Hindsight (7 page)

“I had been home for a bit before then. Where were you?” he asked again, this time in a tone that told me he was on to me.

“Oh, I must’ve been outside. I was working on the bushes and then cleaned up the mess. I went straight to the kitchen once I was done. Didn’t even have time to change clothes,” I said, motioning to the soil stains on my shirt. I knew that was only asking for a punishment, sitting at the dinner table in dirty clothes. But if that meant he wouldn’t question my whereabouts, then so be it.

”I don’t know why you care so much about those damn roses. Maybe I’ll have you buried beneath them when the time comes. Would you like that, Charlotte?” His voice was menacing and eerie. It made my skin crawl, especially after the conversation I had overheard in his office.

I knew his game. He was goading me to see if I had heard him. I wouldn’t play into it. I just smiled and nodded. “Well, I certainly don’t want to be buried in the backyard, but a gravesite with beautiful rosebushes would be nice.”

He got up and abruptly left the table.

I sat their stunned. That was it? He was done? Where was he going? What was he planning to do? My mind raced at all the possibilities.

Then I heard the front door open and close with a loud bang. That was it. He was just leaving. I was confused, and then relieved until I heard something outside. I heard thumping or something; I couldn’t determine what it was.

I got up and looked through the window. I gasped at what I saw. Tony had gotten the clippers from the garage. The heavy-duty clippers that could cut through anything and everything. They were my go-to clippers for tough jobs. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was using my clippers to demolish all of my beautiful rosebushes. He was in the process of cutting them methodically, one by one, at the base. I watched one, and then two, and then three go down. The tears welled in my eyes as I watched my prized roses get chopped to death right before my eyes.

He knew that was the worst thing he could ever do to me. My rosebushes meant the world to me. I never thought he would think to do something that coldhearted. They were my pride and joy as well as the talk of the neighborhood. I delivered the flowers to some of our elderly neighbors weekly when they were blooming and they looked forward to that, as did I.

I was also petrified that he would see the fresh dirt and dig up my hidden bank.

I stood there, watching out the window, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I flung the front door open and ran down the steps shouting, “No, please! Tony, no!” I didn’t care what the neighbors thought. I was way past that point. My rosebushes were completely destroyed and my secret stash of money was dangerously close to being discovered.

I tried to grab the clippers away from him, but couldn’t. He was so much stronger than I was. If I had been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have even tried, but my mind was clouded by the loss and fear that was running though me.

He elbowed me in my cheek, which sent me flying. I wondered how many neighbors were watching his display of cruelty. I knew he had to have been pissed if he was striking me outside in front of anyone to see during daylight. The sun was low, almost ready to set, but the sky was still lit, shining light on his dark side for the entire neighborhood to see.

He looked at me in disgust, then threw the clippers down and went to his car at the front of the house. I cried into my hands, unable to face and survey the damage he’d done to my precious roses. The damage to my heart was too great. I felt like I couldn’t take any more.

Without even looking at the destroyed rosebushes, I quickly dug up my tin can and made my way back into the house. I couldn’t bear to see the devastation. I got inside and felt completely shattered. He had searched for something that would cause me the most pain. He had won. He had successfully broken me, for the last time. I had nothing left to do but to give up!

I picked up my phone and dialed Sean’s number. I desperately needed to hear his voice. Even though he had ended our relationship, he was the only one I could call—the only one I wanted to call.

“Hello,” his voice filled the air.

“Sean,” I sobbed uncontrollably.

“What’s wrong?” I could tell by his voice that he was on high alert.

“I – I – I don’t even know what to do,” I choked out. I was more upset than ever. I had never felt this devastated by anything Tony had done. He had destroyed the thing that mattered most to me. It was a means to escape that had developed into a hobby, which had provided more enjoyment than I ever could have imagined. All which was now gone.

To top it all off, I couldn’t help but think he was sending me a message. First with his comments about burying me beneath roses, and then destroying them once I made the comment about not being buried in the backyard. I already knew his plot to have me killed, but I couldn’t decipher what this message was supposed to have meant.

“Are you okay?” he asked me with genuine concern.

