Counting the Days

by Hope Riverbank

  I waited in the living room for him to leave. I hoped and prayed he would tell me that I could go see my mother. On his way out, he stopped and kissed me on the forehead. Before he left the apartment, he turned and said, “Marilyn, I was thinking about your wanting to visit your mother and the answer is still no. She’s like poison to you and in order to keep the peace, I have to say no. Besides, I don’t want her around Samantha. Sammie’s already got a grandmother. She doesn’t need another one. Sorry.” With that, he winked at me and left.

  I was floored. I lowered myself and ate crow this afternoon. I demeaned myself for no reason whatsoever. My stomach immediately did a somersault and I vomited in my tracks. I sat in the living room in silence, praying for a way out of this insanity.

  Danny came home early in the morning and after sleeping a few hours, he got dressed and left for the club again. The next day, he repeated the same pattern. Funny, he always stays out the entire weekend, but this weekend he came home every morning to check up on me and make sure that I didn’t go to my mother’s without his permission. What a jerk!

  For the next few months, I lived in complete misery and fear. Danny was always home, day in and day out. With the exception of when he was at work, he was home all the time. It was as if he’d picked up a demon somewhere along the way, because he was as mean and vicious as ever. About three months passed, before Danny stayed out again for an entire weekend. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was great to have a little peace.

  One Friday morning, Samantha and I left the apartment to go food shopping. We were only gone for a few hours. Upon our return, my heart sank when I saw Danny and Tina’s cars parked in the driveway. When I entered the apartment, it was dark and there was complete silence. Where Danny and Tina were, I don’t know. Maybe they were next door at his mothers. Who knows?

  I brought all the groceries in and put them away. I fed Samantha lunch and put her in for a nap. I decided to take advantage of my free time and take a nice hot bath, so I headed to my bedroom, only to find that the door was locked. I must’ve inadvertently locked it before I left, so I got my keys and unlocked the door.

  I walked into my room and headed for the closet to change. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. My heart skipped a beat, could there be somebody in the house? I slowly turned to look and, oh my goodness, Tina was on top of my husband. They were having sex in my bed. They were so engrossed in each other they hadn’t realized that I was in the room. I quickly became enraged and blind with anger. I went into Danny’s closet and grabbed one of his golf clubs.

  As I approached the bed, Tina noticed me and managed to dodge my first swing at her with the club. She jumped off of Danny and a screaming match ensued. Every once in a while, I’d swing the club at her head and she’d duck and run. Danny sat up in the bed and watched. He did nothing to intercede.

  I finally dropped the club and went after her with my bare hands. If she stood still long enough, I was going to kill her. Finally, I got her into a corner and she was all mine. I pounded her with fist after fist. I tore at her hair and face. All my years of frustration were being heaped onto her with all my force. Finally, she stopped fighting back, but I kept slamming her with my fists.

  Somewhere in the background, I could hear Danny hollering, telling me to stop before I killed her. I intensified my blows, because that was my objective. Danny eventually dragged me off of her and slugged me, knocking me down like a ton of bricks to the floor. He was immediately at Tina’s side trying to see if she was still alive. He turned to me and demanded, “Get me a wet towel or something.”

  “Heck, NO!” I spewed angrily. “Get it yourself.”

  Tina wasn’t moving. I watched as he tried getting a response from her. “Marilyn, I need something wet or cold to put on her face. Her breathing is really shallow. She probably has a concussion, so we need to get her conscious right now.”

  I got up and threw his pants at him. “Get your pants on, you creep,” I hollered. I hated him so much. He obediently began to put his pants on and returned his attention to Tina. I went to the kitchen and got a towel and a pitcher of water. Maybe, she’d drown on it.

  I brought Danny the pitcher and threw the towel at him. He soaked the towel and gently dabbed it onto Tina’s face. She began to come around and started moving. In the meantime, I gathered up her clothes and threw them down in front of him. “Get that whore dressed and out of my house,” I said leaving the room. Then I headed to Samantha’s room and began packing her bag with extra’s of everything that was in it. I didn’t need this. I’m going to my mothers.

  When I returned to our bedroom, I found that Danny had Tina completely dressed and almost fully conscious. “I’m going to drop you off at the hospital,” Danny said to Tina.

  “Will you stay with me?” Tina begged, looking Danny straight in the face to avoid making eye contact with me.

  “Now, you know better than that. You know that I can’t stay with you there,” he replied as he helped Tina up. They started walking towards the front door and he began rattling off excuses that Tina needed to tell the doctors and nurses at the emergency room.

  “Danny, when you take her to the hospital, stay there with her. Stay there as long as she wants you to. As a matter of fact, you two were made perfectly for each other. So have at it. You can have each other, cause I’m out of here,” I said to them as I headed to Samantha’s room.

  “What are you saying?” Danny asked heading out the front door. “Wait right there…will you? Let me put Tina in her car and then we can talk.”

