Broken Promises

by Rebecca Barber

  When the silence was overwhelming and I couldn’t stand it anymore, I found my phone and punched in Mum’s number. I hadn’t used it in over six years, but I still knew it by heart.

  “Hello,” she answered warily.

  “Hi Mum, it’s me,” I offered, more than a little nervous.

  I heard the phone drop, then some muttering as Mum picked it back up. Her shock was evident even across town. “Hello, Joel. How are you?” she asked dispassionately.

  “I’m doing okay, Mum. How have you been?”

  “I’m fine. Look, I’m rather busy right now; can I call you back later?” I thought I heard faith there, but didn’t want to get my hopes up.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I offered desperately.

  “No, no. I’m fine. Just a bit busy is all.”

  “No problem. Can I just talk to Gillian for a second then?”

  “She’s actually not here at the moment, Joel. But I can give her a message if you like,” Mum offered, her tone shaky.

  “Where is she?” My voice hitched slightly.

  “Look, Joel,” Mum countered. “She’s not here and I’m busy. Now’s not a good time. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Mother! Stop being such a lying bitch and just tell me where the fuck my wife is. I know she hides at your place. And you let her! Do you even remember that you’re supposed to be my mother, not hers?”

  I listened as Mum sucked in a deep breath and counted to five. “Joel Jacob Matthews, I am your mother and you will not speak to me like that. Ever! And secondly, I know exactly where your wife is, and if you don’t, then that’s the best thing she has done in a long time. You need to stop, and stop now. You could go to jail for what you’ve done. Did you know that? I raised you better than this. Grow up, Joel. Be a man and take some responsibility for yourself for your decisions for a change. Now I have to go. Someone has to make sure your kids get to school on time.”

  ADELE

  Stepping back from the phone, I my hands were shaking. Although I hadn’t told Joel where Gillian was, I hadn’t calmed down the situation either. If anything, I’d just added more fuel to an already out of control fire. And I told him that I had the kids. God I hoped he had enough brain cells left that he stayed away from the kids. From Gillian. And from me. A thought that made me incredibly sad. I was hoping my son, my only son, stayed far, far away from me.

  But I didn’t have time to worry. Not today anyway. I had to get the kids in the car and on their way to school. For some reason this morning Charli wouldn’t eat her breakfast and was barely talking. She just ducked her head and went through the motions. She helped Lucas with his shoes, made her bed, packed her lunch, and brushed Bianca’s hair. But it was all done with a frown and in scary silence.

  JOEL

  I paced up and down like a caged beast, the frustration and anger growing with each step. I was sweating like a whore in a church as I swore and muttered under my breath. Then, out of nowhere, I let out a booming howl. “Where the fuck is she?” I cried to no one. Only the echo of my own voice answered me.

  The rage grew. Quickly I got tired of standing around waiting for fate to knock. Instead, I grabbed the car keys and took off. I went to all the places I could think of. I drove past Rhiannon’s but the blinds were shut and there was no sign of life. It didn’t mean she wasn’t there, but finding out seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth. I went to Heidi’s but it too looked deserted. It was the middle of the day; maybe she was at work. I drove to her building and parked out the front. Instead of risking tipping Gillian off by ringing her office phone, I called the main reception line and asked to speak to her. When I was told she was off sick for the rest of the week I slammed my fist down as hard as I could into the steering wheel.

  “Where the fuck is she?” I screamed earning me a few odd looks from passers by.

  I was getting nowhere. Giving up, I headed home, stopping on the way for another bottle of bourbon. All my hard work putting the house back together wasn’t appreciated by my so-called wife. She wouldn’t even come home. The bottle didn’t even make it to the front door unopened. Instead, as soon as I was back in the car, I was taking long swigs straight from the bottle.

