The Bridge

The Bridge

It was the first warm day of spring, the kind of day you look forward to all winter long. I was so tired of the cold, the snow – finally, the sun was shining. I could feel its warmth for the first time in months. The snow was melting, and the water droplets sparkled like diamonds.

I knew winter wasn’t over yet, of course – there was always at least one more snowstorm in early April – but I could feel the promise of spring in the air, and for now, that was enough. That’s all I needed. Spring meant hope. I needed that little bit of hope to cling to. Spring meant new life, starting over. 

Karl was the one who suggested the day trip. It would help ease their cabin fever, he said. Cabin fever. That’s what he was calling it now. Okay, I would go along with it, at least for now. What choice did I have? 

We packed the cooler and headed for the coast.

The trip was quiet. I’d run out of things to say a long time ago. I didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore. I watched the scenery go by from the passenger’s seat. The snow wasn’t white and beautiful anymore. It was dirty, black from the sand trucks and snowplows, piled high on each side of the road, dirty black tunnels through each town. It made me feel trapped. Even more trapped, that is. What was there to say to this man, my own husband, who only days before had held a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me? “If I can’t have you, no one can!” he’d swore. 

It sounded so cliché, except it was my life.

I’d tried to leave other times, even before it had gotten as bad as it was now. He’d always found a way to stop me. At first, he begged for forgiveness, and his remorse, even horror, at what he’d done to me was sincere. His promises to change, to stop hurting me, were convincing – he even believed them himself – and I let those promises salve my broken heart even as my bruises faded away. I believed him. I even loved him. He was a wounded soul, abandoned by his mother when he was five, and I naively and incorrectly thought my love could heal him. 

I was young and dumb. I knew that now. What young woman doesn’t think her love will save her man. I was a walking Lifetime movie banality.

Finally, I stopped believing his promises, and that’s when his promises turned into threats. He would kill himself if I left, he told me. He said that I was all he’d ever had. He didn’t have a mother. His father drank too much. No one else loved him or understood him the way I did. He needed me. He couldn’t live without me.

I stayed. Again.

He would get help, he’d promised another time. He knew something was wrong with him. He was broken, and he would get help.

I stayed. Again.

It was my fault, he told me. If I didn’t make him so angry, he wouldn’t lash out at me all the time. 

I believed him. After all, I was broken too. 

He told me I’d never make it on my own without him. It was a big, scary world out there. I didn’t have anyone else either. My parents hadn’t exactly been the best parents, so it wasn’t like I could go back home. I too had no one else, he convinced me. He planted those seeds, and they sure took root. I needed him as much as he needed me. I’d never survive without him. I wasn’t strong enough. We were a team. We needed each other. No one else would ever love me the way he loved me. 

No, I thought now, watching the black snow and bare tree limbs go by my window, no one would ever love me like this again. I didn’t want a love like this, a love that hurt this much. The bruises lasted longer than the flowers I always received afterwards. The broken tooth. The fists. The glares, the harsh words, the insults, the threats …

My plan, my most recent plan, that is, had been to be gone before he got home from work Friday.  I already had my Greyhound ticket for Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s where I’d decided to go, someplace warm, someplace where no one knew me and I could start fresh, build a new life. Someplace where Karl could never find me.  I had no reason to stay in Maine. I had no friends (Karl had made sure of that) and no job as he believed a woman’s place was at home. I had no reason to stay and every reason to leave. 

I have no idea how he knew I was leaving, but he did. He came home from work early, just as I’d finished packing. He burst into the bedroom wielding a large kitchen knife in his hand.

“So, this is what’s it’s come to?” he said. His voice was as cold as the bitter winter wind blowing outside. There was no sign of the endless love he professed for me, only pure hatred at what he perceived was my betrayal. “This is how you thank me for everything I’ve done for you?” he spat. “I took you in! I gave you a home! I loved you when everyone else forgot about you! What does that even tell you about yourself, about the kind of person you are? But still I chose to love you! And this … THIS is how you thank me, you ungrateful fucking little bitch!”

There was nowhere to run. He had me trapped, and he pounced like a cat onto a cornered mouse. The metal blade of the knife was cold on my throat. This was it, I knew. It was over. This was how it ended.

“I’ve warned you time and time again,” he seethed between gritted teeth, his voice a harsh whisper around his carefully measured words. “I. Will. Kill. You.”

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. He pressed the knife harder into my skin, cutting just enough for a trickle of blood to seep out.

You can see a hundred movies about it, and it doesn’t sink in. You can see the news over and over, but still, it doesn’t seem real. You still think your situation is different. Your husband isn’t like those men you see on television. Batterers. Wife-beaters. Those men are cruel and evil. Your husband is different. He could change. He wanted to change. He would change. He just needed more time. More love. He didn’t want to hurt me. He didn’t mean to hurt me. It was my fault as much as his. I’m the one who made him angry.

Right? Right?

I’d never been more wrong, and now I was about to pay the ultimate price for my mistake.

