‘Mother always said I was too kind for my own good. A sensitive, caring boy, she calls me,’ he said as he held a cold compress against the lump on the back of her head.

Debbie remembered heading towards the door, but he’d grabbed her chain and yanked, then it had all gone dark. She flinched as she opened one eye. Since the tumble down the stairs, she’d been seeing a halo around objects and was struggling to adjust to any light. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. It could have been a few hours, it could have been a day. Fragments of strange dreams began to surface. Her head felt as though it has been smashed with a sledgehammer. Then she remembered: he had tapped her with a hammer. Not quite the sledgehammer that she was picturing in her mind, but it had hurt. As she shivered, gritty sweat gathered above her eyes.

‘I can’t believe you turned on me after I’ve been so kind.’ He stopped dabbing the back of her head. ‘Why? I keep you clean, I feed you, I do everything for you and you know it. You know how much I love you, but I don’t feel loved in return.’

She looked away from his cold stare.

‘Look at me,’ he yelled, as he pulled out a knife, grabbed her hair and forced her to face him. ‘Look at me or I’ll slice through your neck.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whimpered.

‘You’re sorry. Right. I’ll tell you where I am with sorry. Sorry means nothing if you don’t really mean it. I can see in your eyes that you don’t mean anything you say. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. Slicing through your scrawny neck is sounding like a good option.’ He stared into her eyes before placing the knife back in his pocket.

‘Can I go home? Please let me go,’ she begged as she leaned her head against his chest. She’d pleaded so many times. Why she thought that this time it might work, she had no idea. Hope was all she had in her mind. Hope that he’d see her pain. But the only pain he could see was his own.

He began to breathe deeply and quickly. Spittle emerged in bubbles through his partially closed lips. He flung the compress to the floor and stood. He paced up and down, as he often did. She looked into her lap and watched as her tears dripped from the end of her nose onto her cotton nightdress.

A sharp pain flashed through her head. She pulled the blanket over her knees. Sweat dripped down her forehead and she laughed out loud as she thought of the blow she’d delivered to his head. She’d only managed to strike him once with the kettle, but it had felt so good.

He stopped pacing and his face reddened as he began to seethe. Debbie continued to laugh. She’d laugh through the pain, through the fever, through the racing thoughts. In her mind, she relived the smashing sound over and over again.

A memory darted through her mind, one where she was reading a story about a magic frog to Max and Heidi. She laughed as tears rolled down her face. She was never going to see her children again, so why punish herself with any more misery. Whatever he did to her, she’d laugh. Maybe she’d antagonise him so much that he’d kill her. What difference would it make? She was already dead. If this existence was her life, then death would be a welcome change.

Luke had moved on. Her children were no doubt getting on with their lives. Did they call Luke’s new woman Mum? As for Isobel, there was nothing she could do to protect her anymore. Her groin and stomach throbbed. She’d known she was getting worse when the burning pain had started to spread outwards from the wound. Every time she peed, it burned like hell. Her whole stomach was on fire. All night she’d been shivering but hot. Without antibiotics, her days were numbered. Living in filth after a traumatic birth wasn’t conducive to a healthy body.

‘This is your home,’ he yelled. He grabbed her hair and dragged her to the ground. ‘I give you a home, security, keep you safe and you laugh in my face. I give you a baby, one of life’s most precious gifts, and you laugh. I give you my everything, my whole self, and I see it in your eyes. All you think about is him.’ Debbie stumbled to the floor as he slapped the side of her head with the back of his hand. He kneeled beside her. She felt his hot breath on her cheek but she continued to laugh. ‘Stop laughing. Stop fucking laughing!’ he yelled as he brought his hand to her cheek over and over again.

‘It’s so funny though.’

‘What is?’

Through bloodied teeth, she spat her words out. ‘You. I’m dying, and you are not in control of my death. Unless you kill me, that is. You can still be in control, you can take my life.’ Debbie leaned up, grabbed his hand and forced him to slap her once again. In her mind, she was hysterical, the laughter never ended. She was ready to go. The pain was just pain, it was how she knew she was alive. When she ceased to be, the pain would stop. She would no longer be his prisoner.

