Ginger Roots

I sit on my bed, my legs pulled into my chest rocking back and forth, frantically, tracing the room for anybody, anything else, to help ease the boulder of pain pushing on my chest, nothing. I grab the bottle of black velvet beside me and try it one more time, swigging down three huge gulps,god damn it! Its not working! No matter how much I jug I can't seem to knock myself out! God, please,let it Knock me out! I can't deal with it! I try taking deep breaths to calm myself but nothings going to work, nothings ever going to work.
I stand and start pacing the room unable to stop my frantic cries as I take turns holding myself and yanking at my hair, walking faster and faster back and forth as If the faster I go the more the pain will go away. What had I done but loved him? What had my babies done to deserve this? How could I ever fix this? How could I had let this happen? How could god of let this happen?
I see my self out of the corner of my eye in my stand up mirror, I walk over looking at, what might as well been a stranger, because I had no recognition of who this person is, this person wasn't me, this person was a meek image of what I use to be.
My eyes are sunken in and black , my nose cricked and swollen, blood still dripping out of my nose even though it had been days, I didn't even know a lip could get so swollen, it looked like there was a ball inside of it. My son had told me it was that swollen because Matt, the son of a bitch, had beat me with a baseball bat, I guess he was right because a tooth fell out of my mouth the day after the horrendous attack that had happened the night before Mothers Day.
I know the gash in the back of my head definitely made it seem logical that he had beat my with something. I examine the scratches and little cuts across my forehead, my chest and down my arms from where he was swinging a knife at me and I was barely getting out of the way. A situation I had dealt with more than once to over the years but as stupid as it seems now, I would of never thought he would of touch any of my babies, I swear to god, I didn't, I would of never let him in this house if I would of known what he was capable of doing, what he did do.
I pull up my shirt looking at my bruised ribs that the doctor at the ER said wasn't broken, I wonder if she would have the same opinion if she could feel how bad they hurt.
I don't remember being dragged but I must of been because I have severe rug burn from my shoulders to my lower back and Chance, my beautiful son, told me after he knocked me out with the baseball bat that he had dragged me out of the view of the window before attacking him. That son of a bitch! He must of thought he killed me and went after my baby, my beautiful baby to finish the job. The thought sends cold chills down my spine. How could the man I love, the man I had married do this? How could he hurt a child he had raised as his own? How could he hurt a me or a child period?
I try to drink reality away, huge gulps at a time, it has worked well at least at keeping me in black out mode, till tonight.
Child services informed me today that they couldn't not let me have my children back till they had that son of a bitch in custody, this hit me really hard, god knows how long he will decide to run, it could be weeks, hell, maybe even years before they catch him or he turns his self in. Of course, I understand they can't just let me have them back when hes on the loose, god knows if he will try come back and finish the job, I will change locations if I have too but even so, for now, my babies are gone, and even though, thank god, their at my sister's house instead of a foster home, I'm sure they are very scared and confused. Hell, I'm scared and confused, I don't know what I did to deserve to go from a happy family to nothing. Not my self respect, nothing. If I feel this way god knows how they feel.
I must of finally passed out at some point because I woke up with the sun in my eyes, a splitting head ache, and hugging my only friend Mr. Black Velvet. I take the last few sips of the bottle throw it off the side and grab a new unopened bottle out of my stash under the night stand. I stumble my way through my room and down the steps trying to make my way to the bathroom.
I'm at a lack of words to explain the disastrous sight my house is in, it seriously looks like, not just a murder had happened here but murders.Big drops of blood going from the kitchen to the living room, blood splatters and hand prints on the walls, stab marks in the walls and in tables, my couch and my new lamp shades covered in blood, the sight makes me sick. I go into the restroom and end up dry heaving a couple times before I can calm myself enough to pee. My bathroom is just as bad, blood all over the sink, floor,smeared down the walls and the shower curtain. The only thing I had taken the time to clean off was the commode and it wasn't completely clean. I was going to clean the house for the kids coming home but now that I know they are not, whats the point. I don't deserve to have a clean house, I deserve to look at this mess, I deserve to look at what I caused. This is my fault because I let the monster in.
I sit at my broken table staring at the baseball bat still laying on the floor pretty where he left it, amongst all my blood smears. If I had only known what he was capable of doing to I would of never let him near my children or me, He had told me that he had voices in his head that told him to hurt people, to hurt me, but he had never done anything mean to the children personally and always was loving towards the children, I never thought, maybe that's the problem I didn't think. I let my heart and emotions clog my judgment. Idiot.I never once thought this a possibility even after all the nights hes tried to kill me, all I could think is he is my husband and I have to try to help him.
