Broken Promises

by Rebecca Barber

  “I’ll come back in a bit. Try to get some rest and don’t think about it. We’ll deal with everything else later. One thing at a time. Let’s get you back on your feet first.” Heidi smiled, leaning over and kissing me lightly on the forehead before disappearing out the door.

  I was glad for the peace and quiet. I needed time to be on my own and just mull things over. How was I going to get out of this one? How could I possibly have been so stupid to go to the house and provoke him? I had this coming. I deserved what I got. There was no point feeling sorry for myself. And I didn’t want anyone else feeling sorry for me either. But despite feeling very sorry for myself I managed to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

  It felt like my eyes had only been closed for a minute but when the nurse hovering over me woke me up I was amazed to see an hour and a half had passed. She checked my vitals, asked some questions about my pain, to which I just murmured some sleepy answer, and then told me surgery had been delayed. They were still hoping to get me in tonight, but they couldn’t guarantee it. At that point I didn’t care.

  “Can I please make a phone call?” I asked.

  As I came out of my drowsiness, I realized all I wanted to do was talk to my kids. They needed to know that I loved them and that I hadn’t abandoned them. They needed to know that I wouldn’t be home tonight, but I would be tomorrow, and the night after that and the one after that.

  “Sure, I’ll just grab you the handset. Do you know the number or would you like me to look one up for you?” she offered helpfully.

  “Thanks, I know this one.”

  Moments later I was talking in hushed tones down the phone to Adele. She was pleading with me not to go to the police and at the same time apologizing for Joel. I knew Adele blamed herself personally for this, but it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t there and she had absolutely nothing to do with it. Joel was a grown man who made his own bad choices. And one day he’d have to pay for them.

  “Can I speak to the kids?” I asked nervously. I didn’t want them to know what happened but I wouldn’t lie to them either. How much they found out would depend on what questions they asked.

  Lucas was first on the phone and, like a normal five-year-old he didn’t once ask where I was or when I was coming home. Instead, he just told me all about his day and the finger painting he had done of a kite flying in the sky. Then he handed the phone to Bianca, who was a bit more inquisitive, but not so much so that I had to tell her where I was. “Nana said you were with Aunty Heidi and Aunty Rhiannon?” she asked innocently.

  “Yeah, I am, sweetheart. Is that okay?”

  “Yep,” she sung merrily. I was grateful for Bianca’s cheerful attitude. “Did you want to talk to Charli?” she offered.

  I wanted to say no. My head was screaming to say no, but I couldn’t avoid her. I wouldn’t. “If she’s there,” I agreed, knowing she was hovering over Bianca’s shoulder, waiting her turn.

  “Hi Mum,” she said nervously.

  “Hi darling, how was your day?” I asked, trying to keep things as normal as possible.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m with Aunty Rhiannon and Aunty Heidi,” I replied. In the distance I could hear the wail of the ambulance siren getting closer and closer. I prayed that Charli didn’t hear it.

  “Yeah, Nana told me that. But where are you?”

  My blood ran cold. She knew. And if she didn’t know, she suspected. “I’m at the hospital,” I told her honestly.

  I heard her gulping on the other end of the phone line. “Are you okay?” she asked, no louder than a whisper.

  “Yes, sweetheart, I’m fine. See, I’m talking to you. I’m okay.” I tried to hold it together and keep my voice steady, but the innocence on the other end of the phone broke my heart. Tears streamed down my face as Rhiannon and Heidi appeared, both carrying cups of coffee. Immediately they started towards me, arms out ready for a hug, but I shook my head at them and they froze on the spot.

  “I want to come and see you,” Charli insisted.

  “Now’s not a good time. Visiting hours are over. I promise I’m fine. I’ll be home tomorrow.” I prayed that I was telling the truth. I didn’t want to let her down. But the way my surgery kept getting bumped, a part of me doubted that I would even be home in a week.

  “What’d he do to you?” She cried openly now.