  It took barely twenty minutes for it to be half empty. I sobbed pathetically as I drank alone in the middle of the day. But the sadness was soon replaced by fury and I grabbed my phone. First I rang Gillian’s mobile, and when she didn’t answer I left a message. I’d demanded that she call me back immediately and get her arse home. We had things to discuss. When she hadn’t called back half an hour later, having downed another quarter of the bottle and clinging to consciousness, I sent her a scrambled message reminding her of exactly what I thought of her. That she was a whore and I couldn’t believe I’d been so fucking dumb to marry her. I added casually that she deserved whatever she’d gotten and if she didn’t make it home in the next twenty minutes there’d be more of where it came from.

  Feeling better now my ranting was over, I finished the bottle and passed out on my bed only to be awoken hours later by two burly policemen in uniform standing over me.

  “Get up,” the larger of the two instructed.

  I tried to sit up but my head was spinning. I could barely focus on anything, let alone the two towering over me. I was still too drunk to even begin to guess what was going on.

  “How can I help you gentlemen?” I asked with a slur, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “You need to come to the station with us for a chat,” the smaller one directed, reaching out and taking me by the arm and helping me to my feet. I was more than a little wobbly. “Have you been drinking today, sir?”

  “Have you?” I asked like the smart arse I was.

  “Go and wash your face and sober up. And hurry up about it. We don’t have all day,” the bigger cop commanded.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realise this wasn’t going well, so I shut up and did exactly as he said. I washed my face and as sobriety hit me, I realised I was scared. Why were the police in my house? Then I remembered. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. Where was Gillian? She’d done this to me, instinctively I knew it.

  “Hurry up!” came the roaring voice filled with authority.

  I staggered back to the bedroom. “You ready?” one of the police officers asked. I don’t think I’d ever be ready, but from the serious look on their faces I knew they didn’t give a toss either way. This wasn’t a joke and it was in my best interest to shut up and behave, but inside I was seething. Gillian would pay for this.

  Sitting in the back seat of the cop car, I felt like my whole world was crashing down around me. Someone’d said something and now my mind was racing as I tried to come up with excuses and alibis to counter whatever they thought they knew. My head was still woozy and as much as I wished it wasn’t the case, I was still drunk. A bottle of bourbon didn’t just magically evaporate out of your body when the boys in blue came knocking. Or in my case, just helped themselves and came on in.

  By the time we arrived at the station I was dripping with sweat. When I tried to open the door and get out I almost shit myself. The damn door wouldn’t open. The child-lock must’ve been on. The larger of the officers chuckled with delight as he stood there and watched me fight with the handle. Eventually, with a smirk on his face, he opened the door and I fell to my hands and knees on the asphalt. The officer just smiled a coy, cunning smile. They’d travelled in complete silence, not even the radio in the background. It was enough to drive a person mad. Satisfied that I was sufficiently terrified, they led me up the stairs and into the station like I was some kind of criminal. Although I wasn’t handcuffed, I might has well have been, with one officer either side of me guiding me up the stairs. Intimidating pricks.

  I was led straight though into a tiny, bare, windowless room. I’d watched enough cheesy cop shows to know that someone would appear any minute in a cheap suit, pretending to drink their cold coffee, and begin
asking the same questions over and over again until they got the answers they wanted. But the truth was I had no idea what the hell they wanted. I didn’t know what they knew or what they thought they knew. Did I do something dumb at the pub the other night that they had only just found out about? Or were my worst fears justified? Had Gillian blabbed?

  “Mr. Matthews,” a stick figure of a man announced, poking out his hand and offering it to me. He was a rather odd-looking man, with a cheap toupee of matted grey hair and eyes that were too close together, giving him the resemblance of a bug.

  “I’m Senior Sergeant Butcher,” he introduced himself. “Have a seat.” He dropped a manila folder on the metal table between us.

  I slumped into the uncomfortable folding metal chair and waited as patiently as I could, my eyes not wavering from the folder. I was itching to know what was inside, but I knew asking wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I’d just have to wait.

