Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
KATE
6 months ago
I take just a moment longer to pull my hair from the bun that I’ve had it in all day. Billy likes my hair down. Long bright blonde ringlets fall past my shoulders in waves and curl prettily around my face as I fluff up my hair just a little. I re-button the top few buttons of my blouse that I had undone and adjust things to be a touch more modest. I reapply a thin coat of lip gloss on my full lips and rub some of the blush from my cheeks before grabbing the bag of takeout food that I’ve brought home. Billy will be happy that I came home early. I’ve been busting my ass to get this case closed early. The higher ups were so thrilled with my work that they are even giving me a bonus. Billy will be thrilled! I can just see the look on his face now when I tell him that we can expect a hefty sum to be deposited into our joint accounts in the next couple weeks. Maybe I can even convince him to spend a little bit to take Liz to the zoo this weekend. I could make a picnic and we could make a whole day out of it!
Now we can watch that streaming movie that everybody is talking about, have a family night and have a good dinner that I don’t have to cook. It’s shaping up to be a pretty damned good evening. We need a good evening. It’s been far too long since it’s just been… easy.
I balance everything carefully in my arms as I kick the car door shut with my foot and start to head inside of our ranch style three bedroom. There have been times where I felt that maybe our starter home was a touch too modest, but not today. I don’t think that there’s much that could dampen my spirits today.
At least, not until I hear the crying.
My heart drops into my ass instantly. My keys nearly fall out of my trembling hands as I hurry to open the door, already fearing the absolute worst. It’s a strange sort of adrenaline that nearly knocks me off my feet. I drop the take-out food to the ground and hear it squelch on the ground as it falls, but I can’t bring myself to care. I use my other hand to brace my trembling one. I’m only two seconds from kicking the damned door in when the lock opens and I shoulder my way inside.
“Liz?!” I scream instantly, but my voice cuts off mid-sound.
The source of the crying is abundantly obvious. For one second, just one sharp inhale of breath, I register just what it is that I’m seeing in front of me. Billy is standing up beside the dinner table. The warm yellow light of our outdated fixture creates a sort of circular spotlight on the perverse spectacle in front of me.
Billy’s hand - he always had such large hands, he played just about every sport under the sun in college - is on the back of our young daughter’s head. He’s bowed over close enough to snarl spit into her ear as he screams at her. The raspy voice of his that I had until this very moment always found so endearing is now a deadly venom that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.
“I don’t get what is so fucking difficult for your tiny little brain to fucking comprehend” Billy shouts as he shoves Elizabeth’s head toward the workbook. He shoves her forward and her forehead hits the workbook and table hard enough that it makes an audible thump. She’s going to have a bruise. He’s hurting her. My husband is hurting my daughter. She’s crying. My mind refuses to put those pieces of information together.
Elizabeth’s tiny hands are braced against the lip of the table so tightly that her skin is white from the pressure of forcing herself away from the table and the splayed open workbook in front of her. It looks like homework. She must have asked for help. She’s found most of her second-grade homework simple, so it must have been her math work. She’s bright, nearly two whole grade levels ahead. Yet, for some reason Billy is mad enough at her that her tears have formed a circle across the workbook that I can see all the way from across the room.
He hasn’t heard me.
He doesn’t know that I’m home yet.
“I’m sorry!” Liz yells through her tears. She doesn’t know why her Daddy is hurting her. She doesn’t understand why anybody would hurt her. I don’t understand why anybody would hurt her.
“I don’t want to hear your bullshit lies! I want you to fucking do better! Always whining! Always complaining! It’s not my fault that you’re stupid!” Billy seethes.
Something in his face chills me to my very marrow.
Something more than rage, more than anger or a fit of his alcoholic rage, there’s pleasure there. He’s enjoying scaring her.
I snap.
One breath, I’m frozen, the next I’m across the living room and tackling my husband. My six foot three, two hundred and something pound husband built like a damned linebacker while I’m only five foot three.
My body colliding into his doesn’t do much more than sway him. But at least it gets his hand off my daughter. “Go to your room!” I snarl at her. I will apologize later. Liz is up from the table a second later, and Billy reaches for her.
“Don’t you fucking leave this table, bitch!” Billy snarls at her as she dodges him and runs as far as she can, howling her whole way down the narrow hallway to her room. I hear the door slam shut and something in my chest loosens only a smidge. Billy rounds on me - something that I expected - those same large hands hitting me in the middle and knocking me back hard enough to lose my breath as I collide with the half wall separating the kitchen and the small dining room space. “Who do you think you are, interrupting me?!”
How many times did her head hit that table?
How long has he been screaming filth at her?
I start to stagger to my feet, and he hits me again - backhands me hard enough that I collapse. My whole body folds around my face as I cradle the injured skin with both hands. It feels like my eye is about to pop out of my skull. My teeth feel rattled.
“Those little shits these days, that’s the only teaching that they know! Their teachers are too soft on them, everybody is too soft on them! She needs to learn!” Billy snarls, spit falling from his mouth and landing in a glob on the carpet between us.
“She’s only six! Billy! Nothing can justify what you were just doing to her!”
“A smack is the only thing that teaches! A good dose of fear will have her acting right!” Billy reasons. I can see in his face that he believes his words. He truly doesn’t think that he’s done anything wrong.