He wasn't normally a bad guy, it was the whiskey that brought out this evil second person, even though, he has told me he hears the voices when hes sober too. Something that's been repeating in my head since he first said it the other day. How could I be so idiotic? there was warning signs every where that this was going to happen and I failed not only to protect myself but my babies.How do u fail to protect your babies? What if I hadn't come back to consciousness in time to pry his hands off Chance's neck? He was already almost unconscious, eyes rolling in the back of his head, turning blue. What if I hadn't been able to stop him from stabbing him? What if.......My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
It's my mom, on a mission to try to make everything good again.She pushes through the door like breeze of fresh air "Come on, Geneva, let's go. Get up, brush your teeth, we have go to the court house to meet with the victim's advocate so you can get a restraining order against that son of a bitch." the last part she spits out with a look of disgust on her face.
She takes the bottle out of my hand and puts it on the counter, gives me a funny look, I'm unsure if it is suppose be a sympathetic look or suppose to be a look of encouragement, but says "Come on, Geneva, I know its hard but you need to pull it together, for your babies. Now get up and get some fresh clothes on and brush your teeth so you can make a good impression." Feeling like a little kid again I get up and follow her orders.
Thank god for my mom,she is the strongest person I know, through all the screwed up things I have went through in my life, my mother has always been there to help me pick up the pieces.
My mom has taught me over the years how to pick myself up and dust myself off no matter what the situation is, but this time it is so hard. How can I pick these pieces up? How can I ever fix what he has done?
I come out of the bathroom cleaner than before, defintely not my best impression but either way I walk in to the court house with my head held high, busted nose and all ready to tell my story.
The victims advocate greets us at her office door with a huge smile on her face, she seems to be a very friendly and warm person, I couldn't help but think how nice it would be to have a job like hers, a job where you could make a real difference in woman and children lives.
I had always dreamed of having a career like that before I entered survival mode. Once you enter survival mode, there is no future, making it through the days is all you know, its all you can handle.
She offers us some water before she heads into the reason we are there. " Now Geneva, I know this isn't going to be the easiest thing for you to do but if you can tell me your story, in detail, I will fill out your paper work for your restraining order for you." I nod my head. "Alright, well, lets try to start with the beginning, what started the fight?" she says.
I look at her unsure how to explain that there was no fight that hes just crazy. I take a deep breath and try to start in; " Well ma'am, actually we were having a good night, we were sitting in the kitchen laughing and having a good time when he decided to give me my mothers day card early, I open it up and he had wrote a little poem inside about what a amazing mother and wife I was. It was very touching and I had started to get teary eyed when the next thing I know my oldest son runs in the room, my youngest was at his aunts, thank god, and he says hey you guys, that's it, hey you guys and Matt looks at me sucks his teeth and tells me hes going to kill him, I knew he was being serious because of the teeth sucking thing, he always does that right before he attacks. So I jump up to try to stop him and that's the last thing I remember, till I woke up on the floor and saw him choking Chance, Chance's eyes was rolling in the back of his head and he was turning blue. I jumped up frantically trying to remove his hands from his neck, for a moment I didn't think I was going to get him off of him but finally I broke his hold and chance took off running towards the living room. Matt turned and grabbed a knife off the counter where dishes had been drying and started after him. I took off running right beside him down the hall way trying to knock him down and get a head of him to protect Chance, once in the living room I jump on the other side of the couch pushing Chance behind me. I try to talk some sense into Matt that is now standing on the other side of the couch laughing with a steak knife upheld in his hand. I asked him if he realized what he was doing? and asked him why he was doing this and to please put the knife down. he started laughing louder and then told me "I'm sorry, the voices in head say we all have to die, now, we have to die!"
"Chance start crying hysterically and said, "why don't you kill yourself and leave me and my mommy alone?" I knew I had to get Chance out of this house even if it meant I didn't make it, so I jumped on then couch and then leaped onto Matt while screaming for Chance to run. I figured once I leaped onto Matt that the up raised knife he was holding would go straight into my chest, To my surprise I only ended up with a small cut, but after I got Chance loose that's when I had to really fight for my life, I was barely making it out of the way of plunges towards me, I have the stab marks in my table, couch, carpet and wall to prove it. I have slice marks across my fore head down my arms, hell, all over my body, not even talking about the bruises and carpet burns I don't even remember getting."