  And that was the end of me. I couldn’t restrain the tears any longer. Charli cried at me and I couldn’t help it but sob back. “Nothing, sweetheart, it was just an accident. Mummy’s hurt her wrist and needs a cast on it, that’s all. The doctors will put the cast on, hopefully tonight or tomorrow morning, and I’ll be home after that.” My heart broke. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth either. I felt like a fraud.

  “Mum, please,” she begged. I could hear Adele in the background shooing Bianca and Lucas away from overhearing anything they didn’t need to. “Please, I want to see you.”

  And more than anything I wanted to see her. If just to prove to her I was okay. “Okay, okay, Charli. Calm down. Stop crying. Aunty Heidi is going to drive over to Nana’s right now and pick you up. She’ll bring you here to me and then she will take you back again. I don’t want you to worry.” My eyes never left Heidi’s and she just nodded her agreement, silently slipping her handbag over her shoulder and heading for the door. “She’s leaving now, so make sure you have some shoes on. She won’t be long.”

  “Okay,” she spluttered. I could tell she was trying to pull herself together and I admired her strength. Even if I fucked up everything else in my life, I’d gotten it right with Charli. She was strong and determined but none of that took anything away from her compassion.

  “I’ll see you in a little bit.” I smiled inwardly, wondering how I was going to hide the truth from her once she was standing in front of me.

  “I love you, Mummy,” she murmured. “See you soon.” And she hung up.

  She never heard me reply, “I love you too, Charli.”

  Rhiannon didn’t even let me wipe my eyes with my one useable hand. “What the fuck happened?” she asked angrily. I’d never seen her so furious before. Rhiannon had a serious temper and it was raging. I needed to calm her down, but I had no idea how to and no energy.

  “Calm down, Rhiannon. I’m okay. It’s my own stupid fault anyway,” I began dismissively.

  “Don’t give me that shit!” she retorted. “How do you figure that?”

  I knew I needed to get this done before Charli arrived. Rhiannon was seething and I had only a limited time to explain what had happened and talk her off the ledge before I was once again a bubbling mess of tears. “I went there looking for a fight,” I offered in a way of explanation.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because last night I had to take the kids to Adele’s. Again. And I was humiliated. That’s three times this week we’ve had to flee our own home in the middle of the night and sneak into her house. Did you know that Bianca calls the spare room at Adele’s place her bedroom? That’s how much time she spends there. She had clothes and toys and everything there. And Charli keeps asking why we have to leave. Why couldn’t Joel just leave? There is only one of him and four of us, it just doesn’t seem fair. And I don’t have an answer for her. Not a good one, anyway. So, I went there. Back to our home. And I asked him to leave. I told him the truth. That his kids didn’t want to come home while he was there. I let him have it. The ugly, undeniable truth. And well, you can see for yourself how well he took that.” And there it was. The truth.

  For a moment Rhiannon looked at me with eyes filled with sadness and pity. Then she shook her head and said, “Well, what happens next?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Bullshit!” she snapped. “You’re going to tell the police. And you need to tell them the truth. The whole truth. Not Gillian’s version of truth either. Not the one where most of the important parts are conveniently left out. The full, ugly, painful truth. This needs to end and it need
s to end now.”

  I sat up in the bed, squinting as the pain shot through me with every movement. “No, Rhiannon. I’m not.”

  “Why the fuck not?” she boomed, moving towards the door and pushing it closed with a thud.

  “Because I have no proof. There’d be no point. It’s my word against his.” And there it was. The cold, harsh reality. Every time something like this happened Joel’d been careful enough to make sure no one was around. No one had ever seen him be anything other than charming towards me. So, who’d believe me? I’d come off looking like the bad guy for kicking him when he was down. He’d play the depressed card, how he had lost his job and then as a result he had lost his family.

  “Grow a brain, Gillian. I know he’s smacked you around the head a bit but you are not that dumb. I know you. And I know you aren’t. Do you not think that all the x-rays over the years that are kept on your file won’t back up your story of years of abuse? Or that those hand prints on your neck aren’t classified as evidence?” Rhiannon almost yelled.