  I scooped both Samantha and the baby bag up. The doll, don’t forget the doll. I reached up and grabbed the doll off of the shelf. I was going to need that police officers card. I headed out the back door. While Danny went back into the house through the front door, I scampered through the back to the driveway and loaded Samantha into her car seat. I could hear Danny calling for me inside the house. As his voice neared, I quickly got in the driver’s seat and started the car. When Danny realized that I was in the car, he came running out the front door like a madman. I quickly pulled out and drove away.

  I was driving down Jericho Turnpike for about fifteen minutes before I realized that Danny was following closely on my tail. I sped up a little hoping that he would get the hint and leave me be. He also increased his speed. I was a little alarmed, but he knows that I have the baby, so I’m sure he’ll be cautious. He followed closely for a few miles and then began speeding up. A few times, I thought that he was going to hit me and finally he did eventually rear end me. I was so scared I sped up and kept driving, trying to get away from him. That didn’t work. He was still on my tail.

  At one point, he sped past and getting in front of me, he slammed the brakes. Swerving out of his way, I managed to get onto the Northern State Parkway safely. Glancing into my rearview mirror, I could see that Danny was catching up quickly. I stepped on the pedal and sped up. All I had to do was get to my mother’s house and we’d be safe. On the parkway at 90 miles per hour, Danny tried to rear end me again. Did he forget that I had Samantha in the car? Or did he not care?

  I got off the parkway at Route 110 and headed toward Huntington. Danny followed. While turning on to Melville Road, Danny hit the rear of my car again. This time I lost control of the vehicle and slammed into some bushes landing in someone’s front lawn. Danny stopped his car and began revving his engine. What’s he doing? I slipped my seatbelt off and jumped into the passenger seat. Seconds later, Danny’s vehicle t-boned into mine, sending my car through the bushes. I went crashing into the passenger door hitting my head into the window. I grabbed my head after the accident and my right hand was full of blood.

  I heard Samantha crying and began frantically trying to get out of the car. When I finally got the door opened, my legs went out from under me and I fell to the ground. “Samantha, I’m coming baby,” I hollered. I stood up and the ground spun. I held onto the car and made my way to Samantha. She was hysterical. I took her out of the seat
and comforted her. I sat on the lawn and began to nurse her. She immediately began to calm down. Within minutes, the police were there.

  While the police were arresting Danny, he yelled and screamed threatening obscenities at me. An ambulance also appeared and they whisked us away immediately. A tow truck was arriving when the ambulance was pulling away. One of the EMT’s handed me a business card from the towing company.

  In the emergency room, Samantha and I checked out with a clean bill of health. My feelings were bruised more than anything else. Tina came in shortly thereafter by ambulance with her mother. How she managed to get home is beyond me. Apparently she told her mother that she’d been mugged, because after leaving us the police went in to talk to her. On the way out, her mother saw me and, after hugging me hello, asked what I was doing there. I told her that I had been a car accident and that we were just discharged. Before leaving the hospital, I looked at Tina directly into her face. She quickly looked away and we said nothing to each other. I hated her for being so disloyal a friend.

  Samantha and I went straight home. When the police came to question me, I told them the truth. I was too tired and my spirit was so broken that I had no energy to fight them. They assured me that Danny would be in jail long enough to cool down. They said that since it was a Friday night, Danny was going to sit there until Monday morning until he was able to see a Judge. This was all such a learning curve for me, I had no idea how the court system works and what happens to a person while they sit in a jail cell. Hopefully, on Monday morning the Judge will see things my way and Danny will stay there long enough to reflect on his behavior.

  The next few days seemed to fly and Monday came quickly. The court proceedings were a complete and utter failure, a joke as far as I was concerned. A total travesty of justice. Danny walked in with a nice shiny suit and a lawyer. His parents were right there by his side. I wanted to vomit, I felt so nauseous.

  I, on the other hand, had a public defender who, by the way, couldn’t remember my name. How hard is it to remember Marilyn Monroe? He was such an idiot. Danny’s lawyer stated that Danny was under duress and was not trying to kill me, but trying to stop me from running away. We had an immense fight and I was leaving with his child. He loves us so much that he was out of his mind insane and boo hoo for him. Did anybody get the fact that he tried to kill me, and the baby, with his car?

  I wanted to die. After hours of listening to the injustice system, I agreed to reconciliation, if Danny attended both Anger Management and Parenting Classes. Both were court ordered and Danny was released into my custody. Can you imagine? They released him into my custody. He tried to kill me and they released him into my custody. Let me tell you, that was the longest ride home ever.

  As usual, Danny behaved for a few weeks and then went back to his old behavior. Of course, he waited until his court ordered classes were over before he beat me to a pulp again. I was just glad that Samantha was asleep and protected in her land of slumber.

  Every week, I counted the days until the weekend came, knowing that Danny would probably spend the entire weekend out. The weekends came to be a reprieve. I was able to relax when Friday nights came. Don’t get me wrong, Danny would come home every once in a while on the weekends, but it was only to check in on me or to give me whatever it was he thought I deserved.

