Chloe

 

 

I don’t have my own friends—I haven’t for years.

It never seemed like Will consciously cut them from my life—and maybe he didn’t, as everything he does is so easy, so ingrained in him, I can hardly say all of it is done with intentional thought. But if you behave a certain way, even unintentionally, does obliviousness absolve you when you eventually see the negative results? I don’t think so.

It was probably the combination of Will’s schedule dictating our plans, and how he pointed out that, with his limited free time, he preferred to spend it doing what he wanted, but it meant less and less room in my life for the friends I’d had in high school and those first few years of college. Because, in the beginning, he’d also guilted me for socializing without him, like the whole of my attention should be on him when he had time away from work. Everyone else eventually slipped away. It’s taken me a long time to gain that kind of distance, to identify how he acted early on, what he said, to see the manipulations beneath. My brain...my brain just shut off for so long. I understand it was for survival, but I hate myself a little for it now.

How there is so much of me that still loves him and loathes myself feels like yet another personal failure.

So Will’s friends are our friends. Will’s schedule is our schedule. Will’s plans are our plans.

It seems clearer to me now when I’m being led into a crowded cop bar in the city, as I try to track all the links in the chain that led to this moment and wrapped around my throat. It feels foolish of me to admit, but I did not see it happening until there was nothing I could do about it.

The bar, all heavy dark wood and yellow-orange lights, is already crowded and loud, but there’s a large booth to the left with people who call out to us upon our arrival. Two pitchers rest on the glossy varnished table, each partially empty, which means we’re coming into a party already started and my husband will be eager to catch up. His hand is locked on my arm just above my elbow, not painful—yet—but firm and direct, steering me to where faces light up and voices rise in greeting, all the attention on him. He takes my coat, hands suddenly gentle and soothing, and I remember—with an ache of regret and shameful yearning—what he was like in those early days because I see it on display now. He’s all charming smiles with laughter trailing after every interaction, and he looks good tonight—freshly shaven, short brown hair tousled, a crisp button-down with his dark jeans.

My fingers pull at the hem of my blouse, black and semi-sheer, tossed over skinny jeans in an effort to be casual but sexy; his cool eyes do an approving skim of me, as if he hadn’t already seen me dressed at home. I wonder if he remembers three months ago when I picked up this blouse on sale; I’d gone in for a new pair of jeans, with his approval to spend the money, and came home with the blouse as well. An extra twenty-five dollars and one would think I’d come home with a new car instead. He alternated between blowing up at me and ignoring me all weekend. Even his silent treatment was loud, the air heavy with his fury and contempt, and I’d flinched with every step he took in the house. The money is all his because he wants me home to look after the house, and I should’ve known better, but that brief flash of freedom I had at getting something unplanned for myself—that little rebellion—was like a single too-sweet forbidden candy I savoured even in the dark aftermath.

He seems to like the blouse well enough now.

There’s no winning with Will when it comes to dressing to go out. It’s important to him that I look good, so that he’s envied, but if I catch too many looks, I’m being a whore. Regardless, I’m a prop, and how I’ll suffer for it later is largely out of my control. My long dark hair is wound up in an artfully messy bun, wavy tendrils brushing my face. I’d love to cut it, but he likes it long, so every day I fight with hair that grows from my head but isn’t even mine.

I smile, the expression automatic, and greet everyone in turn, even those whose names I don’t immediately recall, and they’re all friendly in response. I don’t think it would matter if the rest of his friends knew what he was really like. I think, in fact, that it is an asset in his job rather than a hinderance. I’ve heard them talking over beers at home and I don’t believe you can get that many people with those views together and not have it already steeped in the cop culture they’re all apart of. If it was discouraged, they’d find another line of work.

Then I’m shuffled into the booth, Will sliding in next to me so I’m crammed in—effectively trapped, claustrophobia rising with a tightening in my chest as my shoulders turn inward. Across from me is a woman, her husband on the other side of her at the end, and both of them are detectives, I think. She says something about the food coming; I smile and nod.

I’ve been stuck next to Will’s partner, Derrick, who I usually see once or twice a week at our house. Derrick greets me with a big smile full of straight teeth and smelling of beer, his dark hair combed and gelled in a rare look of presentability from him but making his angular face seem even longer. He leans back in his seat to face the others again, and I’m effectively blocked in by a wall of aftershave on either side of me.