  “Keep your voice down,” I pleaded.

  Rhiannon looked at me and saw me shrinking away. I think she thought I was waiting for her to hit me too. “Gillian, I love you, but enough is enough. You need to let someone help you. You need to put an end to this once and for all. You need to let the police help you.”

  Sighing, I looked up and saw the tenderness in her eyes. Rhiannon just wanted this to end. She didn’t want any more calls from the hospital or me showing up on her doorstep in tears, three kids in tow. “You don’t know what he’s like. He can be very charming and very persuasive when he wants to be. No one will believe me. And things will get worse. He’ll kill me if he knew I told you about it.”

  “Gillian, the way things are going, he’s going to kill you regardless of whether I know or not.”

  The words hung heavily in the air. Rhiannon was right. When Joel had me pinned to the wall by my throat and I was struggling to breathe, I barely recognized him. His eyes were empty. He felt no remorse. No pain. Nothing. I meant nothing to him.

  “Rhiannon?” I began, but she sat on the end of the bed and held her hand up, stopping me mid-sentence.

  “Just listen to me, please. Hear me out. Okay, let’s say you do go to the police and tell them everything. And I mean everything. The years of being slapped around. The lack of financial support for your children. The dead bolt on the bedroom door and everything else. Then they go and confront Joel. And he plays his part perfectly. He is the charming, sophisticated man you once knew. Do you not think the police will see through that? They’re trained to spot bullshit. All the lies in the world aren’t going to be enough to get him out of this one.”

  “He’ll justify it. He always does.” I smiled sadly. I knew I was defeated and the police couldn’t help. Even if Rhiannon didn’t accept that reality, I did.

  “Well, Gillian, tell me this. How is he going to lie his way around those marks on your neck? The ones where he wrapped his own hands around your neck and tried to help you take your last breath? How’s he going to explain that?” She left the question hanging between us. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

  In my head I knew she probably right. But I still couldn’t imagine doing it. Instead, I pushed the button in my hand and got another hit of morphine, hoping the throbbing in my head would go away. Morphine was probably a bit over the top for a headache, but it was a great option right now.

  “Rhiannon, I love you, but please let me just deal with it my way. Can you do that?” I asked after a while, my eyes half closed and my speech slurred.

  Rhiannon lay down next to me and as gently as she could, she hugged me. “The only way I will agree to that is if you do something about it. It has to stop, Gillian. You need to stop it or he will kill you. Your kids need you to put a stop to it.”

  “I know,” was all I could say. I knew she was right. But I had no idea where to go or what to do from there.

  We lay there in silence, Rhiannon stroking my arm softly. It was comforting, and considering I was lying in the hospital waiting for surgery, it was the best I had felt in months.

  It wasn’t long before Charli was standing in the doorway. “Hi sweetie,” was all I managed to say before she burst into tears and slid down the door frame. Foolishly, I hadn’t expected it to be that hard on her. I knew I looked average at best, but I didn’t realize the effect it would have on Charli.

  Hearing Charli’s sobs, Rhiannon climbed off the bed. “It’s okay. Come on. Jump up here next to Mum. She’s okay,” Rhiannon tried, but Charli just howled.

  “We’ll give you a minute.” Heidi smiled the best she could, leading Rhiannon from the room.

  “Hey munchkin. You doing okay?” I asked, hugging her.

  Through the sobs she nodded and then looked up at me. Her wide eyes weren’t sad, they were petrified. “Mum, are you okay? Really?”

  “I’m fine, sweetie, I promise,” I said, squeezing her again. “It looks worse than it is. My wrist is broken, like I told you, and I’m waiting for them to take me into surgery and fix it.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “A little bit. But they’re giving me some medication to help, so it’s not too bad. How are you? How was your day at school?” I tried directing her line of questioning to a safer topic. The less Charli knew, the better it would be for her.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted, burying her head against my neck. Involuntarily I winced. She had unwittingly put pressure on some of the bruises gathering on my throat.

