A NEW LIFE - K.W.McNutt (ereader for textbooks txt) 📗

A life of Abuse

At the age of 19, I thought I had it made! I was “in love,” getting ready to get married and was finally out of the house; away from mom and dad! Little did I know that my life had just made a change for the worse.
We were married in a local church with all the family and friends in attendance. On the day of the wedding, I remember, dad had begged me not to do this. “Go on to school; make something of your life! Just say the words and we will turn around and leave here and never look back! Your mom will handle everything here. Just say the words,” dad had pleaded to me with tears in his eyes. No, NO, NOOO, not this time! I was getting out of that house and nobody was going to be telling me what was best for me anymore!
I had a full time job in a local factory (not the kind of job I had imagined for myself in the prior years) and was doing okay for all I knew. I had a place to call my own and was dreaming of all the happy years to come. Now, mind you, it wasn’t the big house with a white picket fence, the nice cars, the family get-togethers that every girl dreamt of but life was okay. My husband worked in a local factory as well and together we made enough to get by.
I became a mother at the age of twenty and now had a husband and a beautiful little girl. While things had been sort of rocky in the months prior to the baby’s arrival, I attributed it to just the stress of all the changes that were happening in our lives. My husband had began to drink more often, came home later every night, began to say things that hurt my feelings and even had been known to smack me around when I had gotten, “out of line.” He told me that I didn’t know when to keep my mouth shut and I had “better start listening” to him!
The baby was now three weeks old and she was perfect! She slept all night and very rarely cried unless she was hungry or needed her diaper changed. She was a Blessing from God! She was doted over by grandparents and family on a regular basis and seemed not to notice when the loving husband would come home after a few too many drinks with his buddies. “The baby and I are fine,” I would say.
That night, he came in staggering drunk and unfortunately, the baby had not gotten to sleep yet. I placed her in the playpen while I had been cooking dinner and the meal was almost ready. The key word here was, “almost.” As he staggered into the kitchen, I could see that he had a look that he was angry and lustful all at the same time. He grabbed me from behind and began pawing at my breasts and then when I rejected his advances, he slapped me across the kitchen and into the living room where the baby was at. Blood poured from my nostrils and my cheek felt like I had been hit with a sledge hammer. I laid in the floor with tears, blood and anguish on my face as I watched my child in her playpen and he continued to rape me over and over. RAPE? Could it be possible that he could rape me? He was my husband and I knew from past experience that he would tell me how sorry he was tomorrow and promise to never do it again. He seemed to enjoy hurting me and seemed to enjoy the fact that our baby was in the same room as he punished me for not being the “good wife.” This time, it had been different. He had gone too far. He had broken my nose and the blood continued to pour from each nostril.

A trip to the doctor was not even an option. I would have to answer questions about what had happened and I couldn’t bear to let anyone know. What would they think? Would they want her to leave? Would they try to arrest him? I couldn’t, I just couldn’t!!! So, I didn’t! Instead, I kept my mouth shut and tried not to do anything that he would consider provoking. He always told me, “This was all your fault! If you had done what I told you to do, none of this would have happened!”
I began to try to hide the bruises with makeup and stayed away from family and friends as much as possible. They would never understand and would make accusations that maybe I had done something to deserve it. Like he said, “they won’t believe you anyway. They will think that you deserved it” and then he would laugh!! Was he right? He had told me over and over again, “nobody wants to hear your sob stories. You are never going to amount to anything and I can do anything I want to you. You’re my wife.”
The baby was now 15 months old and she was all I had that kept me going. I had returned to work, had a wonderful lady that took care of her, and took my “in line” treatments on a regular basis. I never knew what day, what time of the day, or how severe the treatments were going to be, but I could count on them occurring regularly. Memorial Day weekend was coming up and we had made no plans to go anywhere or do anything. I knew from the past holidays that he didn’t need an excuse of a holiday to party. Holidays just seemed to intensify the situation. On Saturday night, May 23rd, 1981, I was at home with my precious little girl and she and I had just began to snuggle on the sofa. For fifteen months, she had been my rock! She now was beginning to say things. Her favorite toys were in the floor. Her blue eyes were the color of the sky and she was beautiful! I heard the truck come to a sliding halt in the driveway so I took her to her bedroom and placed her in her crib. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want her to witness the “in line” treatment.
That night was brutal. I could feel the rage in his voice, the torment as he thrust himself on me and the terror as he used his fist to beat my face repeatedly. When he was finished, he rose from the sofa, laughed at me, and went to refrigerator to get him another beer. I lay there sobbing, trying my best to move and felt as if the world had collapsed on top of me. No make-up would hide these bruises. Not this time.
July 4th weekend was coming up. Great! Another holiday. But this time, I wouldn’t be around to take a treatment. I had discovered that over the Memorial holiday, I had become pregnant again! What in the world am I going to do? He will kill me and when he does, he will kill the baby that is growing inside me as well. NO, NO, NO!!!!! I began to sneak some clothes out of the house, mostly the babies, and put them in the trunk of my car. I placed them in garbage bags so it looked like I was taking them to be given away. I knew that if he saw my clothes in the trunk, I would be accused of changing clothes so I could look good at work. Look good at work? I worked in a greasy, smelly, factory where even coal miner’s looked cleaner when they came home. I had enough clothes for my little girl to last me about a week. I hid diapers under the spare tire and placed some water in old milk jugs in the trunk. Maybe he would think that my car was overheating. In reality, it was to mix the babies formula with. I didn’t know where I was going or what I would do but I couldn’t tell him that I was pregnant again!! I would figure it out somehow. I couldn’t go to mom and dads. They would never understand and would ask too many questions. Questions that I didn’t want to answer. I had “friends” but they were his friends. I was scared, I had a baby and was now expecting another, I was broke and worst of all I was alone! So, I sat and thought and thought and kept thinking. I put my daughter down for her nap and kept thinking. Too little, too late. The truck slid into the driveway and I knew what was coming. At least I thought I did. He came through the front door like a raging bull in a china shop. He went from one of the house to the other and was screaming at the top of his lungs. The baby began to cry because he frightened her. He headed towards me and I could see the rage in his face. As he started towards me, I began to scream. I looked up to see that he had gotten the machete that his brother had sent him from overseas. He began to pound my body like a punching bag and when I wouldn’t stop screaming he reached for the machete. I began to kick like a bucking bronco and ran to get my daughter and he stumbled over the coffee table and lay in the floor. In his stupor, I was able to get to my daughter’s room and grab her from her crib. I tried my best to race down the hallway but he was coming at us. His face was as furious as I had ever seen. I knew that I was about to die in this house and my babies right along with me, both of them. I reached the bedroom and slammed the door behind me but I could hear him coming. I was trapped in a room with nowhere to run. The phone company had shut our phone off the week before because he had refused to pay the bill. If I couldn’t talk to anyone, no one would know. I grabbed a blanket and cowered down in the closet behind some boxes. I listened to him rant and rage for what seemed like an eternity. All of a sudden, I heard the closet door began to shatter. There were pieces of wood being splintered