An Innocent Wife

by Richa Resa

  “That is what you always thought of me? As her stepmother, Joshua?” I let my voice grow stronger and louder in anger. “If that is the case, then you should fucking go and get yourself checked. I don’t know who has fed you those lies about me trying to kill her on the basis of just being a stepmother, but that isn’t the case here. I always loved her, and even though she isn’t here, I will never stop loving her. She might have not been my biological daughter, not shared my blood, but our relationship was that of a daughter and mother. How many times you accuse me of being a bad mother, I was never one. I always thought about you and her before me. If it would have been in my hands, I would have saved her. News flash, Joshua—you are wrong, wrong about every fact. That car accident was an accident only! Something in which me and Elle were both involved. I couldn’t save her, and it haunts me, Joshua, that I survived and she didn’t. It eats me away. You want to accuse me for it? But none of it would have happened if you wouldn’t have asked me to get that file. If you still think that I would have killed her, then ask yourself why I would risk my own life?” I asserted to his accusation. It felt like even after doing so much, I was the one to be blamed, to be considered bad. All he wanted was to turn me into some evil stepmother. Even greater fury flashed in his eyes. He was nowhere near the reality that I was not involved in Elle’s death.

  “Shut the fuck up, Eunice. You are fucking lying, Eunice. You are lying. You killed her. I don’t fucking know why you risked your own life, but it was damn worth it, wasn’t it? Your purpose was served. You killed her! You say you wanted to save her, that you fucking loved her—then tell me, why did you bring her with you? Didn’t I plead with you not to bring her? Didn’t I tell you that she was a distraction while driving? You wouldn’t have wished to fucking go back in time if you hadn’t brought her with you. You could have saved her by not bringing her with you. That is why I believe that you wanted her dead, Eunice. I believe it all the way that you are to be blamed for it. And don’t you dare say again that you love her, because if you fucking did that, you would have called Tara. You would have called her as I told you to and left Elle back home. But no, you brought her with you and killed her!” he grimly spat at me while holding my wrist in a steel grip. I didn’t feel pain from his physical assaults, but his words killed me. He was questioning me about Tara. He wanted me to call that girl who was the reason behind our first fight. She was the one who had sown the seed of problems in our life. He knew that, and yet he asked me.

  “You fucking know, Joshua! You freaking know why I didn’t call her. You were right there on that day when I found her in nothing but skimpy lingerie on our bed. If my flight hadn’t been cancelled, then maybe I wouldn’t ever have found out about it. Maybe you could have even let her warm your bed and wouldn’t have cared about your daughter and me. You let her go like that, but did you wonder what happened with Elle, Joshua? Tara locked Elle in her room, and you fucking knew that. Elle was still asleep, but did you ever think what could have happened if she was awake? She would have started panicking and crying because no one was there with her. Yet you wanted me to call her. I didn’t call her because I didn’t trust that selfish bitch anymore. I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened. I was her mother too. I had freaking raised her for two years after her birth. I was the one waking up at nights to take care of her, changing her diapers, cleaning her—it was all me. I never complained for two years, Joshua. I freaking never even asked for your help with her. I did everything for her on my own! Yet you have the gall today to tell me that I killed her. I didn’t do it! I would have never done it. All you want to do is accuse me of her death, but I have my reasons for everything, Joshua…but do you have them?” I screamed at his face till my throat hurt as he stood there, stunned. For a moment I believed that I’d been able to break these delusions of his, but no. His cold demeanor was back once again, and before I knew it, he pushed me against the wall forcefully. My head throbbed with pain. He punched the wall right beside my head with the storming anger in those green eyes once I loved.

  “I wouldn’t have ever slept with her and you should fucking know that, Eunice. I was faithful to you all the time till you decided to disrupt our home. Tara freaking apologized again and again for it. She came every day to the house to seek our forgiveness, and that fucking showed she was guilty. She is much better than you. At least she had the decency to confess her mistake. She wasn’t a fucking tramp like you, living a life happily without any strands of guilt for killing an innocent child for her own freedom. Confess it, Eunice, fucking confess it that you killed her! Do it, you bitch!” Once again, he punched the wall beside me as he raged. Why wasn’t he seeing the reality? Why was he forcing me to go down that memory lane? Why was he forcing me to hurt him? Why was he forcing me to let him know the truth that could only hurt him? Why couldn’t he fucking just believe me? I shook my head in defeat.