“No,” I said softly. “I don’t think I will ever be okay again.”

“I’m coming over,” he said urgently.

“No!” I replied quickly. “No, you can’t.”

“I’m coming over,” he said with finality and hung up the phone.

I sunk down into a puddle on the floor and sobbed for all it was worth. I felt annihilated. Now Sean was coming over and Tony could come back at any moment. Then what? I would be even worse off, if that were even a possibility.

I sobbed for what felt like hours before I heard the knock at the door, then felt arms surround me. I grasped the cloth of Sean’s shirt in my fists and cried into his chest.

“Why are you covered in dirt?” he asked quietly.

I shrugged into his chest and kept my eyes closed. How was I going to tell him about the information I had overheard in Tony’s office? That he had actually developed a plan to kill me on top of everything else.

“He ruined my bushes—chopped them all up. He’s trying to send me some kind of message, but I don’t know what,” I confessed as I heaved in his calming scent.

“I’m so sorry, Charlotte.” He kissed my forehead. “You don’t deserve this. This is why we can’t be together any longer. I can’t stand to see you go through this time and time again. Come home with me and leave him.”

I shook my head and softly said, “I can’t.”

He sighed, already knowing I wouldn’t go. “Let’s clean it up then. Shall we?”

I pulled back from him and looked up into his eyes. The amber color always seemed to bring calmness to me. I loved it when he smiled. His eyes would crinkle up as he smiled with his entire face. Tony never smiled anymore. Sean had strong features and was a looker. I didn’t doubt that he had women in line waiting for him. He kept his hair neat and short on the sides, but fluffy and longer on top. I loved to run my hands through it when we cuddled.

I finally nodded in agreement that we should clean up. It would be what Tony expected and I couldn’t leave my bushes the way they were. That seemed even worse. I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at the destruction every time I passed by a window.

Sean wheeled out the recycle bin and we started collecting all the chopped up bushes. I cried as I threw them in the bin. It was cathartic in a way. This was all pushing me toward my goal of leaving him. I just couldn’t do that yet. I had a plan, and I was going to act on it, quicker than I had originally thought, but I still needed to make sure it wasn’t rushed, or things could end up worse. Far worse than what I knew it was going to be.

Sean didn’t understand why, but he didn’t know everything that I did. He would just have to trust my reasoning. Even if that meant breaking up with me temporarily until things were finalized. When he had first broken up with me, it had been devastating. After I had time to go through the initial break up, I realized that it would be okay. We would end up together in the end; at least I hoped we would.

Sean helped me prune the bushes properly so that they would hopefully grow back once the season hit again. Only time would tell if they’d make it through the butchering Tony had done. Time would also tell if I would be around to witness their rebirth.

I could tell that Sean’s disposition was getting worse and worse as the cleanup wore on. I knew it was because of the way he felt toward my relationship with Tony. It almost caused him as much angst as it did me. But what I didn’t expect was for him to become so angry.

By the time we were finished, Sean wheeled the recycle bin back to its rightful place and started walking toward his car without a word to me. I had expected him to leave, but I hadn’t anticipated it would be like this.

“Are you leaving without saying goodbye?” I asked him with a tear-stained face while standing in my front yard wearing my gardening gloves. I probably looked ridiculous.

“What do you expect me to do?” He stopped walking and slowly turned around. His words were practically a shout and it told me of his true emotions. “I can’t stand this!”

“I know. I’m sorry. Please be patient with me.”

“I fucking hate this!” he shouted again.

“Will you come inside for a few minutes? I want to—”

“No!” he said adamantly while cutting me off. “I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m done, Charlotte. Done. Don’t call me anymore to come running to help you clean up the messes after he leaves. I can’t handle seeing you like this and you aren’t willing to do anything about it.” He strode away and I tried not to cry again.

I knew how devastated he was by the conversation we had shared when we broke up. I had wanted to tell him what I had overheard in Tony’s office earlier that day. It was the reason why I couldn’t leave Tony at that very moment. But I couldn’t find the words, knowing what he had already sworn to me he would do. His words rang through my ears, hearing him tell me that he would kill Tony and then go to jail if he had to. I couldn’t let him do that for me. It was my battle, Sean had pretty much said so himself when we broke up, and I wouldn’t let him make the ultimate sacrifice for me.