  “So,” he said, opening the file and glancing through it before closing it again and pushing it back into the centre of the table. He paused and took a sip of his coffee before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I was repulsed and tortured. The not knowing was the worst part. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” he tempted.

  Gulping, I wished I was sober. The last thing I needed to do was to say anything in case it wasn’t what they were talking about. “I’m not exactly sure what it is that you want to talk to me about,” I dodged, sweating openly now.

  “Your wife,” the Sergeant hinted, leaving the words hanging.

  I swallowed my terror and only managed to choke out a murmur, “Can I please have some water?”

  Frustrated, but not surprised, the Sergeant stood up and left the room to grab me a plastic cup of water. I knew that this was a stalling tactic. With a smirk, I waited with my arms folded. I’d seen enough cop shows to know that the idiot cop was hoping the longer he left me alone the more likely I was to crack. Spill my secrets. Confess to everything. Dickhead obviously didn’t know me I thought as he found his feet and began pacing. It was only six steps across and six steps back, but I was counting them like a man on edge.

  “Can we continue?” Sergeant Butcher asked, returning to his seat. I finished my drink in one large mouthful but I was still thirsty. Maybe I wasn’t thirsty, maybe I was just scared.

  Not trusting myself to speak, I just nodded pathetically. I was twitchy and felt like my skin was on fire. Everything was starting to eat at me. First the car door that wouldn’t open, then the escort on either arm up the stairs, and now the windowless room with the tiny bug man; today was definitely not my day. And on top of that, I had a pounding headache building behind my eyes.

  “So, Mr. Matthews,” he began formally, “would you like to tell me what happened between you and your wife?”

  Taking a deep, measured breath, I looked up. All my years in real estate had taught me many things, avoidance and confidence being my favourite. “I’m sorry, Sergeant, but I strongly believe that what happens between a man and his wife in the confines of their own home is a private matter and should be kept between them.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. However, when we have a complaint as serious as the one we’ve received, we must act. Unfortunately, your beliefs don’t put you above the law.” I looked at the bug man and knew I was fucked. This guy was good.

  I hesitated, carefully measuring my next move, determined not to be trapped into saying something that’d incriminate myself. I needed to know what the complaint was and who’d made it. Probing wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the best option I had. The only option I had. “I understand where you’re coming from,” I started, flashing the lopsided grin that had once made the girls fall to their knees, but as I watched the Sergeant’s face droop I knew I was just pissing him off. “Maybe if I knew to which complaint you were referring, I could sufficiently answer your questions. I’d like to be as helpful as I can be on what sounds like a very serious matter.” I folded my hands on the table and sat up straight trying to appear confident.

  “Mr. Matthews,” the Sergeant began.

  “Please, call me Joel,” I offered with a wave of my hand.

  “Joel, then. Let’s cut the crap. You and I both know that I’m not going to tell you who made this complaint and the exact nature. Now I just want to hear your side of it.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me, aren’t you? How am I supposed to give you my side of the story if you don’t tell me what story you’re referring to?”

  “Your wife is in hospital with a broken wrist, concussion, and some interesting marks on her neck. Would you like to offer any suggestions of how that might’ve happened?” he probed.

  I sat frozen to the spot. With those few words all of my worst fears were confirmed. Gillian had blabbed. “It’s not what you think,” I panted, clinging to any truth I could remember.

  “It never is,” Sergeant Butcher replied heartlessly.

  So I began the longest three hours of his life. Twice I asked to use the bathroom and twice I was told to keep going. As the minutes ticked over to hours, I told the Sergeant more than I intended. I confessed about the broken wrist, the kick to the knee, slamming Gillian against the wall and pinning her there by her neck.

  After a while Sergeant Butcher blurted out, seemingly out of nowhere, “Why’d you do it?”

  “At the time, it made me feel better. Like I had control again. Like I mattered. Like I was important,” I admitted. “So, what happens now?” I asked figuring it is what it is.

