Julia 40
There was a point in time when I wanted to know about my father. What had happened to him that day I was taken into state custody. Matthew had Tony dig up the police and CPS records for me and I spent a long, rainy afternoon sitting by myself, reading page after page of reports and statements and evaluations.
The snapshot of that day slowly began to come together as I put the pieces of the puzzle together. Rex had been arrested at the construction site where he worked. By the time he was processed at the county jail, he was complaining of police brutality. The arresting officers stated that they took him into custody like that, with a broken nose and some teeth missing.
While all of this was going on, I was three towns away at the hospital, having my chest x-rayed. They took pictures of every square inch of my tiny body. Every burn, every scar, every healed-over break and scab and scratch. Those pictures were in the files, too, and I looked over each one as if I was looking at a stranger.
I didn’t recognize the painfully thin, malnourished little girl with the blank expression on her face. My eyes looked too big for my face and my hair hung around me, matted and tangled and dull. For the first time in my life, I looked back at the child I had been, and I saw what they saw.
I put everything back in that box and put it away inside the depths of my closet, where it still sits, untouched since that day. I refuse to throw it away, because it’s a reminder of what I was, how far I’ve come, and just how much one small child can endure in her fight for survival. That little girl was my shame back then. She’s my hero now, as I suffer blow after blow at the hands of the man I once loved.
Jeremy doesn’t leave me tied to the bed for very long. Not once he realizes he can do a lot more damage by throwing me around the room. And, he was right, I had no idea you could experience this kind of pain and still be alive. After the first blow to my face, I was stunned. When he hit me again, the pain erupted in my head, literally causing an explosion of light behind my eyes. Right about then, my latent survival instincts kicked in, and I felt like an observer, outside of my own body.
The impact and the pressure of each punch was there, but they weren’t accompanied by the blinding pain anymore. It was like the day David was born. The epidural blocked the pain of my body being torn apart. It would appear now, that I can manufacture that effect all on my own.
I’m flat on my stomach on the floor now, lying where the force of the last blow sent me sprawling. I try to make a quick mental inventory of my injuries, but it’s hard to localize the pain at this point. I do know that one of my eyes is swollen completely shut, and my mouth is filled with the metallic taste of my own blood. I’m pretty sure there are a few less teeth in my mouth now than there were when I got up this morning. There’s a raw, scratchy feeling on the back of my head where I think he may have pulled a clump of hair out. He’s avoided punching me in the stomach and ribs, thankfully. Of course, that’s no guarantee that my baby is alright.
The worst of it is the disorientation. All of the trauma to my head has made me lose some of my sense of spatial awareness. I know I’m on the floor, but I can’t quite place where in the room I am. I can hear every word he says, but I can’t process them all immediately. I close my one good eye and let my mind pull away from my body. And then, I scream.
My attempt at dissociation is interrupted by the indescribable pain of my arm breaking under the weight of Jeremy’s foot. It’s the first noise I’ve made in nearly half an hour, save for the occasional grunt as he pushed, shoved, punched and slapped. Now he’s pulling out the big guns.
“Awww, I’m sorry, Jules! Did that hurt? Well, you only use that arm for bowing,” Jeremy taunts me from above. “But don’t worry about it, you won’t need it anymore anyway.”
I’m breathing hard, panting really, as the few tears I have left bubble out of me and spill to the shiny oak planks below me. They mingle with the blood that has already dripped all over.
“I want Matthew to see your blood on every surface of this room,” Jeremy explains, as if reading my thoughts.
I try to pull the broken limb to me, to protect it against further attack, but it’s too painful to move even an inch. Jeremy takes care of that for me, though, when he grabs me by the foot and drags me toward the dresser. I let out a cry of pain as he lets go with an unceremonious thump. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he’s going to take a break. Maybe …
My wishful thinking is disrupted by agony as he bends over and grabs ahold of me from under my armpits, hoisting me up high enough so I can see myself in the mirror. It’s like looking at those old police photos all over again. My face is so swollen and distended, I actually wonder for a brief moment if there’s something wrong with the mirror. Blood is smudged and drying all over my face. It stains my torn blouse, and cakes in my wild hair. My jaw doesn’t look quite right, but that might just be the way it looks through my blurry vision.
“Lookie there, Jules! What a transformation, eh? I’ll bet even your daddy didn’t do that big of a number on you, did he? No, I’m guessing this is the worst you’ve ever felt. And you know what? I think it’s time we commemorate the occasion, don’t you?”
Before I can even form a reply in my fuzzy, agonized mind, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out my cell phone. The one that’s been missing for weeks. The one I was so certain David had taken. Now, he holds it out in front of me, and uses it to snap a picture of my face like some perverse selfie.
“Perfect!” he quips. “Now, let’s just send this to your husband …” He’s holding me up with one arm and using the other to send the image to Matthew from my phone number.
It rings back in less than ten seconds. Jeremy puts it on speaker, but Matthew is yelling so loudly he needn’t have bothered.
“Jeremy you motherfucker! I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, you fucking animal!”
I can’t tell where Matthew is exactly, but I’m praying it’s in a car, on his way here.
“Now, now, Matty Boy,” Jeremy purrs. “Julia and I have just been having some fun! Too bad you’re not here to join in.”
“You’re a dead man,” I hear Matthew hiss from the other end of the line.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Jeremy counters. “I think things are a little more decisive for sweet Julia, though. Say hello, Julia,” he lilts, putting the phone to my bloody mouth.
“Matthew,” I manage to whisper.
“Baby, you’re going to be alright. It’s all going to be okay,” he echoes back to me the same words I used to comfort David in his crib. The room is starting to spin around me, and I’m afraid I will be sucked into its vortex before I can get the words out.
“Take David and go, Matthew! Jeremy wants to take him. Go, Matthew. Protect him …”
It doesn’t take Jeremy more than a second to pull the phone away, and give my broken arm a twist that makes me see stars as my body slides to the floor in slow motion.
“Don’t bother trying to trace this phone,” he is saying to Matthew. “The SIM card will be out of it as soon as I hang up. But don’t worry, I’ll find some other way to get you a picture of your wife’s body. Just so you can have a little something to remember her by,” he sneers and hangs up before my husband can respond.
He looks down at me and shaking his head with faux disappointment. “Oh, Jules, that was a very bad idea. You were supposed to stick to our script. Now, I’m really going to have to punish you,” he sighs, leaning down.
I try to pull my broken body inward, curling into a ball to protect myself from his next kick or punch. When he realizes what I’m doing, he starts to laugh.
“You stupid bitch! I’m not going to kick you!”
He scoops me up in his arms and brings me back to the bed, like a groom carrying his bride on their wedding night. “No, no, no! I’ve got something much more fun planned for the two of us.”
He smiles down at me as I turn my head away. It’s quite clear to us both that I’m done fighting.