Finding Grace

Dedicated to my mother and all women..I beg You, find the strength to escape the dragon...find Your grace...

 

          We are frail creatures. We crawl back to them because we are convinced that our ocean of love will fix everything. We believe that if we are better, they will change. Maybe, we like the abuse. We feel that we deserve it. We are silent. We laugh and we smile and you would never believe that we are unhappy. We weep. We pray for strength. We pray for change. Bruises fade but memories do not go away. The scars on our souls will tell our story. They are badges of courage, battle scars. We lose a bit of ourselves but we survive. We don’t think of leaving them.We plod on. Our children need us. If it were not for the children, perhaps we would simply give up.

            I am Anna, at least, that is the name my mother gave to me. Anna means grace, how ironic. Sometimes, I’m not sure that any of this is real. I keep hoping that I’ll wake up but I never do. I have two children, a boy and a girl, Emmanuel and Hope. I try to shield them from their father but these things do not go unnoticed. I try to teach Emmanuel to cherish Hope, to not be like his father. I try to teach Hope to be a strong woman.

            No one knows. Many know but they do not want to know, therefore, they do not know. If I told my husband’s mother, she would not believe me. If I told my mother, she would tell me that I must somehow deserve it. If I told my friends, they would be uncomfortable. I don’t want to burden them. If I told my parish priest, he would tell me that I must pray and somehow bear it. Your husband is the same as your God. I know, I’ve heard this before, so I am silent and I bear it, if you can call this bearable. Sometimes, I wish someone would save me from this. It is wishful thinking. I must bear it. I am unworthy of love. I do not deserve respect. I am subhuman. I am base. I am sorry.

            He will be home from work soon. I hope that he will be in a jovial mood. I went to college, I could be working. He won’t allow it. Whenever I bring it up, he asks me how much my father paid the college to give me a degree. I used to teach art. I used to create new worlds on my canvases and I sold them locally. I used to be somebody. Then I met him at an art exhibit. He was charming while we dated, so when he asked me to marry him, I didn’t think twice about saying yes. When he slapped me before our wedding, I set it down to pressure and nervousness because it was such a huge event in our lives. Something should have clicked but it didn’t. I was elated that someone wanted me. My family never really wanted me. I had all of these romantic notions about marriage. I believed that it was about trust, honesty, mutual respect, mutual love, patience, tolerance. I shouldn’t have believed. The slapping happened again and again. It progressed. Slapping became whipping, whipping became beating, beating became something beyond description. At first, I was shocked, then I was hurt, then I was so depressed, then I was numb, then I was past caring. All I cared for were my children. My children are the lights of my life.

            I began drinking. At first, it was to numb physical pain. Sometimes, I was so bruised that it hurt to walk, to sit, to lie, to be. Then it became a mode of escape. Sometimes, I would drink so heavily that I didn’t know where I was. If he found me drunk, he would beat me more. He would beat me more. I drank more. Sometimes, I would find the children crawling over me, concerned. I wept. I wanted to stop drinking. I wanted to stop for my children. God only knows what I might have said to them in that state. I wept. It took me a year but I stopped drinking. Of course, he did not stop beating. Only when our families were around or our friends, only then did he treat me as if I were dearer than all of the stars in the skies. Hypocrite. Liar. They haven’t invented a word that fits him yet. Still, I pretended everything was fine. I would beg him to stop. I would plead with him to tell me what was wrong, what I was doing wrong. I would try to tell him what he was doing to me. Most of the time he would just laugh or push me out of his way. Once in a while, he brought me roses and apologized. He would say that he loved me. He promised it would never happen again. It happened again, in a week or so.

            One day, I was in the kitchen cooking and little Hope came crying to me. She placed her little, chubby arms around my leg and wouldn’t stop crying. I knelt down and held her and eventually she quieted herself. I smoothed back her tousled curls. “What happened, sweetheart?” I ask, preparing myself for something like her doll was broken, preparing myself for something I could fix. “Emmanuel…mama, he slapped me..he slapped me so hard” she answered and began to cry. Oh God, you can’t imagine how ill I felt, how sad. My heart sank. I called across the house for Emmanuel to come to me. I had no idea what I was going to say to him. He came without a trace of guilt on his countenance. I wanted to see guilt. I wanted to see something. There was nothing. I asked him whether he had slapped her. He admitted to it. I asked why and he answered that she made him angry. I asked why and he answered me with just because. I closed my eyes to stop the tears but they came anyway. He placed his arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. “Why are you crying, mama?” he asked me innocently. “You slapped Hope” was my simple answer. “ Papa says it’s good to slap women. It makes them respect you” he said. I was beyond pain. I cupped his chin and whispered that Papa was wrong.