I was going to leave him, soon… but not that soon. Sean wanted me to get in his car and ride off into the sunset with him, and as much as I wanted that, too, I knew it would only bring the threat to his front door.

Tony had made plans for me.

Plans that I would have never thought he was capable of making.

His plans had changed everything.

But Sean hadn’t stayed to listen. He hadn’t wanted to learn of those plans.

Once again, I was left alone.

January 15
th
, 2015

Fifteen days.

That’s how long it had been since I last smiled.

Since I last laughed.

Since I last felt safe.

I needed to have that again.

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn’t have a single visible bruise or mark on my face. But staring at myself in the mirror, it was as if I could see every scar that I had ever worn, even the emotional ones. Those were actually the worst ones. Those were the ones that tore deep and stayed forever.

I knew I needed a change. I needed to clean up the mess that my life had become. Sean was right, I couldn’t continue living the way I was. It wasn’t that I looked at my life and wanted it that way. I didn’t look at Tony and want to stay with him. But it took a lot for someone in my shoes to go shoe shopping. I just needed to prepare myself for it. And that started with the mental preparation.

Fifteen days.

That’s how long I had been mentally preparing for Tony’s departure from my life.

Preparing myself to go against the monster.

Preparing my life in the event it didn’t go as planned.

There was a large chance that I wouldn’t survive it. Knowing Tony, knowing firsthand what he was capable of, I had to face the fact that I may not have much time left on Earth. And I needed to prepare myself for that.

I had no family left. No one that loved me enough to care if I died. Except Sean. He was the only one. But even he seemed to have given up on me as well. I had effectively run off anyone that had ever loved me, and isolated myself from everyone except from the one man that hated me more than anything else.

I studied my hair. It had become a habit ever since Tony had chopped it off. It was just past my shoulders now. I couldn’t wait until it reached my waist once again. My hair had always served as my security blanket. I loved to keep it long so I could hide behind it. When it had been cut short, I had felt like a limb had been chopped off.

But at least I didn’t have any visible bruises on my face. What a joke.

The doorbell rang and pulled me from my inner thoughts. I groaned and slowly made my way to the front door. No one ever came to visit, so I knew that could only mean one thing. I wouldn’t be excited to see who was standing at my door.

I was right. I was definitely not excited to see who had stopped by. With her curly, shoulder length blond hair and flawlessly painted on face, Laurie stood in front of me with her perfectly manicured hand on her hip. Her bright blue eyes lit up when she saw me in front of her.

“He’s not here,” I informed her. I didn’t need her to bring this shit to my front door again. I was not in the mood to deal with her or her pettiness.

I pushed my body outside the door and closed it behind me, hoping she got the hint that she wasn’t allowed inside. I didn’t care if she was fucking my husband, that didn’t give her the right to welcome herself inside my home.

Once I was fully standing on the front porch, inches from her perfect face, a face I’m sure Tony never mangled, I noticed the red car in the driveway. My anger began to spill over at that.

“I see you already know that he’s not here, so what brings you here,” I said, motioning toward Tony’s prized sports car. The fucker never even let me sit in it, but he let her drive it? I was convinced that he only kept me around for his own morbid entertainment. “What do you want?” I was standing, facing her and the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement and glanced to where it had come from. There was a man standing on the sidewalk, smiling at me. The same man, I felt my skin grow cold.

Laurie smiled deviously at me, giving me a look that I wanted nothing more than to slap off her face. “He sent me here to pick something up for him. He left this morning without a case file, and I’m here to get it for him.”

She reached behind me and opened the door, forcefully pushing her body into mine until I moved enough out of the way for her to walk inside. I rolled my eyes and tried my best to control my anger as I reluctantly followed her inside.

Tony’s office was next to the front door and I watched her waltz on in to the room I was never allowed to be in. That made me angrier. I was his wife, yet he gave permission for his mistress to go through his files. His private files as he liked to remind me. I stood and watched by the door as she unlocked a drawer with a key and pulled out a few folders. She never even had to look twice. Her familiarity made my anger reach an all-time high. She confidently tucked the files under her arm and locked it back up, keeping her eyes on me the entire time.

