“Temper us in fire, and we grow stronger. When we suffer, we survive.”
Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire
The sound of the river as it dances across rocks and the nocturnal calls of night birds surround me as I sit upon the broad, flat boulder. Once sitting here had soothed me and helped me find the strength to go back. But not tonight. Because tonight, I had ended it. For good.
In the distance I can hear the sirens. This time there would be no handcuffing him and taking him off to jail, only to release him a day or two later. This time it would be me they'll want to handcuff. This time there would be no release from jail because what I had done to him was, in their eyes, far worse than what he had done to me.
I smell the blood that covers me from head to toe. My hands are slick with it and it's making it difficult to keep a grip on the heavy Glock. The same Glock he had used to torture and terrify me earlier. One of my eyes is swollen closed and the side of my head hurts from where he'd kicked it. My nose is noticeably broken, one of my shoulders was nearly dislocated and one leg feels like it might have a small fracture. I'd had no real choice. Tonight it had been me or him, and he'd been foolish to think I would go quietly. That I would let him kill my baby along with me.
Four times I'd tried to run. Each time he'd tracked me down and forced me to come back with threats against the ones I loved most. The police had not protected me because the law erred more to the side of my abuser than to mine. They'd take him away and I would sign papers charging him with assault and battery. I'd get an order of protection. I'd done everything I'd been told to do, but to no avail. Always he would walk through the orders of the court and drag me back here, and make me pay for what I'd done. Tonight had been the last time, I'd seen to that.
The sirens are getting closer and in some lucid part of my brain I think I should put the gun down. It was empty now anyway. I had emptied it into him, but the police wouldn't know that. Maybe I should let them think it was still loaded. Maybe they would feel threatened if I waved it around and shoot me, too. But then I feel the baby kick and I realize that, no, I can't take an innocent's life just to escape this nightmare. It did not deserve that final act of selfishness on my part.
The sirens stop as the cruisers pull into the front drive. I hear doors open and the shouts of the officers as they storm the house. They hadn't needed to do that. I'd told them what had happened. I had left the front door open. I had told them where they could find me. I feel no need to run from them. I feel no need to run again, period. I am tired. So very tired.
I hear them coming through the woods behind me, calling my name. One dear voice singles itself out from the others.
“Jenna! Put the gun down, Jenna!”
Numbly I look down at the weapon in my hand, seeing the dull reflection of the moonlight in the wetness covering it. I shiver against the cold as the last of the adrenaline leaves my body and I choke back a sob as I toss it away. Then hands that are oddly gentle handcuff me behind my back.
“It's okay, Jenna,” the voice murmurs, “It's okay.”
“I had to do it, Tom,” I respond, my voice hoarse and resigned from all that had gone on earlier, “He was going to kill me and the baby. I-I couldn't let him kill my baby!”
“I'm sorry, Jenna,” Tom says, then proceeds to mirandize me. “You have the right to remain silent...”
The paramedics arrive with their litter and proceed to wipe away blood and examine my wounds, both new and old. After dressing those that need dressing, they load me onto the litter and carry me through the woods and to the ambulance parked beside the house. I absently count six police cruisers and one fire truck in the front yard. A plain-clothed detective emerges from a sedan and goes inside. I know what she'll find. Blood, lots of blood, and the signs of a violent fight to the death. She'll find the mess that had been my husband in the bedroom. I wonder if it will make her vomit.
An hour later they have me handcuffed to the bed in the emergency room. Procedure, Tom had explained regretfully, then laid his hand over mine where it dangled from the rail. He didn't leave my side until the detective entered the room and told him to wait outside.
She mirandizes me again then proceeds to ask her questions. I answer her honestly and in detail when she wants something clarified. I feel no need to consult a lawyer. There was no denying what had gone on that night. I am so tired. I just want to sleep. To escape the waking nightmare that my life had become. The one clear thought going through my mind is that it's finally over, and I had won. I had protected myself and saved my baby. I had done what needed to be done.
The doctor admits me for a couple of days. The handcuffs are removed once I've been moved to my room, but a guard is placed outside the door. As if I cared enough to run.
Tom visits when he is off duty. His superiors frown on his doing it but it doesn't stop him. He's there for me, as he always has been. He knows better than most what it had been like for me. He'd done everything he'd been able to do to help me, but he'd been bound by laws that existed more to protect my husband than me.
Four days after that night I am taken before the court and indicted for second degree murder. But the judge takes pity and releases me to my own recognizance. I have no where to go. I can't go back to that house, even for my clothes. Once again Tom steps up and takes me in. He moves me into the second bedroom of his condo and proceeds to care for me in ways that I've never known in my life.
He is my best and true st friend. We'd grown up living next door to one another and until I'd met and married my husband, we'd been nearly inseparable. My husband wasn't from our town and Tom had made no secret of his feelings toward him. He'd tried to warn me that something wasn't right from the very beginning but I hadn't listened. I'd been swept off my feet by my husband's good looks, charm and unwavering attention. I hadn't paid attention when he started isolating me from those who loved me. I hadn't questioned his verbal abuse and, instead, grown to believe I deserved it. By the time he'd started hitting me I was so battered mentally and emotionally that I wasn't able to fight back.
I hadn't seen Tom in three years when I ended up in the emergency room the first time. He had been the first officer to answer my initial 911 call for help and for the following four years he had tried to watch over me despite my repeatedly going back. He had tried to stop me even after I had told him of my husband's threats against my family. But by that time I no longer believed the system would help me and I was convinced that as long as I stayed with my husband they would remain safe.
In the end I was convicted of second degree manslaughter and given a suspended sentence with orders to undergo intensive therapy. I remained with Tom and, with his support, slowly healed. My baby was born perfectly healthy and loved despite her paternity. Tom makes a wonderful father to my little girl and spoils her rotten every chance he gets. When he looks at me I see in his eyes the devotion of my lifelong friend, and the quiet, steadfast love of a man for a woman. Just tonight he had declared himself to me and asked me to consider marrying him. There had been no consideration needed on my part and I answered yes with tears of joy pouring from my eyes. Had I been wiser, I would have married him all those years ago and had an entirely different life. But I had made my choice and lived to regret it.
Today, I am strong and self-confident with a few physical reminders of my ordeal. I hold degrees in psychology and social work, and work with other battered women. I have survived the crucible and emerged tensile in spirit. I have proven that even the broken can win.
This story is the abused woman's dream. I immediately thought of The Burning Bed. You certainly put in a lot of edge when came to how emotional this was for Jenna to carry out.
Only two things bothered me about this great story. First, you wrote that Jenna was "indicted for second-degree murder." Unless this is some backward part of the country where the County district attorney hasn't heard the news, from the way you described her wounds and the wounds that had previously healed, her attorney could easily declare self-defense. You conveniently used, "the judge took pity on her," rather than the judge throwing out the case as clearly being self-defense.
I know you explained to me that romance stories always turn out right. And you certainly made a case for Tom, waiting in the wings so long, to step in and save his damsel in distress. But the real world doesn't work that way very often. I think I would have preferred going on her own improving her self-esteem and her income, before encountering a man that she would eventually marry. But that would make the story longer. And it is a nice length the way it is.
The sound of the river as it dances across rocks and the nocturnal calls of night birds surround me as I sit upon the broad, flat boulder. Once sitting here had soothed me and helped me find the strength to go back. But not tonight. Because tonight, I had ended it. For good.
