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TW: murder, abuse, rape

As I made myself a cup of tea that morning I was aware of the way the sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, and I was aware of an ache in the pit of my stomach that darted like a fast fish with sharp fangs, up into my chest causing my heart to hurt. This was the last time I would see how the sun's rays lit up this room, for later that day I would have to leave. My suitcases were packed and stood neatly on the living room floor, arranged in order of size. I carried my cup of tea through to the bedroom. That same golden sunlight fell upon the warm wooden floor, still mellow for this time of the day, the shadow they cast of my rocking chair still long. I sat down, the seat of the chair accommodating the contours of my body and in fact moulding to them, a testament to the hours I had spent just sitting there, holding my child as he napped. As I sip my tea, I am tempted simultaneously to sip slowly and to gulp it down, torn between a reflective contemplation of the sea on the horizon and a desire for a hot drink on this cold morning, especially after last night. A movement from the bed catches my eye, my toddler stirring and I gulp in haste scalding my throat and tongue. I am by his side in a minute, and sensing my presence, he awakes with a smile.

'Wakey, wakey, little one!' I say with false cheer, the unfamiliar words stumbling off my lips, and his smile falters. This is not our morning routine. He accepts a hug in lieu of an apology and gets up and off the bed.

'Dada? Dada?' the question in his voice is clear as he toddles off in search of his father.

'He's not here my love.' I say following him into the living room. And as he spies the suitcases I add 'We're going on a trip!'

'Dada?' he asks, crestfallen at not finding his father, his lower lip downturned and trembling. The tears are not far. And I drop down to his level and catch him. Looking into his eyes I whisper 'Dada's not here, not right now. But look, we're going on a trip. I've packed our bags.' Lifting him up I set him on his high chair, and as I pour milk over his cereal, I am swamped by the memory of a thousand meals I've served him, from the very first floret of steamed broccoli which he waved about in his pudgy fists and which barely made it to his mouth to the more complex and elaborate meals I had learnt to prepare to no avail.

As he messily splashes his spoon in the bowl, milk splatters all over and for once I don't care. I don't have to clean it up anymore.

When he's done, I pick up my son who I do have to clean and carry him to the bathroom. As I run the bath, a smear of red in the sink catches my eye. I know it's blood. I thought I had washed it all clean yesterday. Oh well, a shoddy job as always, I think to myself sarcastically as I turn away. I'm not going to bother with it. What happened here last night can't be hidden for long and I want to be far away when it's discovered.

There's no point in rushing my son though and I Iet him play in the water, till his fingers are pruned. We dry ourselves and dress up in the clothes I laid out the night before. Now that we are all ready I feel a strange reluctance to leave. And an even stranger desire to open that door. I sit on the living room sofa, I sit on my hands to quell the urge, distracting myself by glancing around the room and a sudden wave of nostalgia takes over me. This is the room my son learnt to crawl in. That's the corner he stood up by himself the first time. And we were sitting right here, eight months ago, when he first called me 'mamma.' I allowed myself to be carried away for a bit, the tug of future memories dragging me down. That couch is where I expected to be sitting when he got back from school next year. That corner was to be his play area. And I could see his friends seated all over, some on the rug, some on the sofa talking and laughing as I served them huge meals of sandwiches and freshly baked home-made cookies. I was lost in reverie for goodness knows how long but when I returned to the present my son was nowhere to be seen. I sprang up panic stricken yelling his name. I rushed from kitchen to bedroom to bathroom, over and over, searching for him, unwilling to accept that he had entered that room. But of course he had. There was nowhere else he could be. When I finally accepted that many minutes later, I gingerly pushed the door open completely and I entered reluctantly, my heart beating fast, my thoughts jumbled up completely. And there he was, my boy, my son sitting on the floor, just sitting sadly there in a pool of congealed blood. He was sad because he could not wake his father up and he looked up at me for help. But I could not help because his father was not asleep, he was dead. I killed him last night while my son was asleep. I killed him because I was tired of him. I was tired of his drinking, and of his drunken groping and manhandling of me and of there being no money because it all went in drink and gambling and because last night he would have raped me. So when his back was turned, I grabbed a brass statue of a simpering girl with an umbrella and brought it down on his head once, twice, thrice till I could feel his skull give way and the blood spilled out and his brains did too and he staggered and fell to the ground and stopped breathing. I killed my son's father and I wanted to take my son and run away from here. But last night my son was sleeping and I did not have the heart to wake him up. And this morning he has discovered his dead father and is trying to wake him up and my son's hands are smeared with blood and he's crying louder and louder and then I'm screaming at him to stop, just stop. But he won't stop crying and I can't stop screaming and our voices are soon joined by the wails of the police van as it draws up outside our house and as they enter and take in the scene, it's clear what has happened. I surrender. They take me away to the police station and they take my son away from me, still screaming.

That was over twenty five years ago. I pleaded guilty and never told them why I did it. I thought I owed my son the unsullied memory of the father he had always loved, especially since I failed to protect him from that final gory scene. But my sentence is served and as I leave the prison, a shaft of light breaks through the clouds and I step in it, absolved, expiated, free at last in every sense of the word, free of the tyranny of my husband and the burden of a child he forced me to bear.