Day 5

Some days things happen that are good; other days things happen that are bad. The past couple of days have contained some good for me, and I hope it will pick up my mood. Meanwhile, I provided for your reading pleasure (??) a short story about a woman who has a secret.

CUT IT OUT, MOM

“Call me Maude, for I am the executioner!” I brandished the mop like a sword, and swung it in his direction.

“Cut it out, Mom.” Colbin hunched over his cereal. He hated getting up and he hated school, and now he had to deal with his mother acting like an idiot. “What if someone hears you?”

“Who would hear me? We’re the only ones here.” I sat across from my son and watched him finish his breakfast. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” It was his standard answer. Nothing was ever wrong, but nothing was ever right. There was no making him happy, this boy on the cusp of puberty. “I gotta go.”

I watched him, waiting for the moment he was out the door. I dropped the mop and the dish cloth and headed for the attic, where I had built a small space just for me. A typewriter, a trash can, and a dorm fridge were the only furnishings. I turned the key to ensure no one found me. No one knew this space was here; I was the only one who ever climbed the rickety stairs to the attic.

The attic was hot; a heat wave was holding the city hostage, or so the hysterical weather boy on Channel Seven said. He waved his arms as he spoke, as if to demonstrate a heat wave. He was one of the most amusing things in my day. I made sure to watch the news at eleven every morning, especially if something was going on for him to be hysterical about. Usually there was, since it didn’t take much to set him off.

The paper was halfway up in the typewriter. I re-read what I’d written, an editorial about abortion rights and women. As a freelance writer, I often got to write about what I wanted, but I had to hide my work. Jerrald, my husband, didn’t like the idea of a wife who worked, and hated my views on almost everything. I’d come to believe he hated me. I unlocked the bottom drawer on my small desk, checking my cash. Only three more years of writing, and I’d have enough to leave him, and take Colbin with me. Maybe I could get him away from his father soon enough that he wouldn’t grow up like him. Right now he rebelled against being like his father; I hoped that lasted.

I heard a noise downstairs, and stayed still. I didn’t want anyone to hear me and find my secret. The noise occurred again, tennis shoes slapping against the tile floor of the hallway. “MOM!” Colbin bellowed. “Mom, where are you? I need you!”

The door creaked slightly as I pushed it open; I held my breath, hoping he hadn’t heard. It was difficult being stealthy on stairs that threatened to throw me down on my head with every step, but I managed. I snuck into the bathroom, grabbed a cleaning cloth, and emerged with a sigh. “What is it? Why aren’t you in school?”

“Got expelled.” He threw himself on the sofa and flipped the television on, fingering the remote with as much expertise as Jerrald.

“Expelled? Why?”

“Fighting.” He didn’t look at me; he flipped stations until he found a show he liked. “Hey!” He shouted as I took the remote and turned off the set. “Cut it out, Mom! I was watching that!”

“You’re expelled? You are not watching TV. And I want to hear what happened.”

“Some jerk called me a girl. So I hit him.” Colbin reached for the remote, but I held it out of his reach. “Give!”

“Why did he call you a girl?”

“Don’t know. He said I’m weird, like a girl. He’s a jock. They think all non-jocks are girlie.” Colbin jumped, but he still didn’t get the grail.

 “Did he hit you back?”

“No, he was lyin’ on the ground cryin’. Like a girl.” Colbin was smug. “He won’t be callin’ me a girl again. I broke his nose.”

A call to the principal sorted out the details. Colbin was expelled; he had been getting increasingly aggressive over the past few weeks, and this was the culmination. The boy he hit was at the hospital; he did more damage than just a broken nose. “You hit him five time?” I glared at him, daring him to lie.

“Five or six.” He shrugged. “Didn’t count.”

 “You’re expelled for three weeks.” I groaned; it was going to be difficult to keep my work secret with him home all the time. “I’m going to give you lessons. You need to keep up with your schoolwork. I’m not having you lying around watching television. In fact, you won’t be watching television, playing the computer, or going out until you finish your expulsion.” I put out my hand; he dropped his phone in it. He knew the routine. He’d never been expelled before, but whenever he got grounded, I took his phone. I knew he’d be sneaking around looking for it, but he never found my hiding place. “Here. Read this.” I handed him a random book I pulled from my groaning bookshelves. “I expect a report on it by tomorrow.”

