He died on a Tuesday.
I remember it was Tuesday because that was the only morning he went into work a little later, not hours before the sun rose.
He couldn’t find the cufflinks he wanted. Thought I’d left home and sold them. Accused me of pilfering money away so I could leave him. Even suggested I’d given them as a present to a secret lover.
He was raving around the house, shouting like a lunatic, throwing drawers open, telling me he’d find my stash of cash and kill me.
You were asleep in your room. You poor, sweet angel, you’d learned to sleep through anything.
As hard as life was for us, you were a happy little girl. You were chubby once you started growing as a baby, but as soon as you learned to walk your muscles turned lean. I think you spent one day toddling and after that you took off running. Running through the house, laughing, yelling, giggling.
You had no idea your father was a monster.
You had no idea your mother was insane.
You were blissfully unaware of the danger we were in.
But I wasn’t.
The truth was I hadn’t sold your father’s cufflinks, but I had been making plans. You’d gotten an ear infection right after your birthday. I took you to the doctor. Your father came too. Didn’t trust me out of the house with you. He was afraid I’d run off.
But he couldn’t follow me into the bathroom at the children’s clinic. That’s where I saw the poster. A toll-free number to call if you were in an abusive relationship.
I didn’t have a pen or paper. Your father didn’t let me travel with those. He was too scared I’d write someone a note begging for help, and then the picture-perfect prison he’d created for me and you would collapse and crumble around his feet.
I didn’t have a pen, but I had my mind. And I stared at that poster, burned the numbers into my head.
I couldn’t use the home phone to call for help, but I knew if I kept that number memorized, I’d make sure that once I got the chance I’d use a pay phone. One day, I was certain, your father would slip up. He’d stop for gas when I was in the car and run in to use the bathroom, and I could jump out and race to a pay phone. Or he’d forget to lock us in the house like he always did when he left for work, and I’d walk nonchalantly over to the neighbor’s and ask to borrow their phone.
I knew my fantasies were stupid. Knew your father would never be so careless. But memorizing the number made me feel strong. Made me feel brave.
At night, I’d lie awake holding imaginary phone conversations in my head. Telling the compassionate woman who answered the toll-free number that my husband kept my daughter and me locked in our house. That a year ago he’d killed our au pair and had managed to do so without raising a shred of suspicion. That he kept me placid and compliant by threatening to kill our daughter, this perfect little angel who was the only reason I had to live.
I’d tell her about the drugs. “He says I’m crazy,” I whispered in my mind, “but I never had any problems like this before we got together.”
And she’d explain to me what deep in my soul I already knew. I wasn’t insane. I wasn’t psychotic. The drugs were part of my prison. With them, Dennis knew I couldn’t think clearly. Couldn’t fight back.
“You should stop taking those pills,” the imaginary woman would tell me.
And so I did.
Dennis didn’t find my stash of cash that morning. He didn’t find any love letters linking me to this imaginary lover. He didn’t find the cufflinks he was sure I’d stolen.
What he found was much, much worse.