  “Cat got your tongue, Eunice? Say it. Confess that you planned the accident, that you did it. Isn’t that guilt eating you?” he raged while poking at my heart brutally. “You fucking say you have answers and reasons for everything? Then tell me, you little bitch, how the accident happened? Why did it happen, huh? There was no sign of anything or anyone hitting the car or car failure. Then how in the hell did you crash the car if it was not intentional? Tell me, Eunice, tell me or confess that you did it on purpose. You did it because my daughter was a thorn in your life. You wanted to remove it. Confess it, goddamn it. Confess!” His voice was filled with venom. Tears slipped from the corner of my eyes now as he gripped my jaw in his steely hand.

  “Say it, Eunice!!” he barked. “Confess your sin! Confess it for the guilt that eats you. Confess it!” He tried to force me to let those words out he needed to hear, but I didn’t fucking do it. All I could see in his eyes was madness and hatred for me, an obsession to prove me a monster, a killer. If this was the night where we wanted to destroy each other, then why was I holding back? I was hurting more than him because I was carrying more burden than him. If he wanted the truth, let it be. Maybe then he might believe me. Maybe then he would let the walls of lies around him fall down. If hurting him like this was a way to get him back, then I would do it.

  “I won’t do it, Joshua! I will never confess what you want me to because I didn’t do it. You want answers? I will give them to you. All my time with you, I loved you, and within moments you considered it all a lie. If it takes me telling you this to make you realize what a mistake you’re making, then I will just let it out. But I won’t ever do what you want me to, Joshua, never in my whole fucking life would I tell you the lie you want to hear!” I let the anger inside me give me the courage to stand up to him.

  “Cut the crap, Eunice. You don’t have any fucking answers for that accident besides the fact that you did it purposefully. You know Lily’s mother warned me of this. She told me that no woman could love someone else’s child as her own. She knew it from experience. She had asked me to be careful, but I fucking wasn’t, because a bloody bitch like you had me wrapped around her fingers. A whore of a woman like you clouded my vision with fake love. You know the day of her funeral she asked me that, why didn’t I freaking save my daughter? Why did I let her granddaughter become a victim of a vicious woman like you? Why didn’t I act on her advice? That day I understood what an idiot of a man I was. An idiot, stupid, a fool of a man who couldn’t save himself from the grasp of a filthy bitch like you. You are a filthy whore of a woman, you know that, who kill—” Before he could say more, I pushed him away from me with all I had. His every word was a twisting knife in wounds that he had already inflicted.

  “Shut the hell up, Joshua! That accident was unintentional. Something that neither you nor I could have stopped. You think you fucking carry the pain of Elle’s death? Ask me, Joshua! Ask me, how does it feel to bear the burden of losing two lives in an accident? I know what it is to carry the burden of taking away two lives away in a day. I never considered delivering the news of my pregnancy, knowing that I ha
d lost it. You weren’t fucking there when I needed you, Joshua. The first news they gave me when I woke up was about Elle’s death, and only minutes later, they delivered me the news that I was in my second month of pregnancy. Topped by the fact that I had lost it! I lost it, Joshua. Lost my own child! Tell me, would you have been able to bear the pain I suffered, all alone in that small room of a hospital? Could you? I was in my own pain from my injuries, the news of losing Elle, and my child had…just inflicted me the pain of a whole lifetime. I wanted to fucking kill myself. I fainted right there in the accident. I…tried my best to shift lanes and stop the car, but it was too late. If I would have known about it, then I would have done…everything in my…power to prevent it, to save Elle and my child, but I…couldn’t. It eats me alive, Joshua; it eats me from the inside.” I let it all out in between my painful sobs.

