Chapter Eight
She didn’t know what set him off this time.
She had gotten into a destructive routine of trying incessantly to talk to him when he was in one of his moods, but that always ended up with her curled up on the floor at his feet in tears, begging him to stop.
It had been two and a half months now since that had happened. She had been counting.
But tonight that side of him was back, and she didn’t know what to do.
Rather than try and talk to him, which had never worked in the past, she avoided him like the plague. She had had some good news for him that night, but it looked like it would have to wait.
He followed her upstairs and into their room. ‘You’re ignoring me.’
‘No I’m not. I just don’t want to talk to you when you’re like this.’
‘Like what?’
She went to walk out of the room but he stepped in the doorway, blocking her path.
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘So what if I have? Can’t a man have a few drinks anymore?’ he hissed.
‘Well, you don’t like it when I drink.’ She argued.
She didn’t even know how it happened. All of a sudden she was on the floor and her cheek was stinging where he had slapped her. ‘Don’t.’ she whispered. She curled up, covering her stomach protectively with her arms. But this seemed to anger him more.
She didn’t know how long it went on for. She couldn’t even breathe when it was over. He stood over her, panting, and spat over her. ‘B*tch.’ He said vehemently, and he left the room.
She listened to him going downstairs, heard the TV switch on through the floor, and still she didn’t move.
It was over an hour later when she slowly stood up and made her way to the bathroom. She should have told him before he got angry. She should have told him quickly, to make him stop. Maybe then he wouldn’t harm his unborn child.
She knew. She knew before she saw the blood what he had done. She locked the bathroom door and lay there, caressing her stomach, even though she knew there was nothing there anymore.
The next day, she left him. She didn’t tell her brother she had been pregnant. She didn’t tell her mother, nobody. She didn’t even tell him. She just mourned in silence, knowing and hating herself for the fact that if she had spoken at that first slap, before he started laying into her, she might have saved her baby.
‘What?’ I whisper.
‘A year ago today… I was gonna tell me husband we were having a baby. But he kicked it out of us before I had a chance. I miscarried on me bathroom floor, and I left him the next day.’
I can’t speak. Cheryl is crying silently, and there are angry tears in my own eyes. ‘You can’t tell anyone.’
‘Gary was right. I should’ve killed him.’
‘You can’t tell Gary. Nobody knows.’
‘Why?’
‘Lots of reasons.’
‘Why have you kept this to yourself for a year, and why are you telling me, now? We still barely know each other, really. Why me?’
Cheryl just shrugs. ‘I thought… I thought you’d understand. I thought you might be there for us, that’s all.’ She goes to get up but I pull her back down.
‘Hey, I didn’t say I wouldn’t be, did I? I just don’t get it. Of course I’m here for you. How could I not be, after everything you’ve been through with me?’
she smiles a tiny bit then. ‘I didn’t tell anyone… I couldn’t tell Gary. Gary’s solution would’ve been to go and beat him to death.’
‘Would that have been so bad?’
‘He wouldn’t have got away with it. He’d have got sent down, and I couldn’t lose me brother.’
‘Your mam? You sat with me last night telling me how special a bond between a mother and daughter is, but you couldn’t confide in your mam?’
‘I tried to. A lot. But… me and me mam have been through a lot together, I just couldn’t.’
‘So you suffered in silence so you wouldn’t have to hurt other people.’
‘Call it what you like.’
‘And – him? You never told him what he did?’
‘Do you think I should’ve?’
‘I don’t know… yes and no. It’s not for me to say though.’
‘Why should he?’ Cheryl whispers, more to herself than to me. ‘Why should he know what he lost?’
‘He lost you. I think that’s bad enough.’
Cheryl smiles weakly.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think it would have stopped him? If you’d told him – before? Would he have stopped to think?’
‘I don’t know.’ She whispers. ‘How bad is that?’
‘I’m so sorry…’
‘D’you know what the worst thing is?’ she says shakily, her tears coming thicker and faster. ‘If I’d left him the time before – that night – I could’ve… I could’ve saved me baby.’ She sobs.
