But it didn’t, no matter how hard I buried my face in the pillow that smelled like my daughter's shampoo and sobbed so no one would hear the noise.
No one could hear me break.
They’d tell. They’d surround. They’d pity.
And then they’d agree that I was too fragile to keep my kids.
I pressed my fists to my mouth to keep the sobs in, because once they broke free, they wouldn’t stop.
All I could hear in the quiet silence of the house was the echo of that woman’s voice as she read my charges like my last rites on the gallows.
Neglect.
Risk.
Abuse.
Unfit.
Each word pounded against my skull until they blurred into one sentence.
They’re going to take your kids.
And then the memories came, uninvited and merciless, assaulting me all over again like I was back in that house, married to my tormentor.
Danny’s voice attacked my mind, like he was in the room with me again. I remembered a time when his voice was once a noise I fell for, a smooth honey sound that promised me the world, speaking louder than the doubts that everyone else had when we were young and in love. I loved him with an innocent love that couldn’t fathom how it would ever be anything but sunshine and rainbows and perfect.
I thought I’d get a white picket fence around a house in a sleepy little town, a husband who worked with his hands and came home at the end of the day, with a bouquet of wildflowers and a smile, happy to be home.
That wasn’t at all what I got, though. And I couldn’t even remember how many times I wished I could go back to that day that we left Cedar Bluff, on his motorcycle with just a few changes of clothes with us, so I could run far, far away from him and his lies.
His voice slurred in my ear all over again like he was right here in this very room, his fists pounding the wall around my head. The sting of his grip on my arms, the way he’d shove me back against the floor when I tried to fight him off. The nights he staggered into our room, smelling like whiskey and smoke, forcing himself on me no matter how hard I screamed for him to stop.
Begged him for mercy.
I remembered the time he locked the door with Emmie crying in her crib on the other side, forcing me to endure him while I begged to go to my baby. I could still remember how scared I was when she finally went silent behind that door as he continued to abuse me. I prayed to the heavens that she simply fell asleep and didn’t choke or suffocate in my absence.
The worst part of it all was how my body remembered him even when I tried to get my mind to forget. It had been over four years, but the panic still curled in my chest, the shadows in my too familiar room made me feel like I was back there, trapped, helpless.
He was a monster that just would not die and leave me alone.
I just wanted him to leave me alone.
Guilt gnawed at me until I could barely breathe, threatening to pull me under completely. What kind of mother would let this happen? Again? What kind of mother brought danger back into her children’s lives by daring to be happy? By daring to want love, want touch, want something more than survival bad enough to risk it?
I risked too much!
I thought about Travis’s steady strength, Eli’s warm smile, the way the kids had laughed in their arms. And it only made the guilt sharper.
They deserved better than me.
The door creaked open softly, and I saw my mom’s tiny silhouette framed in the light from the hallway. Her shoulders were hunched, and I could hear the tears in her voice as she stood there holding an extra blanket in her arms like she wasn’t sure if she should come in.
“Baby,” She whispered, “You don’t have to do this alone.”
I shook my head, curling tighter into myself and rolling over to face the wall. “Yes, I do. I’ll only drag you all down with me. Please, Mom, just—please let me fall apart in peace.”
There was a long pause, and then the blanket was set down on the end of my bed, “I’ll be right downstairs.”
