Having found the personal items to bring to her
Godmother, Jillian continued to look around.
She was curious about this woman and her life. Having agreed to take responsibility for
major decisions, she tried to find clues in the apartment to help her discover
the woman’s personality and if she was lucky a clue as to her wishes. Jillian did look through a small antique desk
on one side of the bedroom. A desk used,
it looked like, primarily for keeping papers.
On the side of a small drawer there was sliding piece of ornate engraved
wood. Jillian slid it over. It seemed fragile, much like its owner. Inside
the compartment, she found an inexpensive black and white notebook. The type that has always been found in five
and dime stores and now at the office supply stores.
Perhaps,
something of interest or something leading to a sense of her ward would be
found. She began to read. There were some descriptive passages of days
on the beach and some short character or personal bits about friends or people
that were of interest. Then she began to
read a passage that was alarming. The
passage gave a hint of the older woman’s experience. Jillian had no inkling of such a dire and
purposeful cloud affecting this dear woman.
She began again to read the passage.
“Fear, I wouldn’t have
imagined the coldness and immobility of being fearful. How could the love turn
around so quickly with such violence?
The courting and romancing
ended at the wedding ceremony. My husband was rude and curt at the reception
with me and the guests. His only focus was getting high with a few of his
friends. My groom was handsome, blonde, blue eyes and tall. He was so perfect
on paper. He was also a ‘coke-head’ and
a ‘stoner’.
My recollection was of moving
around the ballroom and greeting our guests, alone. I am alone, again despite
the marrying part. I am holding up the beautiful satin train of my gown, and
stepping lightly in the most elegant heeled close-toed shoes, the step with the
shoes feeling like royalty and changing the walk to more of a glide. How lovely
the movement in the gown and with the shoes.
I was in a light satin gown with hand-sewn beaded work on the bodice and
crown-piece, which held the yards of translucent cream material.
The music played a soft jazz
selection and the wait-staff move through the ballroom, hinting at the
possibilities of happiness, the kind in a lifetime movie feature. And yet, I
knew in my heart that the trimmings and the planning for the wedding wouldn’t
make it all wonderful. The Groom remained a nasty person, someone without
dignity and certainly someone without any respect or love for me. He was outside of the reception hall for
longer than any of the guests and he was missing for the cake-cutting until it
was a miserable situation for both families.
The childish dreams of my
wedding day crushed in a moment. His focus remains the drugs and the coke up
his nose so much more important than making a commitment to each other. So, why
am I continuing with this farce? And, why am I covering up his bad behavior at
the wedding and reception with our friends. I think that I can make it better.
I know that I can help him be the best person possible. I am so naïve that I
believe that I can get him into recovery and back to the loving person that he
seems to want to be. Seems to want to
be, or is it the part of holding out the conditional love? Or is it the part of wanting to be
happy? Or is the part of being the power
couple? It is unclear to me, now and
then.
The reality, as I now know, is
that a person delving into the drug scene is not going to work to get away from
the ‘high’. The person drugging and partying is committed to a lifestyle and
not going to leave it behind to be ‘straight’.
I dream of an alternative
life, one of love and joy! I realize that my reality is one of fear, drugs,
waste and anger. My husband works when it suits him for money for his habit,
not for us. I work to pay the bills and to keep the household going. I resent
him.
The resentment turns to pure
hatred. I wish that he would not come home. It becomes a mantra, please may he
not come home. It becomes a prayer, so
constant that the hum of it blends into an energy. I wish so hard that he will stay away from
me. He is a lousy, selfish lover. He is a childish husband. He is not a friend.
In fact, as the days wear on, he is my enemy. He is pure evil.
My wandering thoughts meander
to other women’s marriages. How many young women are covering up for the bad
behavior of their handsome and childish husbands? I keep wondering about other
women’s lives and I think that perhaps there are many of us that suffer. Suffering
in silence was not part of the bargain. I would never imagine becoming ‘that
suffering, victimized woman’. The lack
of courage to leave or have him leave is a back-breaking, tiring burden. How many of us in the city, in the country,
continue to try to keep the marriage long after it is over. Perhaps, long after the realization that it
didn’t begin.