I’m not listening to the conversation, but I’m jerked to alertness when Derrick’s hand slaps down on my thigh for emphasis of whatever point he was making. His fingers settle on my knee and give a squeeze, and my heart lodges somewhere high in my chest that makes its beat extra painful. My gaze flickers to Will but his eyes are alight and a beer is in hand, and I don’t think he’s noticed. Or perhaps doesn’t care.

I’m the only non-cop spouse present, I think.

Why doesn’t she call the police? is the common refrain in my situation, but...

Call who? These people? The ones who work with them every day? There’s something like a forty percent domestic violence rate among police families. I’m sitting at a table of ten, and I already know what Will is capable of—who are the potential other three? Or is there a cluster, that percentage higher here as birds of this particular blue feather flock together? Powerful men can game the system, but Will is the system.

If reporting abuse to the police actually worked, why would there still be such a proliferation of it?

The waitress brings over more pitchers of beer and appetizers. I chew meekly on the gritty corner of a greasy potato skin and pray for this night to be over soon. My gold wedding ring glimmers in the light, a pretty shackle that weighs more than I’d ever thought it could.

While every single person at the table with us is friendly to me, I do not trust them. Cannot trust them. Of them all, I know his partner Derrick the best. He has moments of being charming—just like Will was in the beginning—that are tampered by how the two of them talk when no one is around, and by the heavy feel of his hand now still on my knee under the table.

My friends are Will’s friends and all of them are police; that system functions as it’s supposed to, and it does not include protecting people like me from people like them.

 

*

 

I sometimes lie awake at night and think about how I could kill my husband.

It wasn’t always like that. Often it was how I could escape. Night after night in the bed we shared, streetlights spearing through the cracks in the blinds to paint the brownish-beige walls almost yellow, I would stare at him in the darkness as he snored softly and consider how I could sneak out and flee. Disappear into the night like day would never come, Will would never wake, and I’d never be found. And I still have those thoughts, of course—my brain never shuts off, continually examining every angle, every potential outcome to every action I could take.

Except there’s no money. I’ve done a cursory search to see what aid is available while I get on my feet with no savings and no income, and it’s not even enough to rent a room. Priority housing for abused women involves a year-long waiting list. I’m young and able-bodied, but I didn’t finish my degree and I have no work experience, and I need a permanent address before I can start applying for jobs. There are women’s shelters in the city, but Will is a cop—what are the odds that he can find me? Very good, based on some conversations I’ve overheard between him and Derrick talking about work.

So when every possible plan ends with realizing I cannot escape him, that’s when I wonder if I could kill him. He’s openly talked about the ways in which he could kill me—fair is fair, right?

Except all I can come back to is self defence. Somehow turning the tables on him in the moment. There is no record of abuse otherwise—no ER visits, because he’s never done anything that required a doctor. Bruises, skin reddened from slaps—once I’m pretty sure I had a hairline fracture in my wrist, but I wore a brace for a month and never saw anyone for it. Outside of that, there are a lot of holes punched in walls, broken knickknacks. Flexes of rage and power meant to remind me how easily he could break my flesh and bones as well.

He knows what he’s doing.

No family or friends who are aware of things and who could back me up. No paper trail with the police. For me to argue self defence, I’d have to sustain more damage than I inflict, and it would have to occur during an act of abuse in which I thought my life was in danger.

Self defence cannot be preventative and premeditated.

According to the law, at least. Climbing atop him with a pillow, his forearms pinned under my knees to hold him in place while I suffocate him, would absolutely save my life, but not qualify enough for the courts—even though it’s picturing that scenario that allows me to drift off into sleep so often.

But really, there is no scenario in which I can imagine overpowering him. His service weapon could even the odds, but if it’s involved during a fight, I don’t bet on me getting to it first. Typically he keeps it locked up when not at work. I have the safe combination, and over and over I imagine running for it and punching in that code...but I doubt I’ll have time to get it in the heat of the moment.

So this last possible way of escaping—his death—doesn’t seem feasible either.

If I ever get away from him, my only option might be to disappear entirely.