The whole time I'm telling this story the victim advocate looks like she is in shock, my mothers face turning red while she feverishly tapped her foot on the floor, and the prosecuting attorney a couple of desks back behind a divider keeps jumping up in disbelief saying "he did what??" I go on with telling the story, "Then he must of came to his senses cause the next thing I remember is him cleaning me up in the bathroom telling me how sorry he was, he does this all the time one minute hes trying to kill me the next minute hes telling me how much he loves me or visa versa, a lot of times he doesn't even remember attacking me, all the sudden he will snap back to his normal self and not even know why I am crying. That's why its always been so hard to leave him, most of the time he doesn't even remember it and as his wife I felt like I was suppose to stand by his side and try to help him. Anyhow , I ended up getting loose and went to find Chance, he was sitting on the next door neighbors porch with my neighbor and tons of his friends.When I try to get chance to get him out of there, to go get us help, they wouldn't let me have him said how did they know I wasn't the one trying to attack him, I pleaded with them to let me have my baby but they wouldn't so I headed back to my house to try to find my cell phone to call for help, scared to go back in not knowing if Matt had turned back into his alter evil self, I peeked through the door and started to tip toe inside when a cop came from behind me and grabbed me around my waist yanked me back outside, in excruciating pain from him grabbing around my bruised ribs I try to explain to him what was going on, but he just kept screaming at me asking me what the fuck did I think I was doing and so forth, I try to tell him my husband attacked me and my son but they just keep asking me where the knife is, I had no idea what they were talking about how hell would I know where the knife is,they said the house was clear that my husband was gone and that's when I really started to freaking out because they wouldn't listen to me and I was trying to tell them that Matt had attacked my son and they had my son sitting there by a dark alley, how did they know he wasn't going to come out of the shadows and stab him.They said they weren't speaking to me anymore because I wouldn't calm down and tell them where the knife was! I started going crazy screaming and kicking the side of the car door. Later that night after hours of interrogation of asking me where the knife is at and no medical attention, they told me that's why they were taking me to jail because I wouldn't calm down in the car. Would of you? No caring mother would of calmed down while they sat your son by his self by a dark alley while some psycho with a knife is on the loose and wanting to kill him. I was bleeding profusely from the back of my head and from my nose but they didn't care, a couple times they asked me if i wanted a napkin and when I said yes please they just laughed and told me to tell them where the knife was. I was so confused and scared. After several hours they finally broke down and told me that my neighbors called the cops and said I attacked Chance and that after Chance came running over for help that I came over with a knife and was threatening every one with it trying to get Chance back to my house.I couldn't believe it, they couldn't be serious, if I had a knife why wouldn't I turn around and attack the man that's trying to kill me? and if I was the one attacking people with knifes why am I the one with all the cut marks all over my body? I told the cops that I had been fighting with the neighbors over me calling the cops on them for breaking in my house and stealing prescription medicines from me and for dealing drugs of their porch but none of that mattered to them even though they were at there house constantly for violence and drug problems. My son told me later why I was passed out on the ground was because Matt had beat me with a baseball bat, knocking one of my teeth out and gashing the back of my head open."
The prosecuting attorney acted enraged by the way my husband and the cops had treated me but in later months I found out he didn't really care at all. Also I found out at a later date that the neighbor had talked to my husband earlier in the day of the attack, knowing that he was always attacking me with knifes and so forth, told him if he tried to kill me that they wouldn't call the cops and he stuck partly true to his word when Chance came over screaming begging for them to call the cops they just held him there they never called the cops till I was loose and was trying to get my baby. Then they just called and lied.So who knows if my husband just went crazy that night or if he meditated my son and mines murder, I wouldn't be surprised either way.
During this time period and the couple years following it I really found out how cruel the world really could be. One of the last things I remember Matt saying to me was that I was the strongest person he ever met, I remember at the time I had been upset and was crying cause he had attacked me again like jeckel and hyde turned back into his normal self, and when he had said it, it stopped me straight in my tracks and made me think. I remember looking him in his eyes and thinking in some instants he was right as many times as I have fought for my life, been stabbed, beaten, kicked with steel toe boots,but if I was truly strong I wouldn't have been there with him. Now, I can say he is right, not only have I made it through his sick demented torture, you could call our marriage, but I made it through the after math,and sitting here the happiest I have ever been.