I remembered the first time he got angry with me. He was at work, and I had cleaned the house and had supper going. The first thing he noticed when he got home was that I hadn’t rinsed the soap suds out of the sink after washing the dishes. Soap suds in the sink. That’s all it had taken to trigger his rage. 

He’d jerked the book I was reading from my hand and slammed it against my skull. “All you ever do is read!” he’d yelled. “I don’t even know what you look like anymore because your face is always hidden behind some goddam book!”

I’d cowered, stunned by his outburst, but he wasn’t done yet.  “What the hell is the matter with you? Is that book more important than me? Would you rather read than make a nice home for us? For me?  How can you be so ungrateful? I work my ass off for you, keeping a roof over your head and food in your belly, and this is what you do?” He flung greasy remnants of soap into the air. “This. This is what you do. Thanks!”

I was too shocked to speak. Almost immediately he calmed down and apologized, telling me what a rough day he’d had at work, how tired he was. He’d never meant to take it out on me, he swore, and he never would again. He loved me so damn much. I was the sunshine in his otherwise dark world.

“I am so sorry!” he said, over and over that evening. “I truly don’t know what came over me! I’d never hurt you in a million years. You know that, right? I love you so damn much!”

He told me about his mother for the first time that day, how she had beaten him as a child and cheated on his dad before taking off when he was five.

I’d never seen a man cry before that night. He begged me to forgive him, and I did. Oh, how I longed to save him, to mend his brokenness. I thought I had finally found the love I had been longing for my entire life, love I had never felt as a child from my own parents, love I hadn’t known before. He would never hurt me again. I knew he wouldn’t.

Except he did.

“Please, Karl,” I was finally able to utter. “Please don’t do this. Give me the knife and we can talk.”

I sighed in relief as he slowly lowered the knife from my throat. I could feel the trickling of blood running down my skin, but I didn’t dare touch it. Gingerly, I reached out my hand, and he placed the knife there. As I closed my hand around the handle, intending to set it down out of his reach, he grabbed my hand suddenly, grasping my fingers around the knife handle tightly, twisting the knife so that the point pushed into his own stomach.

He said, “Oh God, this is going to hurt.” Uttered it, really. 

“What are you doing?” I screeched, trying to pull my hand, the knife away. He was too strong, though. I couldn’t break free.

He looked into my eyes, and I felt my blood run cold. There was nothing there but a coal of black rage looking back at me. I was terrified.

“You’re not going to leave me!” he hissed. “Tell me you’re not! And don’t lie to me, because I’ll know if you’re lying to me – I always know when you’re lying to me – and I’ll drive this knife so deep inside me, I’ll be dead before I even hit the floor, and my blood will be all over you! You’ll be the one going to prison because your hand is the one on the knife.” He grinned viciously.

“Karl, no! Please, put the knife down! Please!” I sobbed.

He wouldn’t. His grip on my hand tightened. I thought my fingers might break. I turned my face away, too afraid to even look down. “I’m so scared, Karl,” I croaked. “Please.”

“Swear it to me! Swear it to me you aren’t leaving. You’re never leaving me!” Defeated, I made the promise, and finally he let loose of my hand on the knife. I watched, never more broken and empty, as he unpacked my bag. 

I was trapped.

After two hours of driving, we were at the coast. Karl pulled the car over at a scenic turn-off near a small bridge. Past the bridge was a tiny rocky island. The Maine coast is littered with them. A large yellow house stood at the top of the island, boarded up for the winter. Beyond that stretched the Atlantic Ocean and the rocky Maine coast. I watched a black cat walk across the dead lawn peaking beneath patchy areas of melted snow near the house. How had it gotten there, I wondered? How had it survived the entire winter on that little island?

There was a picnic table and a covered grill a few feet from where we parked the car. Karl followed me as I walked to the bridge. I peered down. Thirty feet below rushed a fast river of ice and huge, floating ice chunks. They swished and bobbed in the rushing, churning water, disappearing beneath the yellow water only to reappear again. In the summer, after the snow and ice were gone, this would be a tiny little brook feeding insignificantly into the ocean, but today it was a deep, dark, raging, dangerous river. Much like my husband.

There was no one else around. The air was still and quiet. It was still months away from tourist season. All the visible homes were boarded up, unoccupied until summer.

I thought about jumping. The idea crossed my mind. I was trapped. There was no way out. Maybe this would be the best thing. The guard rail was low, to my knees – it would be easy enough. It would be a quick end. I’d probably die when I hit the rocks, right? If not, I’d drown in the icy waters pretty quickly. It would be like falling asleep.

But no, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want it to end like this, my life to just be over like this! I had dreams, things I wanted to do, a life I wanted to live! 

I watched as huge chunks of ice swirled and dipped and floated by, aware of Karl’s presence beside me. He may have spoken, but I didn’t hear what he said over the sounds of the water. A seagull flew overhead, and then there were two.

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I just act. Reacted.

I pushed.