SAFE

            The tile feels like ice against her cheek as Paige tries to gain the strength to move.  The pain shooting from her kidney, which was just kicked with a steel tipped boot, feels like someone is torching her side.  She uses the wall to help her come to her feet in time to watch Darrin, her husband, walk towards the living room with another glass of vodka.  She limps back to the counter to finish dicing the cucumbers.  They all had to be exactly half-moons or else he might get mad again.  Shifting her weight from side to side to manage the pain coming from her kidney, Paige is careful not to show any emotion related to the beating she had just received.  “Just one more night and he’ll never touch me again”, she thought to herself.  She’d run away before and he’d found her but this time she had thought things through and made a plan, this time Darrin wouldn’t find her. 

Hearing the TV turn off,  she knows he’ll be in soon, ready to eat his fill.  She wipes her hands on the flowered apron he’d bought  her the first year they were married.  Rubbing her side to sooth the pain, she can feel her hipbone even more than last week.  Darrin had a picture in his mind of the perfect wife that weighed 100 pounds, one that  never needed to eat seconds.  “If your food ever touched, it meant you’d served yourself too much and that would lead to a fat wife”, he would say.   After the pain started subsiding she tried to tuck her hair behind her ears but there were a few strands that weren’t quite long enough.  She had just gotten her hair done this afternoon but Darrin hadn’t mentioned anything about it looking nice.  A couple of lowlights to compliment her golden blonde hair, she kept it in an “A-Line” style because she knew that’s what he liked.  Maybe he didn’t like the color, is that what had made him so mad? 

            Carefully but quickly, she gets the chicken from the slow cooker and on the table just as Darrin walks into the kitchen, obviously ready to eat.  He doesn’t like when his food gets cold.  Things like cold food or miss-shaped cucumbers are just the beginning of things that send him into rage.  As they sit down to eat he grabs her hand to get her to look at him, eyes glazed from three maybe four glasses of vodka. “I’m sorry for getting mad earlier, you just don’t think sometimes.  I’ve been so busy at work and on my only day off you plan to get your hair done in the city.  I just wanted a day to relax.  Can you see why I got so frustrated?”  Paige took a bite of the chicken to keep from saying,  “If you would let me get a drivers license, I would gladly take myself to the salon.  And if you would let me leave the house while you are at work I would have chosen a different day”.  But instead she simply nodded her head and said, “It was so selfish of me to take your only day off.  I know work has been really stressful.”

            As they eat dinner she studied his face.  He was so different from when they had first met.  He still had the chiseled chin and the deep blue eyes.  At first he promised to always keep her safe and to make her feel special.  He promised her after hitting her the first time that it would never happen again.  She had tried to forgive him and thought that maybe she had done something to deserve the beating.  Until the night he had pulled the gun out and held it to her head, threatening that he would kill her if she ever turned up the thermostat again.  Then she knew it wasn’t safe.  She had to get out.  He was not the person she had married.  He was a monster inside of her husband’s body.

            Waking up extra early, she got  his bags packed for his night stay in the city to close on the homicide case he had been working on.  She wanted him to leave as soon as he could so she could get a head start on her big run.  She had thought it through this time and would never look back.  She would never see her house or Darrin again.  Paige carried the overnight bag to the car while Darrin finished his breakfast of two pieces of cinnamon toast.  That’s what he had every morning.  She kissed him goodbye and he said, “Remember to stay inside so people don’t look at you, and I’ll see you tomorrow night. I love you!”  She didn’t say it back but he didn’t notice because he was already backing out of the driveway.

            With Darrin gone she called the bus service and scheduled a pick up in twenty minutes.  She was headed as far away as she could and when she ran out of money she would work for a few days then keep moving.  She knew that he wouldn’t stop looking until he had nothing left to go on for a lead to where she was.  She had to exhaust him till he had nothing left.  She packed her duffel bag with underwear, socks, a few jeans, and a couple shirts.  She had on a sweatshirt and winter coat.  The only food she took was some cheese and crackers.  She couldn’t miss her bus; this was her only chance to totally disappear. 