  “You’ll be charged with assault. We’ve offered your wife an AVO against you,” he stated plainly.

  “Did she take it?” Suddenly the world snapped back into focus and I realized the size of this mistake. Then I wondered if I could ever come back from this.

  For years, I’d been sinking into a black hole with no one to pull me back. I’d tried different women and bottles, but nothing had been able to pull me out of the endless funk. For the first time in years the world was no longer blurry. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the seriousness of what was happening, but weirdly I appreciated it. Someone was going to help me, not that I would admit I needed it, but these charges could make things better. Make me a better man. A better father. A better husband. A better person. Better for everyone.

  “We couldn’t speak to her when we went to the hospital. She was still in surgery,” Sergeant Butcher said blankly as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me.

  The sergeant just watched the words sink in. He’d baited me into asking, “If you haven’t even spoken to Gillian, how do you even know about this?”

  Smiling, satisfied, the sergeant said nothing. He just stood up, scooped up his things, and headed for the door. Just before he slammed it behind him, he looked a back at me. “Your daughter,” he offered, with an eyebrow cocked quizzically as he walked away.

  For a long time I just sat there picking at my fingernails, still shocked. I’d assumed that my big mouthed wife had reported me, but was fucking stunned to discover that it was actually my own daughter who’d blabbed. I wanted to ask why. I wanted to understand it but the more the thoughts bubbled and stewed in my head the more I realized I didn’t want to know. No good could come from hearing the reasons why your daughter reported you to the police. Even though I knew I deserved it, hearing it aloud made it real. And as much as I hated myself right now, hearing that was too much torture even for me to bear. Gillian had brainwashed my own kids against me.

  After more than forty minutes alone with my thoughts, a prospect more terrifying than a cramped jail cell with a big tattooed guy named Rocco, Sergeant Butcher reappeared to collect me. I was fingerprinted, formally charged, and then released until the court date.

  Standing alone on the concrete steps of the police station, I felt more ashamed than I’d ever been before. Being humiliated and fired from my job was nothing compared to this. Payback would be mine. Even if it was Charli who had dobbed me into the police, I knew Gillian
had put her up to it. She was stupid. How could she think I wouldn’t put the pieces together? Gillian was so pathetic she’d use my own daughter to run to the police and squeal. Revenge would be bittersweet. Hurricane Joel was coming and no matter how low Gillian ducked, it wouldn’t be enough.

  GILLIAN

  As I started to come out of the anaesthetic I felt like I’d not only been hit by a bus, but that it had backed up over me and run me down time and time again until I was well and truly squished. My mouth was dry and my tongue could have been substituted for sandpaper. And I was alone. I wasn’t scared to be alone, the silence was eerily comforting, but at the same time it was lonely. I didn’t expect anyone there, but I wished someone was. My mum. Most days I was okay, even with everything that was going on in my life. I tried not to think about the fact that I had no family and how I wished my Dad was here to kick Joel’s arse. Or that Mum was here to help me when the kids got sick and tell me that I was doing okay. And I hated that my children never knew how wonderful their grandparents were. That they were brave and they had adventures and they loved. They never saw what love was supposed to be like. But lying there, alone in the unflattering hospital gown, I wanted nothing more than my mum to curl up beside me and whisper stories to me. Stories of faraway places with people I’d never know and things I’d never understand. Instead, I only had the incessant beeping of machines and shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor in the hallways to keep me company.

  Feeling sorry for myself, I closed my eyes and tried to drift back off to sleep. I knew I should’ve been grateful for the time to myself—being a single working mum with three young kids wears you down—but I missed my kids. I didn’t want them to worry about me. But I didn’t have time to get too worked up. There were still enough drugs in my system to knock me back out and silence my thoughts.

  A bony elbow to my stomach woke me hours later. Lucas was climbing up on my bed, not really sure where to tread or where to touch. One arm was in a plaster cast and the other had tubes coming out of it.