Thinking about this
time in my life is another hurt, a moment of trying to remember, while trying
to forget. The plight of women in flux,
the plight of many brides wondering what happened.
One night I ask him something
about what he’d like for dinner. He lashes out at me and throws my childhood
glass bank across the room at me. It misses my head. I flinch and it hits the
wall, breaking. My childhood piggy bank, the one with the bluish tinge of old
glass is shattered against the wall and onto the kitchen floor. Perhaps, I
should have stayed at work. Perhaps, I should stay away to avoid these
confrontations. I am crying and leave the room, so not to be in his way. I
leave the room, but not the house to stay out of danger’s way. My husband is
the danger. Why didn’t I know?
That night, as I lay in bed,
my husband comes into the room and turns on the overhead light. Then he turns
on the bed lamp and finds his pistol in his night stand. He loads the pistol
and tells me to get up out of the bed. He says that he wants to show me how to
use the gun so that I can defend myself, just in case someone breaks into the
house. He takes the gun and pulls me out of the bed. He is trying to place the
gun in my hand. I refuse and tell him we can look at the gun tomorrow. He
insists. He places the pistol in my
hand. His hand is gripping the pistol,
while my hand is beneath his, hurting from the hard pressure.
I am standing next to the bed
in my nightgown, naked underneath and feeling vulnerable. I am so vulnerable
that it feels like a dream. My husband pulls me around so that my back is
against his chest. He holds that gun in one hand over my shoulder. He is
showing me the open gun so that I can see the bullets, up close. I would think
that I should be shaking, but I am resigned to having a crazy, drug-ridden
husband. He keeps saying that he just wants to show me. He presses my fingers
around the butt of the gun. Actually, it’s a pistol, he corrects my
misinformation. He tells me in my ear, slow and hushed that he found the gun
and rubbed off the numbers of this pistol, just for me. He tells me that it’s
called a ‘throw-away’. It is an untraceable weapon. I feel his sour breathe on my hair, near my
ear. I am unable to pull away. I am immobilized by fear.
A ‘throw-away’ pistol in our
bedroom and he has me around the neck. He has me in a position where my
fingerprints are on the gun. If I am shot, he will tell the police that I shot
myself, that I was depressed. Not far from the truth, a half-truth, as I am
depressed having married this horrible man. He has manipulated the facts, but
then again, the truth may be that he has manipulated me. I am the successful
one with the beautiful home, and he is not. I am the person with the skill and the
reputation in the profession, and he has nothing. He is a joke and not skilled
at all. He has, though, successfully
latched on to me.
I do not have the will to
live, let alone to love anyone. I am not able to think clearly and I have no
reason to get through my day. I am lonely and alone. I am sick and I am bone-weary
and tired of living.
Fear, the fear becomes a
reality later in the marriage. The fear and aloneness is something that builds
up over time and once in my life settles in so that I feel that I can never
survive. If I survive, will I ever feel joy? If I survive, will I wish that I
didn’t and wish that the gun did go off that night?
This sounds like such a sad
story of a very sad woman.
This could be that story, but
it is not. This is story of a woman, who could have given up and allowed her
husband to survive and destroy her. It is my story. It is my story, and it is
one of a courageous woman, who remained determined to live and to find joy. I
think that my story is not as unique as I once thought it was and that my story
is one that many women experience. Perhaps, some of the details vary. However,
the theme and the feelings are common and I would like to tell it all, now. I am ready to tell the full story, not the
abridged version.
This is how it how it
all began.”
Jillian placed the
notebook on the bed, near her and thought about the consequences of the wedding
and the events that followed. She began
to wonder about the Groom. What happened
to her husband? What was his name? What became of him?
Jillian decided to ask
the lawyer when she next met with him.
She jotted down a note to herself, so as not to forget in the managed
appointment. Lawyers like to control
meetings and she had discovered that he was one of those people who had his own
agenda and then perfunctorily dismissed whoever else was in the room, when he was
satisfied. He was collegial only when he
required her signature or something done to move one step closer to closing out
the case.