  Tina called all the time for Danny. She never talked to me on the telephone. Whenever I would answer, she would hang up and call back again later. After a while, I wasn’t allowed to answer the phone when Danny was home. Answering the telephone would always warrant a slap or a punch, so I let it ring off the hook. One Friday afternoon, Tina showed up at my doorstep. When I asked her what she wanted, she begged that we needed to talk. So talk we did. As a matter of fact, talk was an understatement, because we argued and argued until I finally told her off and insisted that she leave my life…forever.

  Jenny and Paul would come over about once every two or three weeks to check in on me. Danny would give them the third degree if they came to visit when he was home. They made sure they visited on a Saturday or Sunday, because Paul couldn’t stomach Danny too much. He said that Danny was white trash and needed to be thrown out. Jenny always had encouraging things to say. I think she knew that my life would be in danger if I ever tried to leave Danny, so she never encouraged me to leave. I really appreciated that aspect of Jenny’s personality. I could tell her anything and I’d receive no pressure. She was never judgmental either. She was a true confidante.

  As Samantha approached her third birthday, she learned to speak more clearly and in full sentences. She began holding complete conversations with me. She has turned out to be the light of my life. I never thought that I could love another human being as much as I love her. She and I were bonded together for life. Even though Danny appears to be very good with Samantha, you can tell that she senses that he has contempt for me. So, for the most part, she stays away from him whenever she can. I can’t explain it, but its almost like she knows he's not a nice guy. I don’t know how she knows this, but she does.

  I didn’t think that Danny would ever hurt her, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could spit. I think that it’s just a matter of time before he’ll beat or abuse her. He hasn’t yet, but I truly believe that one day he will. I did catch him doing something out of the norm one day though, he was changing Sammie’s diaper and when she began to cry, I went to see what was wrong. He had the lips of her vagina open and was examining her clitoris. I gasped and he jumped. He insisted that he wasn’t doing anything. He said over and over again that he was checking to see if there was any poop in her thing. I didn’t push the issue, because I can’t let him know how I really feel about it. If I let on that I think what he was doing was weird and abusive, he would for a certainty kill me. Now I’m leery about his intentions, so I make sure that I change and bathe her myself all the time. I can’t trust him. If he could do evil things to me, I don’t put it past him to do evil things to her.

  I will say that his being caught doing something suspicious has had no affect on him. The beatings continued and intensified.

  115 Days Left

  Danny continued to see Tina and several others on the side. I beg him to use a condom when he wants to have sex with me, but he refuses. He says that because I’m his wife, he has the right to take me, with or without a condom. Who knows who he’s having sex with lately. He’s always at the bar chasing groupies, who’s to say what kind of diseases he’ll bring home. I haven’t seen Tina in a long while, but in the past she was always the one to end up doing somebody before the night was out. She wasn’t picky either. She did it with anyone that was willing.

  I also hate that Danny kisses all over Samantha. Slobbering all over her and kissing her on the lips. It nauseates me. You see, there’s this new disease called AIDS that’s been going around. People are dying left and right from it. I’ve heard different stories about where it came from. Some say it came from same sex relationships and others say that it came from someone having sex with a monkey. Does it really matter where it came from? I think what really matters is that doctors have no clue how to cure it and, let me tell you, they say it’s a very painful death.

  It’s got people panicked. Heck, it’s got me panicked. When I talked to Danny about it, he didn’t seem to be afraid. As a matter of fact, he was cocky when we talked about it. He said that maybe it was his way of getting rid of me. Maybe it was god’s way of getting rid of him. I just hope and pray that I don’t catch anything from this man.

  As the days turned into months, Tina stopped calling and I began noticing that Danny was acting more and more peculiar. It was almost as if he was hiding something. He’s never been discreet about anything, so I noticed right away that he was suddenly being nervous and paranoid all the time. One afternoon he was so bad that he jumped at the slightest noise.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “What? Mind your own business, Marilyn,” he quipped quickly.

  “Danny, you�
�ve been so nervous lately, so I’m just a little concerned,” I said curiously. “Is everything okay?”

  “You’re concerned?” he laughed. “What do you care? If I told you once and I’ve told you before, nothing that I do is of your concern. Just keep out of my business. Is that so hard to remember?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought I’d make an attempt at conversation,” I replied snottily.

  “Oh, poor baby,” he retorted sarcastically, “Why don’t you just get me some dinner, if you’re so concerned.”

  I walked over to the kitchen and plated his dinner. He followed and sat down at the table waiting. I slowly walked over and placed his food down in front of him. Relieved that he didn’t retaliate, I started for the door. “Take a seat, Marilyn,” he commanded.

  I hated when he did this, because it never ended up good for me. I sat across from him and waited with anticipation. He talked about all his love interests while he ate. I just watched and listened in silence. It was the calm before the storm.