Through the Broken Mirror

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

            Jessica checked Erin's breathing and assured herself that the baby was asleep before lowering her out of the second story window of her house. Her best friend was there, keeping the carrier Erin was in from bumping into the siding. Henry was downstairs, worn out from a night of binge drinking and beating his wife. As soon as he had fallen asleep, Jessica had called her mother and then her best friend, Carrie.

            The three women had devised a plan to get the mother and child away from Henry that night, and Jessica had been sending important papers and necessities home with her friend and her mother when they left church each Sunday. They had been planning for seven months. Jessica was only four months along at the time, but Henry was already beating her, and she wanted to make sure she was away from him before he could hurt the baby they had been trying to conceive for three years.

            She had quietly stopped buying things for herself over the past several months, and all of the money she could scrape together was given to her mother for safe keeping. A cell phone on her parent's plan was waiting for her in Carrie's car, and the police were waiting for both mother and child at the edge of town. Everything was being loaded into a small moving van, and her family had already stocked it with everything they could afford.

            One bag of baby things. Another. Jessica lowered them in quick succession and prayed that she wasn't wasting precious time. She knew that money would be very tight for a long while, and she didn't want to leave anything necessary or useful behind. Her stomach hurt at the thought that she might be in trouble for having money in her possession, even though her lawyer had assured her that it was perfectly legal to wipe out her bank account, since it was in both her and her husband's names.

              For months, she had been getting cash back at the register, putting it aside for the escape. She and her parents had agreed that it would be best leave after the baby was born and she was mostly recovered from childbirth. And they had decided that it would be best to leave the week Henry received his bonus check from work. She had been waiting for twelve days for that check to be automatically deposited into the account, and the day before, she had withdrawn all of the money in the savings account her parents had set up for her and Erin.

            A quick jaunt to the bank that morning cleaned out nearly all of the newly deposited money, leaving only three hundred dollars for Henry to use. Most of the bills had already been paid, and she didn't want to be cruel; she just wanted to be able to take care of Erin. After taking all of the money she could, she filled out paperwork to remove her name from the account. Later that day, she had disconnected their house phone to avoid letting Henry find out, and she had suspended service to his cell phone moments after he was asleep.

So many precautions. She had prayed and pondered for countless hours, going over every step in her mind to see if there was something that she was forgetting. Her wedding set was pawned. Her name was removed from all of the accounts. The small van was rented with her father's credit card. Numbers churned in her mind. Four thousand dollars. It was all of the money she could get together before she had to leave, and she sent another prayer toward heaven as she lowered her dog's kennel to Carrie with the pet cat inside.

            With fear that caused her heartbeat to echo in her ears and her hands to shake violently, Jessica called for their dog and clicked the leash in place. Henry roused for a moment, demanding, "What do you think you're doing?"

            She steadied her nerves and gave her most humble smile as she cooed, "Jericho needs to go out. Erin's asleep, so I thought that I would take care of him now."