            Another day, my husband came home from work and I was sleeping. Dinner was left on the stove for him but that was not enough. I should be there to serve the head of the house a hot meal. He beat me until blood gushed from my nostrils and I felt dizzy. Something within me snapped and the back of my hand met his cheek. My ring scratched him. He was like an enraged beast and made sure I felt it. I never dared slap him again. I was so tired that day. Both of the children were moody and I had cleaned the entire house and cooked. I was so tired, I simply fell asleep when the children finally took a nap. I didn’t do anything to him. He made me wash the blood from the floor while he lectured upon the duties of a wife towards her husband. I’m not sure I was even listening. He dragged me to bed. I thought he was going to let me sleep. He woke me up every hour just to spite me. The next day, I was so tired. I forced myself to bundle up the children and go grocery shopping. I knew what would happen if I didn’t. Before I left, he called me from work saying that he was going on a two-week trip for work to some out-of-state construction site. He told me to pack him a suitcase and he would pick it up during his lunch break. I didn’t go grocery shopping, instead I packed his suitcase. I prayed that the trip wasn’t a ruse. I had never prayed so fervently before.

            It wasn’t a ruse. The first day without him felt surreal. I kept waiting for him to walk in and do something. I was a nervous wreck and my children felt it. Children, like animals, are very perceptive. Then I realized that he was truly gone for two weeks. I felt peace such as I had not felt in years. I took my darlings for a walk to the park and watched them run, screaming nonsense, as children often do. I laughed at their antics. I was surprised; I can’t remember the last time I laughed. It feels good. I keep watching them run. I notice a dark stranger sitting next to me and I look at him with questions in my eyes. He smiles serenely. Peace radiates from his eyes. I find myself wanting to tell him that I am Anna. He never tells me who he is, he simply reaches for my hands and kisses them. “You are grace, Anna” he says. I look down, confused. His fingers brush the sites of my bruises and old wounds. I feel a strange warmth fill me, a healing warmth. “You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You are beautiful. You are kind. You are patient. You are talented. You are a wonderful mother. You are strong. “ “I’m not any of those things” I tell him. He lifts my face and looks into my eyes as he repeats what he said before. “You are all of those things. You are more. You don’t have to bear this anymore.” I don’t say anything to that. What can he know of my life? As if he has read my mind, he says “Trust me, I know you better than you know yourself.“ Something in the way he says that makes me believe him. He places the palm of his hand over my heart. “Arise, fair maiden and escape the dragon. You are capable” he whispers and vanishes. I wonder if he wasn’t a figment of my imagination, so I look over to the spot where he sat. A single rosebud lies there waiting for me. I smile.

            I take the children home. I feel as if I were in some sort of trance, yet I know what I must do. I place some of our better clothes and valuable possessions into two suitcases. Emmanuel and Hope stare at me as I do this. I tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear and smile at them. “We’re going on an adventure” I tell them. They shrug and run off to play. The only problem is, I don’t know where to go. I don’t want him to find us. I look for a piece of paper and a pen and that’s when I notice the mail. I go through it carefully. There is a flyer advertising cross-country bus discounts for women with children. I have to smile. God is exceptionately good to me today. I thank Him silently as I write my husband a note.

 

I have finally had enough. I’m taking the children and leaving.

Don’t look for us.

-Anna

 

It’s brief and to the point. I’m not going to waste anymore time on him. I gather the money that I’ve been saving and hiding from him and leave.

            It’s been a little over a month and he still hasn’t found us. I went back to teaching art. I’m painting again. It’s a self-healing process. It’s going to take a while. We live in a small studio apartment for now but we’re free. I feel like bird that’s been released from a cage. We’re happy here. Sometimes the memories haunt us and we weep but we hold onto each other. We hold onto each other and move forward. We inch forward, taking cautious baby steps. It’s still progress. Nothing could persuade me to go back.

          I don’t know who you are, dark stranger, but thank You. You gave me the hope and the strength to help myself. You made me see parts of myself that lay dormant for far too long. Thank You. The fair maiden escaped the mean, ugly dragon and lived happily ever after.

Reviews

[E.H. Monroe]

This was Momma Monroe if she had the sense to leave, or even bury a shovel in that fucktards head.
The thing read like someone who has genuinely lost all creativity. NOT the author, because I have seen your work. If this was to be expanded, we could almost see the progression of the woman speak with more flair, more piquancy, more of herself. The artist can go back to creating.

The irony behind a woman who USED to create had a world painted for her clearly in black and blue is a nice chain breaker for the end result.

Emmanuel hitting his sister can literally be expanded over chapters and they would hide it like Anna is. A great write that can easily be taken to the next plateau.

The idea of the end and an easy hand running healing hands over bruised arms is a blessing. Even to a son who watched his mother go through the same thing.
You owe it to your audeince to continue this and make it sings for chapters.

GREAT f*****g read and a hell of a kick in the a*s.

[Ardeth Lane]

I love it. This is an amazing piece of work, and. it. just. AWESOME! :)

[Emily B]

somehow I knew grace would be found, I was not disappointed

wonderful work

[A.A.Romanczuk]

:) Thank You, Ed :) This means...more than I can say...

[Ed Hart]

courageous, graceful, promising, heartfelt