Fear. Joanne couldn't remember when it had become a
normal part of her life. From the moment
she awoke in the morning, until she finally drifted off to sleep at night, it
was all she seemed to feel anymore. How
Jeff reacted to what she said, what she did, and what she wore, had become the
focus of her days. Because
if he found fault in anything, she knew she was going to get it.
"You're
doing it again," he would say, "Always trying to start
something."
A
chill would course through her whenever he would say that, because she knew
what was coming next. He would slam
something and then he would stand in front of her, so close that Joanne felt as
if she couldn't breath. Then he would hiss through his clenched teeth,
"How many times...."
The
next morning Joanne would awaken to find a stranger staring back at her, in the
bathroom mirror. An occasional eye
swollen shut and bruised cut lips, were the usual souvenirs from the previous
night. Her body ached all the time. The bruises never had time to completely heal
anymore, before new ones were added on.
She
barely recognized herself. It was always
such a shock to be brushing her teeth or combing her hair, to all of the sudden look up to find this beaten up woman
staring back at her. Joanne was only
thirty, but she felt ancient. Her light
brown hair which once had been shining and healthy,
was now dull and lifeless. Her hazel
eyes which she had once been told, were striking, had no spark left in
them. Her body was thinner than it
should be.
Joanne
felt that she was dying little by little with each passing day. She knew she had her whole life ahead of her,
but what kind of life? She couldn't
possibly go on this way. She knew that
this wasn't living, that it was existing from one day
to the next. Being at
Jeff's mercy, day in and day out.
Jeff
was getting crazier every day. His
gambling was getting out of control. The
more he lost to his buddies at cards, the more beaten up she would get when he
would get home. It didn't take much to
set him off these days. It seemed to her
as if he was just looking for an excuse from the minute he got home.
No
matter how hard she tried not to set him off, she would always end up ticking
him off. His face that she had thought
of as being handsome once would become contorted with rage. His dark compelling eyes,
became angry and menacing. His mouth
that she had once loved to kiss became this ugly snarling thing. It was as if he would transform into a monster
before her very eyes.
Jeff
was only thirty-five, but the drinking made him look ten years older. His dark brown hair was prematurely
graying. He looked a mess. He was so different from the man she had met
only two years before. Now she didn't
even know who he was anymore.
Joanne
had once been able to take on modeling assignments, but as Jeff had become more
and more abusive, she had been forced to stop.
Nobody wanted a bruised up model.
No amount of make-up and airbrushing her photos could cover up the mess
he did to her.
The
money had been really good. Jeff knew
that he was missing out big time on what she could be bringing home from her
modeling shoots. So, he would just take
that out on her too. Nothing was ever his fault. Everything was always her doing. She felt as if she just couldn't do anything
right anymore.
No,
Joanne knew that she had to leave. She
wasn't that stupid. Joanne knew if she
didn't leave soon, one of these days Jeff was going to go too far. He was going to end up killing her. She had already ended up in emergency,
twice. Having seen it happen too many
times while she was growing up in Ohio, Joanne knew it would only be a matter of time. But it was never anybody's business. Nobody ever butted in. Never mind that the whole block would hear
what was going on. That someone was screaming
in the middle of the night.
It
never mattered how poor or rich anybody was either. Domestic abuse seemed to happen
anywhere. Now here she was in the same
spot as those other poor abused women.
But she would be damned if she was going to become a statistic of
domestic violence.
Joanne
knew tha