Fourteen
Erica
I had never told the truth to anyone. For a long time, I believed there was no one to tell. I had no friends, no family. I was afraid to report it to the police. What if they didn’t believe me? Jeff would have been furious, and I wouldn’t have a way to escape his wrath.
Now, it was finally time to unload this burden. I trusted Trainer. Some people might think it was too soon, but I had to follow my gut when it came to him. Watching him work his way around the kitchen, sweeping up a mess that would have gotten me a thorough beating in the past, I felt safe.
“My name is not Erica Mills,” I started. Trainer stopped sweeping and looked at me. I wasn’t sure what he expected, but it definitely wasn’t that.
“It’s a fake name that I took on when I moved here. My real name is Eve Donovan.”
Trainer looked out the window into the backyard once again. “And Dominic?”
“I thought it would be too difficult for him to adapt to a new first name at his age. He has enough to remember with a new surname and backstory.”
Trainer nodded and went back to sweeping, which I took as a sign to continue.
“I told you my parents died when I was eighteen. Well, I guess my story begins right after that. I was about to go to college to pursue a degree in business, but I didn’t take the death of my parents well. My life basically fell apart.”
It was a dark time for me, the period of my life up to that point. I didn’t like to think about it because it always led to dwelling on what could have been.
“I was sad and lost, trying to figure out how to come to terms with my parents’ deaths and move on with my life. It was during this time that I met Jeff.”
Trainer stiffened, but didn’t speak, so I continued. “He seemed, great at first, a dream come true. He gave me the attention that I needed and brought an end to my loneliness. He was rich and charming. I thought I was in love. So, we got married just days after my nineteenth birthday. Jeff said he wanted to take care of me. He built us a perfect house in a perfect neighborhood. All I had to do was be the perfect housewife,” my voice was dripping with bitterness.
Trainer had finished sweeping up the glass and dumped it into the trash. Now, he was leaning against the refrigerator, watching me silently. I was glad that he wasn’t interrupting. This was hard enough already.
“I got pregnant with Dominic quickly. We’d only been married a few months. Jeff had become overbearing after our wedding, taking control of every aspect of my life, but he didn’t lay a hand on me until after our son was born.”
Trainer’s jaw clenched, and I knew he wasn’t going to like this next part.
“He started beating on me just after Dominic’s birth. I remember the first time,” my voice was soft as the memory replayed in my mind. “We’d gone out to dinner with some of his coworkers and their wives. He’s a big-time businessman, you see, and I had gotten caught up in a conversation with one of the men. I don’t remember what we talked about… music, I think. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that Jeff thought that I was flirting with the guy right in front of him. He waited until we were home, and the babysitter had left before he started calling me a whore. I used to argue back in the beginning, so it escalated quickly. He slapped me across the face.
“It shocked me more than it hurt, and I immediately started threatening to leave him. But he apologized, begged me to stay, promised it would never happen again. So I stayed.”
I shook my head at my stupidity. “You know, I want to say that was the only time I fell for those lies, but it wasn’t. I think I wanted to believe it, even though I knew damn well that it wasn’t true. It just kept happening, over any perceived infraction. I swear, helookedfor reasons.”
“Bastard,” Trainer growled, and for some reason, I found his simmering anger comforting. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone in this horror story.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He is. And I eventually realized that. The times that he was loving became fewer and fewer until I felt like I was living in constant fear. Dominic was a toddler at the time and starting to get an idea of what was going on.”
“What about Dominic? Did he-”
“No. He never hit him, thank God.”
Trainer crossed his arms over his chest, not looking relieved in the slightest. I twisted my fingers together in my lap. Why was this so hard to talk about?
“But no one knew what was going on?”
“No. Jeff is smart. He kept me isolated from people, as much as possible, to keep me dependent on him. And after that first time, when he left me with a swollen face and busted lip, he got more careful, only leaving marks in places that could be easily covered with clothing.”
Trainer opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to rethink his words as his lips snapped closed once again.
“What do you want to say?” I asked.
“I don’t want to make it seem like I’m judging you… I just, I don’t understand why you stayed. Why didn’t you report him to the police?”
“I wanted to leave many times. But Jeff had me convinced that he had the power to stop me. The man likes to throw around money, and he always told me that he knew cops that he could pay off to make me look like a liar or a crazy person. Then, I would be at his mercy. And he promised me that I would lose Dominic if I left him. He can afford the best lawyers, and I couldn’t take that risk. He never hit Dominic, but what would he do to him when I wasn’t around?”