He withdrew his hand and took a step back. She spotted something in his gaze that she’d never seen before. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s scared. He didn’t know whether to hit her or leave. A mighty shiver travelled through her body. Sweat continued to seep out of her pores and the cold caused her teeth to chatter. He stepped forward and offered his hand to help her off the floor.

‘You’re sick. Mother said I was a kind boy. Mother would tell me to forgive you, you’re not to blame for the feverish gibberish you spew. I shouldn’t have slapped you in a temper. Be a kind boy,’ he stuttered as he grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto the bed. ‘I will fetch you some food. Soup, chicken soup. That will make you better and you’ll forgive me.’

He walked towards the door. She tried to look up but the light caused a shot of pain to travel from her cranium to her neck. She rubbed the side of her head until the sensation passed. Light turned to darkness as the door closed. She lay flat on her back, listening as the chain that bound her settled with her stillness. She listened as he went down the stairs and out of the main door. Moments later she heard the dog barking. He was back in the main house now. Chicken soup. That was a result. Her body was screaming for some sustenance. It was rare that he brought her anything except honey on toast, but occasionally she did get something better. Her heart rate slowed down and she almost felt warm. She closed her eyes and let her exhausted mind and body rest. It was no use fighting it.

---

Debbie walked through the darkness of the street until she reached her house. Where was her shoe? No wonder her feet were bleeding; she’d just stepped in a broken bottle on the pavement. The wound didn’t hurt one bit. Even the fact that the glass was still lodged in her foot wasn’t bothering her. Maybe she’d become so cold that it had numbed the pain.

Why was she only wearing one shoe? A perfect little snowflake settled on her nose. She almost went cross-eyed trying to get a better view of it. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body as she stared through the bay window. ‘Right, time to go home and see the kids.’ She needed to be sitting in front of the fireplace with a hot chocolate, watching Christmas films with Luke and their babies.

She tried to take a step forward but the glass that was stuck between her toes was burrowing deeper into her flesh. She leaned against the gate and lifted her foot up. She yanked at the green shard but it wouldn’t budge.

‘Luke,’ she called, but he couldn’t hear her from inside the house. She pulled again and the glass dislodged. As she yanked it out, a gush of blood oozed from the gaping wound and flooded the ground. ‘Luke!’ As if sensing her presence, he came to the window. She tried to hobble forward, but blood kept flooding out. Her leg was getting heavier and her mind felt woozy. Luke looked out into the night, beyond her and into the darkness. Tears began to fall. What was happening? Why couldn’t he see or hear her? A featureless woman holding a baby came to join him at the window. He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her.

Heidi and Max ran over to them and they all hugged before closing the curtains. ‘Luke!’ she yelled, as tears flooded her face. She began choking as mucus ran down the back of her nose and into her throat as she sobbed. She couldn’t breathe; she was choking on her own mucus. She tried to cough harder to move the obstruction. She tried to swallow to dislodge it.

---

‘Luke, Luke, Luke. Why do you shout for him? It is not him who feeds you and cares for you.’ He forced a spoonful of chicken soup down her throat. She prised an eye open and observed the frustration on his face. She gagged and spluttered as the warm liquid slid down the back of her throat, coughing the soup onto his chest. ‘Eat it, you bitch,’ he yelled. She swallowed. It was warm but flavourless.

Whether her fever was upsetting her taste buds or he had just given her some other warm liquid, she had no idea, but she needed it. Her body needed the calories. Or did it? Death wouldn’t be so bad. She wanted this all to end, but her body and mind were still fighting. Why couldn’t they just give up?

Tears rolled down her face as he placed the spoon in her mouth once again. ‘Good, nearly finished, then you can have a sleep.’

Sleep, she wanted to sleep. Maybe she’d wake up, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe, all maybe, maybe nothing… It was getting harder to think. Maybe what? She lost her train of thought. What was she thinking? Something about a cut foot.

An overwhelming sense of loss flushed through her body and mind. She slumped back into the blankets and closed her eyes, and within minutes she was standing in the dark, staring in through the bay window. The curtains were closed but she could hear a baby crying. ‘I’m still here,’ she whispered as she sobbed outside their gate. ‘Don’t forget me.’