Broken

My dearest Phoebe,

I know that I’m not there for you right now, I know this. I also know that you’re wondering why your mother isn’t alive to be with you and I want you to know the real story, the real story of what happened and not just what your father tells you. I don’t want you to believe the lies that your father tells you and even though I’m sure you love him, you need to know the truth from me as well.

My fairy tale begins quite modestly. I was, and still am, the daughter of a bakery shop owner and the town’s minister. (I don’t know if they’ll tell you, but your grandmother sold the shop soon after your Aunt Daisy was born.) I grew up as an only child until my fourteenth birthday when my parents proudly announced that they would be having another child. And because I was used to getting what I wanted; the attention and material items, I acted out. I would sneak out at night to hang out with the high school kids and once I was one of the high school kids, I would attend the parties at the local college. When I was nineteen, I was found with my pants down and my shirt up and the college’s shining quarterback player on top of me. Unfortunately, I was found by the county sheriff, who carted me up in front of my parents at four in the morning. My mother started to cry and my father did not say a word until the next night. He said that he was going out and went out for hours. He came back and the only thing that he told me was that I was going to be getting married the next morning to the boy who had ‘ruined’ me.

So I did what my parents wanted me to do, I married Jake. It was fine, anyways. He was a nice boy. For the entire first year of our marriage, we were quite happy. His father had a bit of money and bought us this little house. Jake continued on with his education and I got a job working at the bank as a teller. Every Friday night was our date night and we would always go out and do something, like go to the movies or out for dinner. Things were happy back then. Until Wyatt happened.

Wyatt Browning was a stranger who just strode into town one morning, he was transferred to the bank as the manager and he took a shine to me immediately. He was always friendly to everyone, but he seemed to be extra friendly to me. Your father came in during lunch one day to surprise me, he said, with a picnic lunch. He saw me with my back turned to the door and all he saw was me just laughing with Wyatt. I didn’t know that he had seen me, I didn’t know that he had even come in that day. But I knew when I got home that something was wrong.

Jake was just quiet and sullen, wanting to know exactly why I had taken an extra five minutes getting home that I normally did. I had stayed behind because one of the other girls had to leave early because she was coming down with a fever. I explained to your father, but Jake wouldn’t have it. That was the night that he first hit me. He just lifted up his hand and slapped me across the face, telling me that I was the same little whore that he had been caught with a year ago, only this time I was spreading my legs for strangers rather than the man who’d been courting me for a few months. I denied it, of course, since it wasn’t true. And I would like to give him credit, your father seemed as shocked as I was that he had hit me. But after that it just didn’t matter. Whenever something went wrong at the law office that he worked at, he would hit me. He would find things to blame me with and he would hit me whenever I did something wrong. Like if I burned the dinner rolls or if I had dropped something, he would hit me. I became very good at putting on makeup to cover up the bruising on my face, my arms, my neck.

If I was ever late for anything, he would accuse me of flirting with men on my way home, he would accuse me of taking lunch breaks in my boss’s office. Whenever I got home, he’d yank me towards the couch and throw me down, threatening to break me because I was a lying, cheating slut. It seemed that the more I denied infidelity, the more Jake was convinced that I was cheating on him. He got aroused after beating me and would proceed to drag me up the stairs to the bedroom where he would order me to do things. If I was slow, he’d take off his belt and hit me with it. If I didn’t show enough interest, he’d slap me or he would put the pillow over my face until I’m almost out of air.

He got jealous of any man who spoke to me and angrier still if I replied back because it meant that I was encouraging them. He took a belt to me constantly, calling me his little whore who needed to be taught a lesson. My only reprieve was when I was pregnant with you. He stopped beating me. He was happier then. He liked the idea of having a baby. And the first time that he held you, he called you his little angel and just looked at you so lovingly. And he gave me the same look.

But it didn’t last, because it never did. Once I started working again, he got angry with me. When you cried, he would stop hitting me and go off to look after you. You were the only thing that calmed him, the only person that could stop him.

But I can’t hide behind my daughter. I won’t make you into my shield against the man that I married. And today is the day after your second birthday. You were dressed in a beautiful yellow dress that  your grandma had given to you. You pressed the icing from the cake between your fingers and you blew kisses to everyone. I took what money that I had and I bought some pills, just sleeping pills. I took the entire bottle and washed it all down with a glass of wine. Before I did that, I left this letter with your grandmother to give to you when you get married.

I want you to know that I love you very much, but I couldn’t live like that anymore. I couldn’t live with Jake and I know that he is your father and he loves you as well. I’m sure you’re thinking that I could have chosen to get a divorce, but at the time of writing your daddy was the youngest partner in the only law office in town. He wouldn’t have let me go, not that easily.

I wish you well on your wedding day and I love you very much,
Georgia

Written December 14 2007.