  I had buried this truth deep inside of me. My own child was dead; the child I raised was dead. There was only pain there for me. That day could have been a day of great happiness, but it turned into a day of immense pain. It was hard for me to cope with the pain I was going through. I didn’t feel like living anymore, but I did for him. I lived because I had believed that with Joshua beside me I would survive, with our love I would live. He would help me, but he turned his back on me. He had just rubbed salt into my wounds.

  Joshua stood there, shocked by this revelation. I let the sobs I was holding loose. All I wished was for him to understand me and find his way back to reality. I wanted him to find his way back. I needed him to. I didn’t want to live with his hatred. The silence in the room was filled by my cries and nothing else. Time passed and nothing happened. The long silence warmed me with a bit of hope.

  “Bravo, Eunice, bravo! You have just stooped to a whole new level right now. You are more of a bitch than I thought,” he spat, laughing at me. The breath was knocked out of me in that moment. Every word was a stinging slap.

  “What a wonderful lie you have cooked up, Eunice! When I thought that you couldn’t stoop any lower, you did. You fucking did. How could you make up the lie of killing your own child? Don’t you have any respect left? You are a filthy whore, Eunice. Losing a baby! You won’t even fucking know the pain that a woman feels about it. Damn it, Eunice, how could you? Just because you don’t want to confess your sin, you make such a horrendous lie. A lie that freaking involves one more death. You are fucking crazy if you think I would believe this! The fact that you were pregnant and lost control over the car because of it? I won’t ever believe such a lie, no one would. Such a horrible, disgusting lie just shows me how much of a filthy woman you are!”

  He lashed out with fury filling his eyes. I had assumed he would believe the truth—that he would be hurt by it—but it didn’t happen. What I saw was only a sick man, who just wanted to believe that I was the devil.

  “I won’t beg you to believe me anymore, Joshua, because you are fucking sick. You don’t want to see the reality that is in front of you, so I won’t just fucking ask you to anymore. But just answer my one question, truthfully. Tell me, Joshua, who would you have blamed if on that day I would have died with our child and Elle would have survived? What would you have thought then, huh?” I asked, letting out my frustration as a new set of tears rolled down my cheeks. I know there was no way I could make him believe, but I wanted to know the answer to this question. I wanted to know what he would have thought of me.

  “How dare you fucking ask me a question like that, you bitch!” he said dangerously, his voice filled with hatred. Taking steps towards me, he caged me with his arms to the wall behind me.

  “Just give me an answer, Joshua!” I demanded while looking in those dark green orbs filled with fury. His demeanor was dark and dangerous. He was no more the man I loved, I understood it well enough now that I had lost him.

  “Then I would have thought, good riddance, Eunice. Good riddance of a horrible bitch like you. I would have been happy you were gone. I would have felt relieved to know that my child was safe from a devil like you. You know what, Eunice? I fucking don’t want to see your face! I want to get rid of you, not only from me, but also from this earth. You are not worth living. You should die and burn in hell so you can’t fucking destroy any more lives like you did with mine!” He screamed right in my face as he held my jaw tightly once again. His fingers dug in painfully, until I let out a sharp cry from my lips.

  “I don’t fucking want to see you, Eunice. I don’t fucking want any reminder of you in my life. I want to get rid of you, get you out of my life, my system, and my memories! I fucking hate you. I want you dead, Eunice.” He said every word with pure hatred towards me. I was shocked and stunned by seeing this kind of hatred for me in his eyes. In the blink of an eye, I was thrown on the floor with force.

  “Get the hell away from me!” He spat at me like I was some dirty whore on the street.

  “I think you should go and fucking kill yourself, Eunice. Just die!” he sneered while punching the wall beside him. He walked towards the kitchen, leaving me alone there crying and sobbing. I stayed frozen to my spot with his hateful words in my mind. On wobbly legs and with a heavy heart, I walked upstairs to my room. I was already dead on the inside after hearing his words. I felt dirty, useless, and dead. There was nothing left inside me to live for.