            A ticket to Salt Lake City was $350.  It was half of everything she had saved but she knew that’s what she needed to do.  Boarding the bus she chose the back right corner so that she could have some privacy.  The 14 hour bus ride seem to last weeks.  She worried about Darrin calling the house phone and being furious that no one was answering.  “Would he come home early and start his search?” Paige thought to herself.  She had to stop thinking about that and start making a plan for what she would do once she reached Salt Lake.  She didn’t have any family or friends there and when making her escape plan, it had ended at the bus. 

            Stepping off the bus felt like a bag of bricks being pulled off her shoulders.  First thing Paige did was buy a map.  She needed to find somewhere that only accepted cash and wouldn’t look too closely at her ID, which she had stolen from her neighbor.  She didn’t like the fact that she had to take the ID but Darrin would never let her get one and she couldn’t travel without one.  Good thing her neighbor resembled her so much.  If you didn’t stare at the picture too hard you would believe it was Paige.  But from here on, she wouldn’t be Paige she was April now.

            Sitting at Bunko night and meeting April for the first time, she had just introduced herself and said she grew up in Washington and was now six months pregnant with twins.  I got her talking by striking up the conversation by saying that “I fly up to Washington every weekend to visit my husband”.  April made a funny comment saying, “I hope he’s not like my husband in Washington!”  She must have seen the confusion in my eyes because she felt like she needed to explain.  “My first husband is up in Washington and I was there with him until I ran away to save my life two years ago.”  April continued to tell me about the abuse and how it was a life or death decision she had made.  I felt like we needed a change of subject so I asked her, “So are you married now?  Will these little munchkins be your first?”  April’s eyes lit up as she talked about her husband and her life now.  “My husband Tom saved me!  I hadn’t eaten in three days and I had one dollar left after paying for the first months rent on the cottage I’d found.  The cottage was at the end of a dirt road and very secluded, just what I had been looking for.”

“Tom owned a community grocery store that carried everything and anything you would need to survive.  He let me buy a bag of beans and rice for a dollar and said they were on sale.  I made it because of him.”  April said she had gotten a job as a waitress at a little country diner, which was perfect because she couldn’t cash her checks since her ID wasn’t correct.  This way the money she made in tips would be cash and easy to handle.  “I was working six nights and week and usually three days in order to put some money aside.  I saved half of my tips in a tin can under the back porch just in case I ever needed to make a quick move.” 

When April had first met Tom her first impression was late 30’s, gray hair, body of a 20 year old, and eyes as blue as the sky.  They didn’t talk much at first.  April having just run away from her old life was terrified to make any connections in fear that Darrin might find her somehow.  So it was the once a week trip to the store where Tom would try to look busy, but like a ten year old boy to a firework, just couldn’t help but stare.  He thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  Tom felt strange having had no attractions to any female since his wife had died two years earlier from cancer.  He didn’t know what to say to start up a conversation so for the first three weeks he just smiled and helped her check out the few groceries she would buy.  Tom had two children, Josh who was 6, and Katie who was 4.  They were his whole life and he spent every free second with them. 

As April continued to return to the store Katie, Tom’s daughter, would share her colored pictures and ask her to dress her dolls for her.  Tom could see the kindness in April’s eyes and knew that he loved her.  One day Katie invited April to go up the canyon for a picnic with her family.  April didn’t want to disappoint her so she had reluctantly said yes.  She thought it might be weird, since the few words she had spoken to Tom were about groceries.  Tom looked thrilled and said he’d pick her up at ten on Saturday.  April had butterflies in her stomach on her way home.

Tom picked her up at ten that morning and they drove up the canyon together, just as a family would.  April couldn’t stop picturing herself fitting in so perfectly, and there was this unspoken connection between her and Tom.  She didn’t know how to explain the way she was feeling, all she knew was that she had to have her guard up.  She watched as Tom helped the kids unpack the jeep with all the picnic goodies.  They were going to have tin foil dinners and later would make smores.  This whole experience was all new to April so she just sat on the picnic table and watched how Tom interacted with the kids.  She noticed how he knew everything his children  loved and spent all of his energy to make sure his kids knew that they were the most important thing in his life.  It was at that moment she realized she loved this man.

