A Broken Home
by Tara Whitsed
She stared down the long and dull corridor of her suburban home, the scene of too many beatings. The corridor she was dragged down by her hair. She glanced at the deep crack in the plaster and ran her fingers over her forehead. The wretched pain from the wound throbbed. Her knees buckled and she slid down the wall and let her head fall helplessly into her hands. How did it get to this point? She was a broken woman, rocking backwards and forwards in the tunnel that led to her hell.
The front door swung wildly open to reveal her husband stumbling through it. His arms flailed, and she could smell the raw stink of gin already. He was drunk, a side of him she knew too well.
“Claire!” he bellowed, following by a disgusting belch. She knew there was no point trying to calm him. She ran to the bedroom and locked the door, but the locks couldn’t withstand the rage inside of her husband. She knew that.
“You bitch!” he roared and lunged himself at the lock. She clutched her legs to her chest on the other side of the door. The handle shook violently, and then the whole room began to shake around her. The walls closed in on her. Her heart thumped in her chest and sweat covered her wound. Her body could not take another beating. But he just wouldn’t stop. A picture frame smashed to the ground and she gasped. The lock began to look looser and looser.
She scooped the picture and slid underneath their bed, the bed where they conceived their daughter, the bed where they had laughed and planned their future. She scrapped the shattered glass of the picture. It was a photo of her and her husband on their anniversary last year. She stroked his face. The man that stared at her was not the same man that was on the other side of the door. This man was who she had married, who was a happy, loyal and gentle man. He had morals and was a great father to their daughter. But this man let the gin change him into a man he wasn’t.
The door came crashing open, just as it had done so many times before. He knew exactly where she was. But this time was different. She no longer felt like a weeping puppy, but a strong woman. This had to stop. He grabbed her by her hair and reefed her out from underneath the bed.
“STOP!” she screamed as loud as she possibly could and held one of the shards of glass in front of her. He stared at her, taken a back. She grabbed the bottle of gin out of his hands and smashed it against their dresser.
“You can’t keep doing this to me John! Look at me. Look at what you have made me. It’s not my fault she died. It’s not anyone’s fault and you still storm in here punishing me every night. You think that covering your pain with gin is going to make it go away? Well it’s not! It’s not! You’re a pig and a coward and you need to man up and face your grief like everyone else did. We can’t change that she fell off that horse. We can’t change that she chose not to wear a helmet. You couldn’t have done anything to change it! So why do you think that bashing my face into the hallway wall is going to make her come back? It’s not John. She’s gone. Deal with it.”
Her husband looked at her. His knees buckled and he slid down the wall and let his head fall helplessly into his hands. He was a broken man, a man that needed his daughter.
She sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around his brooding body. They rocked backwards and forwards. Together.
