had provided me and left my room to go to the bathroom. I bumped into one of the flight attendants, asking her if there was a place I could clean up. She said that there were multiple bathrooms on each car, and only one had a small shower. I hoped that one was free; I really needed a hot shower.
I got to the bathroom, locked the door out of habit, and undressed. The shower didn’t get very hot, but it would have to do. I cleansed myself with soap and shampoo out of the complementary basket that sat atop a shelf, accompanied by a stack of fresh towels. The fact that I didn’t have to detail the bathroom when I was done was over-joying.
I wiped the fog from the mirror, looking at myself once more. I was no longer the battered lowly housewife. I was a woman, free of her nightmares. I was going to sleep at night without worry. I was going to get a lawyer and make a case against him. I was going to divorce him, whether or not I got anything out of it. All I wanted was a divorce. All I wanted was to be the woman I should have been five years ago. My eyes welled with water as I touched my bruised eye, my scared face, and my scared stomach. My heart was scared forever, but that too would heal. I knew I didn’t have to go back, I knew I could be happy again someday.
I put my clothes on and out of habit, straightened the bathroom. I left the dirt in the cracks on the floor and let me tell you- it felt amazing to do that. I threw my towels into the laundry hamper for housekeeping. I gathered my things, exited the bathroom and made my way back to my quarters.
I entered my quaint room, closing and locking the door behind me. I took one deep breath in and opened the curtain to reveal the moving landscape. I was as tired as I had not slept in two days. I decided to rest my eyes and my body. I had nothing to worry about.
As I crawled into the re-used bed, I curled up against the cool wall and thought about my future. For the first time in five years, I cried happy tears. I was so elated at my freedom that I couldn’t contain myself. I cried myself into a blissful slumber, one in which I did not have any nightmares or worries about waking up to a horrid reality. I was finally free, free as I’ll ever be.