Bringing April back to reality I asked, “How did you learn to trust him, didn’t you have walls up from being hurt so much?”  She shook her head as to shake away the images that were rolling through her mind and said, ”He was different, and of course we dated before jumping into our marriage. But I never once had the feeling I shouldn’t trust him.  Don’t fight your feelings, you have to follow what your heart says.”  Agreeing with her I asked how she has been able to be so open about her past?  She simply looked at me and said, “I don’t want anyone to ever experience what I had to go through.  So my way of preventing that is by sharing my story.  The hardest decision I ever had to make was to leave my husband, but the easiest decision I ever had to make was to marry my Best Friend!”

           

           

             

           

Mexico

Everything around me moving forward and backward, never the exact same as the time before, but my feet stay still.  My eyes are closed as my skin tingles while tiny salt flakes tickle my cheeks.  I’m slowly realizing that my picture of Mexico is not the only Mexico.  All growing up I pictured it as poverty and children running around half naked with dirty faces.  But in this Mexico my idea did not exist, I am in a tropical wonderland.                                                                           

  My husband and I had just arrived to this little secluded beach spot, very private and it had the aroma of coconut milk.  We parked our topless dune buggie on the side of the dirt road.  With my windblown hair I began walking into this tropical beach front.  The plants were all all linked to a tropical theme, set so they would grow in a design of a fish, hearts, stars, basically any shape that you can think of.  The dressing rooms set off to either side were painted with bright yellows and blues, purples and greens.  We were able to tell which was meant for whom by the creative idea of clothes lines painted on the doors with either male swimming trunks or a purple polka-dot bikini.  Everything made from boards and palm trees, the roof tops consisted of the palm leaves neatly twinned together and fastened tightly with fishing nets.

As I continued walking I reached what felt to my feet fluffy clouds; my pedicured toes were in heaven.  The sand was thin and smooth like sugar.  A palm tree shaded the sand where I was making it feel cool against my skin.  I sifted the grains of sand  between my toes then used them as a shovel to reach even cooler depths.  This part of the beach was cared for by a family of four, the parents and two children.  This was the way they made their living, treating the tourist likes kings and queens during their stay.  They provided Pina Colada’s in furry coconut shells, which you sipped through pink straws while nibbling on the fresh coconut right from the shell.  The coconut was milky and never before had I tasted something so naturally sweet, it was like my taste buds were lying on a beach being massaged with a coconut cream.  After I had  my fill of the coconut,  my husband and I start for the beach.  Half way there, and out of the corner of my eye, I see what appears as a sand pile move to the left.                                

 Taking a second look I’m able to recognize its not a sand pile but a white sand crab.  Sand crabs are very swift but more scared of you than you are of them.  I had to get a closer look as the little guy shook his way down into a tiny hole. Completely emerged under the sand, I thought for sure he was gone but then I saw two little eye balls pop out of the sand on their antennas.  Smart little crab, we decided to let the crab go before he got mad at us for staring.  We turned back in the direction for the beach and this time found or toes being covered by the cool ocean water.  The colors that I saw in front of me were teal and sea green.  As I’m debating on fully dipping myself in the water my husband takes if upon himself to hurry along the process, with a quick tug I’m completely drenched and up to my neck in the ocean.  We swam together making smooth motions to manuver our body’s through the water.  I can feel the current moving toward the beach as the waves curl against my skin.  Finally we stop going against the current and let it move us back in to dry land.  

    With the sun kissing our skin we walked along the water, every once in a while we’d stop to pick up a shell or just squeeze the wet sand between our toes.  We turned around to return to our dune buggie, but before leaving the water’s edge I just had to take a moment to truly enjoy this once in a life time scene.  I closed my eyes and felt the gentle breeze toss my hair around my shoulders, the ocean salt misted my face.  I could smell the ocean and the life it had living deep down under.  As the waves brought the water in and back out, my feet slowly sunk deeper and deeper into the sand.  Taking one last deep breath of the warm fresh air, I said goodbye to my tropical paradise.