Eloquent Silence Read Free Page B

for the next eight hours, all through the hours of the night as they tick slowly by, the children huddled in another room, asleep together for comfort.
    Togetherness is the key to holding a marriage together, to this particular couple holding a marriage together, especially. So much bonding. Such a treat. So glad this is a lifetime commitment. How long is the life going to be? You are twenty-eight. That’s that length of your life so far. Will you hit thirty without a hole being blown in your skull?
    At four a.m. he has fallen asleep. Fortunately, he has dropped the gun without its going BANG ! and blowing your stupid head off. And your stupid brains out. He must get some rest as he and his good buddy are going to the city in a few hours’ time to spend a week watching the bowls tournament in the capital of the state. Such a relief to see the tail end of him and his drinking mate. A few days peace from terror.
    You are finding this unendurable. Who could imagine why? You have been sooo committed to this man.
    And now you sit in this restaurant a decade later, still dragging your past behind you like ghost of a lifetime past. But it is never past and never will be while you draw breath.
    ––––––––
    I t’s two in the morning and he hasn’t come home from his shopping expedition to the nearby city. Staring into the darkness for hours, thinking and wondering, eventually you hear a car in the driveway. He enters the bedroom, turns the overhead light on, almost blinding you for a moment until you see he is ripping the bedclothes down. He thrusts his finger roughly inside you to see if a deposit of seminal fluid has been made by any other man during his absence. He is very aggressive but he hasn’t been drinking. Where has he been, you wonder as you mop up the blood from brutal intercourse.
    Or another night, drunk, he wakes and throws up all over you.
    Next day it’s time to do some laundry. On the collar of his shirt is a red lipstick mark. Not your color at all. A different hue seeming to be placed there deliberately, dragged across the collar as a branding of possession.
    Decision—next time he goes out at night he will be followed by you in ‘your’ car.
    He double parks outside a nightclub. His male companion leaves the vehicle and enters the nightclub. Your husband cruises down the street looking for a parking spot. Has he seen your car in the rear-view mirror? Probably not. Too intent on finding a park.
    Distraught, disbelieving, drive in futile anger to the edge of town, descend the steep range road, the children asleep on the rear seat of the car.
    At the bottom of the descent put your head on the steering wheel and cry. Cry for yourself, cry for your children, cry for your life, married to the man for life, committed to him for your little piece of eternity. Heartbroken, heaving sobs of fear and loathing and torment.
    Ten minutes, an hour later, turn the car around and head back up the range. Only when almost to the top of the ascent do you meet a down-coming semi-trailer and realize you have driven up the descending side of the double highway. Horrified, you drive to the verge of the highway and hope to God that there is enough room for the semi to pass you without wiping out your precious babies.
    Your children’s lives have been placed in mortal danger, the most terrible danger. The whole carload of your most priceless treasures could have been destroyed in one fell swoop!
    He is sooo not worth that! Your capacity for reasoning must be becoming diminished by the strain of it all.
    What next? Will he win his battle declaration to drive his wife insane and have her committed to a mental asylum out of his way? Will he shoot his wife? His children? He used to say he would shoot himself but he has changed that tune now. He doesn’t say that any more. It’s always his wife’s life he threatens.
    It’s sooo repetitive!
    The clock is ticking for all of us, his victims. Our lives are hardly more than