She looks at her children all grown, and in despair, suffering the same heartbreaks she has endured. She looks back at her life, their lives, and wonders how can it be so?
Her life was an exercise in horror; no sane woman could have survived. She never thought of tomorrow. All her energy was used up just surviving today.
Make everything perfect, and maybe he won’t beat me tonight. The house is all clean, not a spot anywhere. The children are all fed and safely in bed. Put on something pretty, fix your hair, welcome him home with loving arms and lips.
Maybe he won’t hit me tonight.
Try as you might, you know the truth. You wait in bitter despair for the bars to close, and the night’s terror to begin. You know you can’t be good enough, or pretty enough, or sweet enough, or loving enough to escape his wrath.
You know the beating is coming, and you know you deserve it. You must, or it wouldn’t be happening, right? God in all his Love couldn’t allow it, if you didn’t deserve it. You must have done something terribly evil to deserve such hatred.
But you can’t think on these things now. You must plan for tonight’s survival. Should you hide? You can’t leave, what about the children?
I have to protect the children.
If I hide, will he just go to sleep? Where can I hide that he won’t find me? Escape was futile, she tried many times, but he always found her.
But didn’t she protect them from the truth of her living hell? Didn’t she send them away to loving grandparents on the weekends, so they would never know? Didn’t she learn to take her beatings in silence so they wouldn’t hear? Screaming from the pain only inside herself, she couldn’t let them know.
And now, all these years later, as she looks in the mirror and sees the scars he's left on her face. She learns that all her efforts were in vain.
The children knew, they always do.
They lay awake, crying, hearing the beatings. Not my cries. Just his hands as they struck me. Just the sound of my head smashing against the brick fireplace.
They knew, and they wanted to protect me.
Protect me!
Why!!!
They were the children, they were even more helpless than me.
So now, now that she is safe, now she faces the worst heartbreak of them all.
Has she condemned her beloved children to a life like hers? Did she fail so badly in protecting them that they will repeat her life of horror?
God please NO!!!
You blessed me with them, you trusted me with them. You gave them to me perfect in every way.
Please God, I beg of you, punish me, not them!
They are innocent, they have already suffered far too much. They have children of they’re own now, do not let my grandbabies suffer for my ignorance.
Do not punish them for my stupidity.
Punish me Lord!
Punish me!
