18. Delilah
DELILAH
FIVE YEARS LATER
I lost the baby. John didn’t take it too well, but I was relieved.
And maybe if he was so concerned, he shouldn’t have hit me over getting his mom’s meatloaf recipe wrong.
I never pretended to be a cook, so expecting perfection out of someone who’d never made so much as a scrambled egg before was ridiculous.
He backhanded me hard, and I ended up sprawled across the ground, meatloaf squashed to pieces around me.
A mess I spent cleaning up on my hands and knees later as he watched some game on T.V.
Later that same night, my stomach began to cramp, and a wave of sweats and nausea racked through my body. John slept while I rocked back and forth over the toilet feeling my body expel the baby he’d forced on me.
When he left me in the morning for work, I snatched the keys to the sedan he’d instructed was only for emergencies and headed to the nearest woman’s health clinic where a doctor checked me over and handed me a discreet case for birth control, one she promised I could refill without his knowledge.
She then gave me a number for domestic violence survivors, but I knew John’s reach was far too long to use it.
John made it clear how important it was for him to have a family and carry on the Deaver family name and made us keep trying, though I secretly kept taking the pills to never end up pregnant by him again. He was clear that Deavers were good, strong breeders and he would expect a baby eventually.
Deaver. Delilah Deaver. That was my name now. If I wasn’t so despondent, I would have made a joke about my initials being double D’s, but all humor had been zapped from me the moment I said, ‘I do’.
I learned the hard way the night when John got home after the miscarriage just how controlled my life would become.
One of our neighbors had seen me leave and informed him of my departure.
I’d barely had time to stash the pills somewhere he wouldn’t find them before he came up behind me, yanking me by my hair and asking me where I’d dared to go without permission.
He even went so far as to check the mileage on the car.
It began to storm and he used the sounds of the thunder to disguise my screams. When my body gave out, he took me to the ER, claiming I’d fallen down the stairs.
No one questioned his word, and I was given a stern talking to on being more careful with myself.
They didn’t even notice the way John’s knuckles were bright red even though it was right in front of their faces.
People saw what they wanted to. And they saw me as a problem he was gracious enough to handle.
Eventually, I found a rhythm in this life I’d been dealt.
It wasn’t perfect. I still ended up on the wrong side of John’s fists, especially during thunderstorms, but I got him to trust me enough to get a part time job at the library.
It didn’t pay much, but I was starting to set aside money so I could leave his sorry ass.
I found small ways to fuck with him. Spitting in his food without him looking.
Adding dirt to his coffee. Dipping his toothbrush in the toilet.
It was the only way I felt I could get back at him without consequences.
Every week, I’d check the internet at the library for news about Cain.
But it was like he’d disappeared. There were no court records, no news articles.
Nothing. It chilled my soul to see how easily they could make someone vanish.
Was he dead? Alive? In prison? I didn’t know.
But I kept hoping. Kept looking, wishing that one day, something would pop up.
“Would you shelve these in the travel section? Some students left them all over the back table,” my co-worker and only friend, Margot asked, pushing her glasses up her long, thin nose. The star charms she had on either side of the wire framed glasses jangled with the motion.
“Sure thing,” I said, pushing away from the computer and grabbing the heavy stack from her.
The books shifted in my grasp as I struggled against the weight of them. I wasn’t as nimble or strong as I once was. John kept me on a strict diet, and my body bore the scars of his special attention. There were parts of me that would never heal correctly, and I just had to deal with it.
The travel section was my favorite. Sometimes, when the library wasn’t busy, I would pour over the pictures of far-off places I could only dream about.
Wishing I was there. My fingers would trace the hot air balloons over Turkey and track the gentle waves lapping against a beach in Greece.
I dreamed of traipsing along the trails that lined Lake Como and climbing the stairs in the narrow closes of Edinburgh till my legs burned.
When I pictured myself there, it was never alone.
The figure beside me, holding my hand, was Cain.
In my dream world, the two of us made it out of Kingston and lived happily ever after, despite the horrors we’d come from.
My dreams kept me sane in a world that made me feel like I’d lost my mind.
Margot came and crouched beside me, setting down more books.
“Looks like they’re planning a trip to England,” she said, blowing her silver strand of hair out of her face.
“Sounds amazing,” I said, my voice sounding flat and faraway to my own ears. I placed the books into their respective spots, following the Dewey Decimal System I’d been taught.
Margot nudged my shoulder with hers. “How much have you saved? You know I can loan you some money to get started,” she said, her voice low.
I shook my head. “I appreciate it, but I have to do it on my own. I don’t want him suspecting anyone of helping me.
You know what he’s like,” I said, whispering back so that only she could hear me.
You never knew who could pop up and report back to my husband.
The man had a town full of spies more than happy to inform him of his ‘troubled’ wife.
He’d had me branded that way from the very beginning with a headline in our local paper.
Everyone I came across looked at me with pity in their eyes and a shake of their head.
They looked at my husband as some kind of hero. Or a saint.
Margot’s face contorted. “I know. But I hate seeing you like this.”
I nodded then gave her a fake smile I’d become accustomed to wearing. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”
She looked at me warily through the smudged lenses of her glasses. She was right to doubt my words, because I was lying through my teeth. I wasn’t fine. Hadn’t been for a long time. Actually, I didn’t know that I’d ever been what someone would consider fine, but I had a plan.
With every paycheck, every trip to the grocery store, every time I got gas, I found small ways to siphon a few dollars here and there, gathering it bit by bit to build an escape plan for myself.
I’d bought a burner phone that I kept stashed in the trunk of my car in a small, almost invisible, pocket.
I occasionally checked rental listings out west so I could have enough saved for the first and last month’s deposit.
And then I perused used car listings. If I took the sedan, John would have me pulled over before I cleared the town line.
But if I had a car no one recognized, it would give me a chance to break free.
I had a little less than eight thousand dollars tucked under the mattress of my bed.
My goal was to get at least ten thousand, because I wasn’t sure what job I would or could find once I left.
Without a high school diploma, my options were limited.
And the one time I brought up the possibility of me getting my GED ended with my face in the wall. I didn’t ask again.
At the rate I was going, it would take about six more months before I had the amount I needed. Just six more fucking months and I’d be free.
When it was time to leave for the night, my brain was stuffed full of plans and what I needed to make for dinner before John got home.
I waved to Margot, but then felt an eerie sensation climb up the back of my neck.
Glancing around the empty parking lot, I didn’t see anyone. But I felt like I was being watched.
Frowning, I scanned the dense tree line, before shaking off the feeling with a heavy breath as I walked a little faster to my car.
It was probably just an animal and I was being paranoid.
When I got to my car, I noticed a small daisy caught in the windshield wiper that looked almost deliberate.
My eyes darted around the parking, but I didn’t see anything.
It could have ended up there for a million reasons.
Besides, I didn’t have time to waste. If I was late, I knew exactly the kind of punishment that awaited me.
John had to have his meals on time and tonight he demanded pork chops with a side of mashed potatoes.
Maybe if I was lucky, he’d finally choke on it and rid me of his presence once and for all.