Chapter 10

GERTRUDE BARKER,2018

I got married when I was young and stupid. It was one of those arranged marriage things where your parents gave you the picture of the man and you were supposed to suddenly dream about him all day and all night. Pretty cool right. I didn't meet Craig face to face until my wedding day.

My wedding was as gallant as one could organize on a priest's salary. My peasant parents were never going to contribute anything worthwhile to my wedding so basically I didn't get an Elizabeth Bennet wedding, a Jane Bennet wedding. Even Lydia's wedding was more lavish than mine but this was a joke I obviously couldn't share with Craig. Craig hated Jane Austen as much as dogs hate squirrels because of her pragmatic views on love and marriage. According to him, Austen's books taught women to leave their husbands and homes. He had once even tried to make me stop teaching her books at school.

This marriage has cost me everything; my children, my dreams and my happiness. I was not allowed to have hobbies outside the box meaning I was supposed to like things like baking, cooking and cleaning the house, normal women things not partying.  I used to like partying when I was younger but the shackles of my marriage and the high status enjoyed by a priest stopped me from doing everything I wanted. I am happy that we are now poor. No one judges us for one little mistimed sneeze but being poor did not bring back my happiness. I am just a shell of my former self. At sixty one, I have nothing to my name. Not a penny or property or even a trophy. Everything is in my husband's name. I  am just a housewife.

Everyone knows me as the submissive wife. The one who is always at her husband's beck and call. The woman who watched as my own husband shot my daughter. I am the woman who sits still as my husband narrates dastardly plans to kill my youngest daughter's unborn baby. Is this the life I dreamed of when I was younger? Being a wife who got the shit beaten out of her for breaking a glass or for serving dinner late? This was the part about my life that my children never knew because whenever he lost control and hit me so hard that I couldn't walk, he would make up a story that I had accompanied students for a study trip yet in truth I was in the hospital soaking up on pain killers and stitches.

I have failed all my children; those that are alive and even those that are dead. The ones I was forced to abort because the ultrasound showed that they were of a female sex. I was only allowed to keep Elaine and Elizabeth because Craig had finally got a son, Evan, the apple of his eye, his heir. I was not allowed to reprimand Evan for anything at all. Craig owned Evan and I was to raise Elaine and Elizabeth.

I'm now packing my clothes secretly because I am leaving Craig. I am so fed up of his authoritative rule. I want to stretch my wings and soar like an eagle before cancer or hypertension settles in. I don't know how that will work out but I am leaving. I am not staying with him a day longer.

I should have helped Elaine all those years ago but I stood by as he shot her. Elaine. My beautiful daughter is an accomplished psychiatrist. She has fulfilled her dreams all thanks to another woman. Am I jealous? No, I am not jealous because I know I would not have been able to give her all that she needed to thrive. She has made a name for herself as Emilia Gardiner and I know that it kills Craig when he sees how she has turned out nevertheless I am proud of my daughter. I am proud of who she has become.

I am done packing so I hide the suitcase under the bed and go to the kitchen to prepare Craig's supper. I am going to crush in some of my sleeping pills because I want him out cold so that I can escape and be with my lover.

Yes, I have a lover. He is half my age. I met him at church and he lives close by. He truly loves and adores me for what I am. He has promised me a life of freedom and frankly I am desperate so I accepted to run away with him but there is a condition. There always is.

"Gertrude would you fucking hurry up." Craig called out from the sofa where he lay surrounded by cans of beer;  some decorated the couch while others lounged on the floor by his feet.

"Just give me a few more minutes, honey." The word tasted sour even as it danced off my tongue. I have never loved my husband and we have never experienced passion in our marriage. The sex was always missionary and it was always on his terms. It didn't matter to him if I was satisfied or not as long as he was satisfied he was done. I have only ever said words like honey and darling to pacify him: so why did I say them now? Was it because of what I was about to do? I resumed cutting the vegetables as my phone buzzed on the table. He had texted.

Have you done it?

I hurriedly texted back.

Bout to. Love you XOXO

I felt like a love-sick sixteen year old girl if sixteen year old girls had already hit menopause and had sagging breasts topped off with grey hair and a shelf of wrinkles. His condition weighed on me heavily. He  had asked me for one thing so that we could leave together. He had asked me to kill my husband to break free from the shackles and chains of my thirty nine year old marriage, besides the church wouldn't approve of their marriage unless Craig was dead. Could I handle killing Craig or anyone for that matter?

"Bitch can't do anything right." Craig shouted again from the sofa. "Everything you do is wrong."

"Was giving birth to Evan wrong." I was surprised by what I said. For the first time in my life, I had talked back to my husband and from the look on his face I could tell that I had hit the spot. His nostrils flared and his eyes bulged in his big  bald head. His fists were balled up. Craig did not like anyone talking about Evan because it made him remember all the pain and suffering that Elaine had caused. He gulped down an entire can of beer in one go and stomped towards me. I simply smiled because he made the task at hand so much easier.

I was so happy and that is why I let him hit me. The first blow hit me square in the jaw and I heard it crack but I giggled because his blows were like cocaine to me. I had consumed enough that I had built a tolerance. The second blow smashed my nose. Blood spewed out some of it entering my mouth but I just continued laughing. He was so angry that he didn't notice the blood that was gradually staining his khaki pants. I could tell when he noticed it because his eyes widened in surprise and tears welled up in his bloodshot eyes. I had intentionally sliced his femoral vein and not his artery. I wanted him to die slowly and I wanted him to know for the first time that I held the power. For the first time, I was the one in control.

"Call an ambulance." He choked the words out as he fell to the floor clutching his thigh trying in vain to stop the blood.

I leaned down and whispered into his ear a sultry "No." I continued to watch as he hissed and rolled on the floor.  After a while his face turned white and the pungent smell of urine releasing from his bowels assured me that he was finally dead. I tried to feel something for this man but only a tear rolled down my cheek. This is what thirty nine years of an abusive marriage had come to. My parents must be rolling in their graves.

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I  was curled up on the sofa when he came. I checked my watch. He had come ten minutes after I had called him over. He was dressed in jeans and a short sleeved white shirt. His blonde hair was still damp from a recent encounter with water. He smelled like cocoa. He was holding his hands behind his back as though he was hiding something.

"He deserved to die" He whispered as he looked at Craig's body on the kitchen floor with a triumphant smile.

"Is that a surprise?" I said referring to what he was holding behind his back.

"Yes dear." He said a small smile teasing at his lips. He looked very handsome today. I was so engrossed in admiring him that I didn't see the baseball bat hit my head. A sharp pain spread through my head and a warm liquid flowed down my face. I didn't fall immediately because by this time I was used to such pain. How stupid I was to think a man like him would want a sixty one year old woman. He wanted Elaine. They always wanted Elaine and ofcourse the best way to a girl's heart was through killing her parents. I was still happy though because he was still giving me what I wanted; freedom and an identity, freedom through death. I embraced the second blow when it came like a toddler does to his favourite teddy bear. I now had an identity. I was no longer a peasant's daughter, a submissive wife and a failed mother. I am now a freedom fighter. A woman who fought for her own freedom and won. The third blow brought me down to the cold wooden floor of my own house. Even though I so want to die, the Lord seems to have other plans for me. Then darkness comes and I hug it. I embrace it like I have never done with my husband.