“You want to keep talking back to me?” He sneers at me, and normally when this sort of thing happens, I know better than to get up off the ground. He will go back to his chair and calm down. I’ll bring him another beer and everything will be okay. Tomorrow he will be sober and apologize.
But tonight, instead of leaving me on the ground he starts down the hallway.
I only endure this for her. A girl needs her dad. I sure did growing up. But this? My dad would have never laid a hand on me. I never knew if that was because he wasn’t that sort of man, or if it was because my mother was in the same situation as me but just dealt with it better.
I can’t let him get to Liz.
I would rather die.
I lunge forward, my hands catching the pants leg of his jeans and holding on with everything that I have. He starts to drag me along with him, scraping my body against the carpet as the buttons on my blouse catch and rip open from the friction - I’m going to be covered in carpet burn in the worst of places, but I can’t let go. I can’t.
“Bitch!” Billy yells at me as the foot that I’m clinging to catches, and down he goes. He hits the ground so hard I swear that the whole house shakes. But now he’s mad enough at me that he’s going to forget about our girl, who is likely still crying in her room. That’s all that matters. He just needs to leave her alone.
He scrambles over the carpet to me and crawls on top of me. I slap, hit, and bite every inch of him that I can to at least try to be on the offensive. He grabs hold of my wrists so tightly I swear my bones bark in protest as he pins my arms down on the carpet. He bends forward and bites the first bit of exposed flesh that he can get his teeth on - the swell of my breast. Hard enough that I know he broke skin. I know it. Blinding pain sears through me as I buck and kick and scream and cry.
His fist finds my gut, then my ribs. Never the face, of course, not unless he’s really out of his mind. That’s only happened twice. The slap alone is going to be hard enough to cover up for work tomorrow.
All of my breath whooshes out of me in a wheezed rattle and the fight leaves me. How can it not? It’s not like I could actually win against him. He’s more than twice my size. Fighting for oxygen, Billy sits back, trapping me under his weight and making it just that much harder to breathe.
“You done now?” Billy smirks and grasps my jaw in his hand. There will be bruises from his fingertips. I can already feel them forming. “Sometimes I think you must like it when I get rough with you. You know how stupid it is to fight back, dirty bitch.”
I don’t talk back this time. I know it’s pointless now. Besides, Liz is safe in her room, he won’t touch her now.
“Much better. Now, be a good girl and go touch up your makeup. You look fucking revolting.” Billy smirks and lets go of me roughly. He pushes off me, rolling back through his heels until he’s standing over me.
I know better than to try to stand.
Crying silently, I roll through the pain onto my hands and knees, crawling slowly through the agony that’s building in my ribs. I hope he didn’t break anything. I don’t look back over my shoulder, but I can feel him following me.
“Leave the door open,” he commands as I finally reach the sink and to struggle to my feet. He’s right. I’m revolting. My face is swollen and my makeup is ruined. I grab my makeup wipes and clean my face as carefully as I can. Only then do I dare glance at the reflection of the man watching me so intently from the mirror.
How is this my life?
How did I let this happen? Why am I not strong enough to stop him? I can’t keep doing this.
Even as a fresh tear rolls down my face, I push it away with my hands as I start to apply more makeup to cover the damage he’s done.
“See? It’s much better when you know your place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” I answer meekly. The adrenaline has left me and all that I’m left with now is exhaustion.
“Hurry up now. I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”
Everything hurts.
More than hurts.
I don’t think I’ve ever had this many bruises before. I think I might need to actually go to a hospital this time. But I don’t have time. Who knows how long he’s going to be asleep. I have to do this now. I can’t let another day like this pass. I can’t. I can’t do it. I could endure it if it meant Liz would grow up with a loving dad, but he hit her too. I can’t let him hit her ever again.
I bite on my lip so hard that it bleeds as I slip from bed to keep from crying. Again, when I pull on the softest pair of sweatpants that I own. I leave my phone. I don’t want him finding me. I take my laptop and slide it into my bag. I pull a loose hoodie over my head and tie my hair up in a messy bun. Only the heirloom jewelry that I entered this marriage with and all the cash that I have saved up. I don’t want to risk trying to take another single fucking thing. It’s going to be hard enough to lift my daughter as it is, when I’m almost positive that he’s broken at least two of my ribs.
I can’t let that stop me now.
I can do this.
In an hour, I’m going to be far, far away from this house of horrors. I can do this. I’m going to be free. Liz won’t grow up thinking that this is okay. I will change that generational curse and I will do better. I swear that I will.
I slip into her room silently, grabbing her shoes and most beloved stuffed animals and shoving them into my purse. I take only a single change of clothes for her to wear tomorrow and stuff that into my purse too. The bag is getting heavy enough that it’s cutting into my shoulders. I bend and scoop her up, still sleeping, blankets and all into my arms. I sway and rock her the best that I can as I silently move through the living room toward the front door.
I jump at shadows and every single sound until I have Liz safely asleep in her car seat in the back of my modest car and slide into the driver’s seat. Moving hurts. I can do this. I can overcome this. I have to. I lock the doors and slowly slide out of the driveway and I don’t breathe again until I’m on the interstate.
I glance at the back seat at my daughter, my whole reason for living, for fighting.
I make a silent vow to her and to myself.
Never again.