  “What are you scared of sweetheart?”

  “Dad.”

  I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing in the parenting handbook to tell me what to do or what to say next. The truth was I was scared of her dad too. I couldn’t bring myself to assure her that she had nothing to be scared of, because the truth was, I didn’t know if she did or not. I knew I didn’t want him anywhere near her. For the kids own safety I wanted them as far away from him as possible. But telling that to a very fragile, very young girl wasn’t an option either.

  “Don’t be scared. You are completely safe with Grandma. You can stay with her until I come home, which will either be tomorrow or the day after. Then everything can go back to normal. I promise.” And I meant it. Once this was over, I wasn’t going to try and bait Joel again. Rhiannon’s words had struck a nerve, even if she didn’t know it. Although I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened, it didn’t mean I didn’t believe them.

  “What if I don’t want things to go back to how they are?” she asked naïvely.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going home while he’s there. He hurts you, Mum. And I know he hasn’t hurt me, but I don’t want to see you in hospital again. You think I’m too little and I’m just a kid, but I know, Mum. And so does Bianca. But we don’t talk to you about it, because you don’t want to talk about it,” she cried wholeheartedly.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was stunned. If I’d known the extent of the things they knew, everything would certainly be different. “Charli,” I began to cry back at her. For a long time, we just sat there, holding onto each other for dear life crying. There was no pain in my arm anymore, just an aching in my heart.

  Soon Charli tired herself out and fell asleep on my chest. Although the weight of her was putting me in more agony than I could stand, I refused to wake her or try and move her. Rhiannon and Heidi reappeared and sat silently beside us. For a long time, we all sat quietly, consumed in our own thoughts.

  “Heidi,” I whispered. “Can you please take her home?”

  “Sure,” she said, glad to be able to do something. “And Rhiannon, I love you, but you need to go home too. I’m so tired and drugged I can’t take anymore tonight. I’m fine. Like you said, I’m safe here. So please, go home and get some sleep. I beg of you,” I pleaded.

  “Okay,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning.” There was no point arguing.

&n
bsp; Gently I woke Charli, who sat up and looked around anxiously. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? What’s happening?” she gushed, scouring the room.

  “Sssh. Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart. It’s time to go back to Grandma’s,” I explained.

  “But I want to stay here with you.”

  “Come on now. Mum needs to rest so she can have surgery tomorrow. I promise I’ll bring you back tomorrow afternoon after school. How ’bout I pick you up and we’ll come straight here?” Heidi offered.

  I was grateful for my girlfriends. Not only did they look out for me and help me whenever and with whatever I needed, but they always went above and beyond with my kids as well. My kids were there kids and I knew, they’d protect them with their lives if it ever came to that. I couldn’t have asked for better friends. But they were more than just friends. They were my family.

  “Is that okay, Mum?” Charli asked hopefully.

  How could I say no? “Of course, it is. Now go on. All of you go home and let me get some sleep,” I shooed.

  Grudgingly they all lined up, wished me a good night’s sleep, kissed my forehead, and disappeared out the door. I thought I would be asleep in mere seconds, but two hours later I was still staring into the darkness listening to the gentle hum of the machines, replaying the nightmare of a day. At some point I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember being wheeled down the corridor and into the operating room.

  JOEL

  I woke with the sun. The house was still and silent. It was weird. Usually I ranted and raved about the morning noise and the chaos as Gillian tried to get the kids fed, dressed and out the door, but today, strangely I missed it. I jumped in the shower, taking time to work out the kinks from my neck. While the couch was comfortable for a couple of hours, sleeping on it all night wasn’t.

  After my shower, I sat in the kitchen for the first time in years and ate breakfast. And for the first time in as long as I could remember I woke up alone and without a hangover. Sitting there eating my vegemite toast, I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or if the loneliness was too much.