“But it’s almost ninety pages long!”

“Ninety pages? A cinch.” I sent him to his room and told him to stay there until dinner. “I’ll bring your lunch to you. I don’t want to hear a peep from you until you finish that book.”

Working proved to be difficult with Colbin at home, but as long as I could keep him working in his room, I was able to sneak some moments in the attic. I finished my op-ed and sent it off. I started work on another, writing from a commission this time. I had three days to get a seven-hundred word article on cat diseases that affected babies. I went to the library for research, and was able to finish on time, in spite of all the interruptions from my grumpy son.

“What you doin’ today, Mom?” He brushed away the duster I tickled him with, dusting his hair as he slumped over his egg. “Cut it out, Mom!”

“You used to like that.” I put the duster away and sat at the table with a magazine. While he was expelled, he stayed in my sight whenever he wasn’t in his room.

“I usta be stupid.”

“Math today.” I pushed the paper across the table to him. I found the problems in his book and made a few small changes, ones that he wouldn’t be able to find by looking up the answers in the back. He crumpled the paper as he headed up to his room.

I jumped at the noise on the stairs; I didn’t see anyone, and turned the key as usual. The door was not locked, and all my senses jumped. Someone was in my private space. I peeked in, not going to enter unless it was safe, but Jerrald grabbed me and pulled me into the attic. “Get in here.”

My typewriter was on the floor, busted in pieces. My locked drawer was smashed, and the money gone. I suspected Jerrald had it in his pocket, or secreted somewhere. He was angry. I avoided looking at him.

“Stop.” He put his foot on my hand as I knelt to pick up the pieces of my shattered world. “Get up.” When I didn’t get up quickly enough, he grabbed my hair and pulled me up. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I am doing what is my right as a human being and a citizen of a free country.” I tried to keep the stammer out of my voice, but a quiver betrayed my fear. Jerrald was no longer the gentle man I thought I married; he probably never had been.

“You are my wife. I decide what your rights are. Colbin told me you spent most of your day in here.” Jerrald thrust my latest article toward me. “Read it. Out loud.”

My voice trembled as I read the piece detailing the statistics around domestic abuse. Some of the incidents I shared came from my own experience, but I used fictional names for all the women, including me. It would be difficult for Jerrald not to recognize them, in spite of the names changing.

When I finished reading, he grabbed me by the arm. He thrust me in front of him out the door, down the stairs. I tried to warn him…maybe not as loud as I should have. The rickety third step broke under his weight, sending him crashing through to the second floor. He bounced down the stairs to the first floor, landing with a thud on the cold tile. The mail had arrived, shoved through the slot by the postman, and blood stained the white envelopes. His eyes were open in shock and horror, but they didn’t see anything. It appeared they would never see anything again.

I rushed to our room and yanked a suitcase out of the closet. I threw in my clothes and books. I searched Jerrald’s pockets and found the money he stole from me; I added that to my suitcase. I noticed the black eye in my mirror; when the police came, they would see that, and the broken step. I called 911 and headed to Colbin’s room where I shoved his clothes into a duffle.

“Cut it out, Mom!” He was desperate. “Don’t throw me out! I didn’t mean anything by it! I won’t fight again, I promise! I won’t tell Dad anything about you! Let me stay!”

“Neither of us will be staying”, I said. The approaching sirens punctuated my words. “He left the house to his sister; we don’t have anything, and we’ll have to move.”

The police took two hours to search the house and investigate the scene of the accident. They asked me to be available for the inquest, but had no trouble accepting my story. The condition of the house confirmed what I told them, but I agreed to take a polygraph test to be sure, and said I would not leave town until the investigation was over.

Colbin and I went to a nearby motel. The money would keep us for a few months, but I would need to find a job soon. I planned to leave town, start a new life somewhere else. I wouldn’t have to leave Jerrald; he left me, and I was free.