  My will to live was gone. I was already dead after that accident, but I lived, wishing that Joshua would give me a ray of hope, a reason to live. But after his infidelity and betrayal, I still loved him. That love made me live and bear the pain. I wanted to die after his betrayal, but I lived because I promised Joshua’s late mother that I would never leave him. She had told me he was stupid and even a fool many times, but he was not bad. She told me to stick with him because he needed someone to show him the truth, to help him and guide him. I lived to serve that promise to her, but I couldn’t do it anymore. All my reasons to survive were now gone. I couldn’t drag myself on anymore.

  I walked to the bathroom, opened the cabinet, and took the two bottles of sleeping pills that I was prescribed. Closing the mirror cabinet, I came to face to face with a wreck, a pale woman with a smeared makeup. My eyes were red and swollen due to endless crying. My makeup made my face look ashen. Wiping away the tears, I looked at a broken me. This was me: a filthy bitch, whore—everything else Joshua said. I smiled at myself sympathetically. This was the end. This is what I wanted now. There was no more life for me. Nothing was left, everything was over.

  Filling a glass with water, I walked out with those two bottles in my hand. Looking once again around our room, I let the good memories rush through my mind. I looked down at my wedding band and remembered that special day of my life. Joshua’s smile, his laugh, everything. I looked at our family picture. I let the happy memories of all my life flash in front of my eyes. This was it, my end. My truth would go with me. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I swallowed the five pills that were left in one of the bottles. I kept looking at the photographs around me as I opened the other bottle of pills. Opening my mouth wide, I took all of them at once, swallowing them down with the water. I let the bottle slip from my hand and rolled down to the floor. There was this calmness in me, no anger, no will to fight—nothing was left. It was the calmness before death. Looking at the notepad beside my bed, I opened it up and wrote down the few words I wanted to say.

  I forgive you. I love you, Joshua and I am sorry. I am sorry.

  –Your wife,

  Eunice.

  A teardrop fell right there on my name. That was all, my last words. I felt the numbness taking over me. I let myself drop on the bed with my head on my fluffy pillows for the last time. A sudden thought came to my mind and I laughed for the last time. My wish came true. My wish to end up on a soft bed with fluffy pillows at the end of this night came true.

  “I forgive you, Joshua,” I whispered in the empty room where there was nothing but peace. I let the sleep take me in for the last time in my life, and I welcomed it. I welcomed this peace and numbness; I welcomed
my own death with open arms…

  Chapter 10

  Joshua

  How could a woman lie about killing her own child? How could someone become so cruel that they would think about coming up with a lie like that? I still don’t know how someone could do something like this. How could Eunice be so heartless? Her dirty lies made me feel sick deep inside. I felt dirty thinking that I had loved her, touched her, devoured her, trusted her, and slept with her. She was nothing but a filthy bitch that had trapped me in a façade of love. There was a time when I had thought that I could never live without her. The thought of losing her would leave me with goose bumps. I laugh at those times now. What a fool I was thinking about such things when all along she was nothing but an evil woman. I leaned on the sink and let the water flow on my throbbing hand, where a fresh cut dripped blood. I groaned in pain but I took it as my punishment for not believing Lily’s mother. I bore all the pain of my mistake. I should have been more careful.

  What dreams had I set and what had I got? A lovely wife like Eunice, my daughter Elle, and more kids with Eunice—all of it was only a dream. How could I have dreamt about such things with a woman like her, who had killed my child and even had the guts to make up a lie about losing a child of her own? I felt drained. What was left now of my life with a cunning bitch like her? I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. A lone tear escaped my eye, followed by more. Why wasn’t she the person I thought her to be? Why wasn’t she the sweet and innocent kind I thought her to be? Why did she betray me?

  “Why did you do it, Eunice? Why?” I whisper-yelled as I gripped the sink, letting the blood flow quickly out of the wound. I cried for losing the girl I had loved. Losing the perfect girl I imagined—but she had never been that perfect girl.

  Wasn’t she? I asked myself internally. I had to be right. I was right. There was no way I was wrong. There wasn’t a chance that she was being truthful. I was right and I believed it