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“Joshua please, my biggest fear was that I would lose you. And it’s come true, you’re gone.” She screws up her face as she tries to hold in her tears.
With my elbow on the desk I lean on my hand, and my eyes don’t leave her face.
“Joshua, I love you so much,” she whispers.
“People who love each other don’t tell lies,” I reply flatly.
She nods. “They do if they are scared for their life.”
My eyes stay fixed on her face.
Her tears run freely down her face.
“Was it really that bad?” I ask.
She nods and wipes a tear away. “It was worse than I can ever explain.” She frowns as she thinks. “The physical abuse was horrific… but the mental abuse and threats were much worse,” she whispers.
I don’t understand this woman at all. I shake my head. “I don’t understand. I will never understand why you wouldn’t tell your own husband about this. He loves you, he would have believed you.”
She shakes her head. “No, Joshua, he wouldn’t have believed me. My own sons didn’t believe me.”
My eyes hold hers.
“Joshua, my life has been hard, and I have made stupid, stupid choices.” She tears up again. “I have never known a love like the one you give to Natasha. Your father and I were different. He has always been distant.” She pauses before she speaks. “I was not his first love Joshua, and he has never recovered from her.” She rolls her lips as she thinks. “I could never measure up,” she whispers.
I frown, huh? “What are you talking about?” I snap.
She smiles. “I don’t blame your father. It was never his in
tention to make me feel insecure. The relationship with the other woman was before we met. His heart could never be mine because it was already taken.”
I look at the ceiling in frustration.
“Joshua, imagine if you and Natasha didn’t get back together and through circumstances you got another woman pregnant.”
My eyes hold hers.
“He did the right thing, he married me and he’s been miserable ever since.”
Pity fills me. “That’s not true,” I sigh.
She fakes a smile. “Isn’t it? He would only be home when you boys were awake. He would go out at night.”
I swallow as I think—that’s true. I remember it myself.
“And I don’t blame him, he was a good husband. He cared for me and our boys, we never wanted for anything. We made love once a week.” She hesitates and frowns. “But he was never really with me and I knew that and if I told him that his best friend was blackmailing me with sexual favours and beatings, I knew he would leave me and he would take you boys with him. I have no family, Joshua. I have close friends that know nothing about me. I’ve been living a lie for twenty-nine years, hiding the truth from even myself.” Her tear- filled eyes hold mine.
“Mum,” I whisper. “I would have stayed with you. If you gave me the chance to help you, I would have helped you.”
The tears drop onto her cheeks.
“Joshua, stay with me now, I need you now.” She puts her open hand onto the glass wall and I look at it. “I need you to forgive me. It’s the only thing in this world that matters to me.” She shakes her head as she cries. “I can’t contemplate a future without you in it.”
“What about Dad?” I ask.
“I love your father, I have always loved your father. He’s too good for me.” She shakes her head sadly.
I frown. “He’s not too good for you. This is the abused woman mentality that has you thinking like this. He is not too good for you. You deserve happiness.” I put my hand onto hers on the glass and she screws up her face in tears.
