its the second setting. i’ve done everything i could do and i did these things thoroughly and well. there isn’t any guarantee that i’ll be done with this horrid mess tomorrow. no idea about which way the wind is blowing. i may be a wife husband batterer or a free woman tomorrow. i may just be in limbo while the prosecutor decides what he really has on me and how much i’m worth.
either way, i’ll never really be free. i’m already in prison, here at home, with my two year old daughter and her father. while this court hearing may declare that i am not a violent offender against my husband it will never prove or even acknowledge that he is a violent offender against me. that will just be filed away again in a far, hard to reach place until i need to remember it again.
my husband never hit me on purpose. he always had some reason or excuse or amnesia. i suppose that is why, when the police finally were called, my proud story of “beating the shit out of him” didn’t look so good up against his statement that, “she fell… i was just trying to defend myself..”
they didn’t know that i hadn’t fallen. for some reason they didn’t have any cause to believe that i hadn’t and i was proud that i had gotten a few shots in this time. even if he did shatter both bones in my wrist, even if i would have to have a plate and screws installed in it, even if i would be unable to change a diaper or bathe my daughter for two months while i became totally addicted to vicodin. in the moment they put me in the ambulance, though not many moments since then, it was worth it. i knew that he had forced me down with both arms, slamming the unfortunate left one onto a table. i knew what he had said when he did it. i knew the force he used was a far cry from self-defense. i was sure that the police would realize this.
so as i was driven away, sucking fentanyl up my nose, i believed that things were finally going to get better. my mother would grab the kiddo from the house, the husband would go to jail. i would get a protective order that i’d been threatening to get over three years before. i didn’t know where i was going, but i knew it was going to be better than where i had been. i cried. i couldn’t believe that he had done this again. i couldn’t believe he’d actually broken a bone. i had tried so hard to go on with our marriage, swallowing all of my concerns and fears and anger. i had committed to my life with him, such as it was, and then he had to go and break my fucking wrist! at least he’d be punished this time and while he was, i could get my life together and figure out what to do. it was all so sad. but, i knew his arrest would be for the best.
as i lay in the ER for hours i had plenty of time to contemplate how things would go and what would happen next. i noticed a police officer to the right of my stall. how courteous, i thought, they’re going to give me an escort home.
i’m sure you can imagine my shock when i was discharged from the ER and the cops explained that they had to handcuff my good arm to my jeans so that i would technically be in handcuffs when i arrived at jail.
