Bad Girl House 16

Josh’s birth was the last thing that the medial insurance I was given while teaching covered. A toddler, an infant, and a woman who had recently given birth had no health insurance. No one was getting regular check ups. I stopped breastfeeding when Josh was six months old. I wasn’t able to get birth control pills. When my periods started again, John made sure to monitor them. If I was even a few days late, a pregnancy test was bought. We were both relieved when I wasn’t pregnant, but undoubtedly for very different reasons. It was only a matter of time before I would become pregnant for the third time. John said the words he had dared to say two years earlier. I was again told to terminate the pregnancy. I found myself directly in the center of the same nightmare I had already lived through. My mind recreated the scene. I saw myself kneeling on the floor, gripping the phone, begging John to change his mind. My chest tightened and my stomach knotted. This could not be happening again. I was trapped by patterns of insanity that were impacting every part of my life, and each repetition became increasingly worse.

Making this demand in Cleveland, Ohio was not at all the same as making it in Smythe County, Virginia. It may have only been the inconvenience of an hour long drive that allowed Josh’s birth to become a reality. That was not the case in a large city. Phone calls were to be made the next time John went to work, and I was to schedule the soonest appointment possible.

I can still see the phone book open to the page where I found a list of the closest clinics. I can smell the black ink that rubbed off onto my fingers. I wrote several phone numbers down on a separate sheet of paper. I sat at the kitchen table, looking back and forth between the print standing out against the bright yellow page of the phone book, and my own handwriting on the piece of notebook paper. My thumb hovered over the plastic keys of the phone. Jessica was talking to Josh as he waved his arms and babbled back at her from his high chair. I couldn’t dial the phone. How could I possibly? If I scheduled an appointment, John would make sure that he took me there. When he got home from work, he was furious that I hadn’t done what he had told me to do. I was hanging on to the fact that he had changed his mind the last time. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just didn’t change his mind now. He gave me another chance to make the call the next day. That day was spent just as the day before. I still couldn’t call. I grew increasingly anxious knowing that John would be opening the door at any moment.

John refused to give me another deadline to do what he had asked. Past events continued to repeat themselves. He took me firmly by the arm, and walked me to the bathroom. I was to hold on the the towel rack so he could punch me in the stomach. The results where very much like the ones in Virginia. It was impossible not to flinch, so his blows did not meet their intended target. John gave up on that strategy, but was still thinking up a solution to his problem. John was suddenly yelling that he did not want or need me. That Jessica and Josh didn’t want or need me. I was worthless and no one would miss me if I was gone.

“Take the big knife from the kitchen. Run the hot water, and kill yourself.” I had been sat down at the kitchen table to feed Josh while Jessica ate a snack. I could only stare up at John in disbelief.

“You won’t even feel it in the hot water. Slit your wrists and let the blood run into the water.”

I was completely speechless.

“Get it now!” I looked at my children who were too young to understand what was going on. I slowly pushed myself up from my chair. My legs wouldn’t move.

“Now!” I was afraid to show John any emotion. I walked towards the kitchen, stopping in front of the block that held the knife.

“Don’t make me get it for you.” I pulled the knife out of its slot. It was the same knife that had been pointed at my face a year earlier. I held it at my side, trying not to let Jessica see it. I kept my gaze to the floor as I walked to the bathroom. I carefully placed the knife on the small vanity. I stared at it, coming to the realization of how John’s constant abuse had completely changed my frame of mind. Would anyone care if I was dead? Did anyone actually need me? Were his reactions my fault? These questions were interrupted as I remembered the beginnings of another life inside me.

“Turn on the water, and get it over with!” I barely whispered, “I can’t.”

“Oh, but you will.” The tone of John’s voice immediately changed as he turned away from the door, and asked Jessica and Josh if they wanted to play. I turned the water on, and plugged the drain. The sat down on the toilet between the tub and the knife. I listened to the rushing water, and watched the bubbles spread across the bathtub. The door opened slightly. “If you don’t get in that tub, I’m going to kill you myself.” I slowly undressed, took the knife from the vanity, and stepped into the tub. The hot water immediately made my feet tingle. I stood there for a few minutes before slowly easing into the tub. I had obeyed every order I had been told, except for the final one. As I held the knife in front of my face, I saw my distorted reflection in its thin blade. I was terrified that the next time John came in the room, he was going to physically force me kill myself. I imagined him firmly wrapping his hand around mine and the handle of the knife. Then grabbing my other hand to hold out my arm before cutting my wrist. He could burst into the room, take the knife from my hand and fatally stab me. He had threatened to do it before, so I knew what he was capable of.

“What are you waiting for? You’d better do it by the time I come back.” What would he have done if I had gone through with it? What if I had felt so controlled by his abuse, that I was left with no other choice but to obey? I believe that he was thinking so far ahead that he knew he wouldn’t be held responsible for a suicide.

I turned the water off. It was so hot that I felt nauseous and light headed. I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want to terminate this baby. My hands shook, still holding tightly to the knife. Sweat ran down my forehead, and tears streamed down my cheeks. I couldn’t stand to look at the knife any longer. I put it on the floor beside the bathtub, and laid in the water until it grew cold. The door opened on last time. John sat down on the toilet and stared at me.

“You want to keep the baby, don’t you?” I nodded my head. The pattern continued.

“Of course I do.” I couldn’t look up at John’s face after what he had just put me through.

“Then you can keep it.” It was as if I had come home with a lost puppy, and I was being given permission to care for it. This was a human life, an absolute miracle. I had spent the last hour wrestling with the fact that John wanted me dead. Killing me would have killed the child that he just said I could keep. I was completely drained; physically and emotionally.

“Get dressed.” I was relieved to be alive, but was even more aware of the mental torture John was capable of inflicting. Now shivering from the cool air, I quickly dried off. I picked my clothes up off of the floor and put them on. I continued to shiver from being so distraught. I wasn’t sure that I could deal with the world outside of the bathroom.

Over the next few weeks our families were told the exciting news that a third baby was on the way. It felt very strange to tell people that I was pregnant after being told to terminate it. It is even more awkward when I was also told to kill myself.