The babies are sleeping at the bottom of the closet. I’m in the other corner cramped and aching. We’ve been here for hours. It’s payday so he’ll be drinking. He quit his job, returned the car and it’s my fault. He’ll be looking for me. The last bus is at midnight and unless he’s walking home, he’ll be on that bus. Just before midnight, I put the babies in here and we wait. I think maybe I should sleep but the fear ensures that doesn’t happen.
And then comes the sound I dread…the key in the lock. I can tell he’s dead drunk because it takes forever for him to open the door. I almost want to run out, unlock it for him, open the door and hope he falls on his face. Every sound makes my nerves jump. Finally he gets it right. He’s inside and forgets to lock the door behind him. The boots drop, the jacket comes off. “Neoma!” he slurs…”Neoma.” I don’t even breathe and I keep my hands on the babies. I have it in my head if I’m touching them, they are less likely to wake up.
The sounds…I hear him pissing, hear the water running, hear the light go off in the bathroom. “Where are you, you bitch,” he attempts again. I hear him hit the wall on the way to the living room. All familiar, all routine. But tonight, there follows a very long silence that threatens to unnerve me. What is he doing? I’m waiting for the sound of the mattress to hit the floor and it doesn’t happen. When my nerves are stretched to the breaking point, I hear a very loud thud. It takes me another half hour before I can stop shaking, to go and see if he’s ok.
I finally go out there. I hurt all over from being cramped. I lock the back door and quietly put his boots away, hang up his coat. The thought that he might ambush me, keeps me so wound up that I’m afraid to continue. I finally turn the stove light on and look into the living room. There he is passed out on the floor, in the middle of the living room. I walk around him and cover him up to make sure. I then get the babies out and put them back in their beds. I get a pillow and blanket for myself and settle on the couch.
Somewhere in the night, I hear him moving and before I fully realize what’s happening, he’s grabbed my hair and he’s pulled me off the couch, yelling how I sleep on the couch like a queen and he’s on the floor. I yell back that if he hadn’t passed out right there, I would have put the mattress down and we’d both be on the floor. And that’s my mistake…
The blows to my head, to my body come so fast and hard, I cannot defend myself well enough. I taste blood again…he hits my head so hard on the floor, my ears are ringing. He kicks my ribs and I hear myself wretch. I’m being dragged across the floor and screaming in pain. I’m wondering if he’s going to throw me outside. I realize too late that he’s opening the basement door. The terror grips me but I’m in too much pain to fight as he kicks me down the stairs. Pain shoots through me and finally I land at the bottom of the stairs.
I give up…
And suddenly there is the comfort of darkness…
Next -> Internal Dialogue
Tags: boots, bottom of the stairs, pissing, tasting blood