Our silent standoff ended when the doorbell rang. Laurie looked to the window that led to the front of the house and then snapped in the air. I turned to see what she was snapping at and saw her finger draw up to her pursed lips, motioning me to stay quiet.

“Fuck you. This is my house. If I want to answer the door then I will,” I said, not keeping my voice low just to spite her.

“No, Charlotte. Do not answer that door.”

I wanted to smack her! How dare she tell me how to behave in my own home? I rolled my eyes at her instead and walked to the front door, part of me wondered if it would be the guy from across the street that I’d seen earlier. But I opened it to find a man in grey overalls standing in front of me with a clipboard in his hand. I wasn’t sure who he was, but I heard Laurie whisper a loud, “shit” from behind me.

“Is this the Paulette residence?” he asked.

“Yes it is.”

“And is that car registered to Anthony Paulette?” he asked again.

Oh, I knew what was going on. Seems as though little Miss Laurie didn’t have permission to drive the car. That brought an immense amount of joy into my life. I smirked at the thought of her getting in trouble with Tony. I couldn’t believe she had taken the car without his permission. She would learn how Tony was, but I was surprised she hadn’t already.

“You’ve been served,” he said and handed me a leaflet of papers. “I’m repossessing this car for nonpayment. Once you miss three payments on the car, the ownership reverts back to the lien holder.” He turned on his heal and started to hook the car up to the tow truck I hadn’t noticed before.

“Wait! You can’t take that car. It’s my husband’s!” I turned frantic. If he took that car, Tony would be livid and it would all be my fault. They were literally signing my death certificate.

The man ignored me completely and just continued with hooking up the car.

I turned around to look at Laurie, who had followed me out to the front of the house. “What should we do?” I asked in a panic. I was clearly desperate if I was asking Laurie for help. She was the enemy, but not at that moment. At that moment, she held the power to help me.

Laurie ignored me and started pushing buttons on her phone. She held her phone up to her ear and waited. “Tony, we have a problem. Your wife just allowed your car to be repossessed.” She looked at me pointedly and I had no doubt Tony was giving her an earful about how disappointed he was. Her face fell and I momentarily wondered if he was showing anger toward her, but I knew better. Laurie Beacon couldn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of Tony. She was flawless and possessed everything I lacked.

Instead of him being angry with her, like I had originally thought, the table had been turned. He was going to be super pissed with me when he came home, especially with the way Laurie was spinning the tale. I stood there in silence as she continued to explain in minute detail what had happened and how I had allowed it. I was scared, but her next words scared me even more.

“Just take my car and come and get me. Yes, I’ll wait here with her.” She shut the phone off and slid it back inside her purse with a small, worried smile. “Tony’s coming.” Was she worried for me? Did she know what he would do to me? “And he doesn’t sound too happy.”

“Of course he’s not happy. His car was just taken from his driveway! And you practically told him it was my fault!” I shrieked. My heart was in my throat and I felt like I was going to choke on it. Fear consumed every part of me. He would kill me for sure now. ”Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

Her facial expression shifted to one of sympathy. Yes, she knew exactly what she had done. “It
is
your fault. I told you to keep your mouth shut and not to answer the door, but you couldn’t. You insisted on answering the door anyway. All you had to do was listen to me,” she said as if she cared what would happen to me. I knew she had been enjoying my distress when she arrived at the house, but it was very evident, now that Tony was on his way home, that she was apprehensive about my fate.

“Do you want me dead? Is that it? Admit it; life would be easier if I weren’t around. You would be able to move right on in and not have to worry about me, the wife. Is that why you’re doing this? Because you want me gone permanently?”

I saw her throat work as she swallowed. Her eyes were cast down for a long moment before looking back up and meeting mine. I could have sworn I saw something that mimicked fear in those blue eyes of hers. Was it fear? Or was it more sympathy? Yes, she knew the kinds of things Tony had done to me. Did she feel bad for me?

“You’re better off dead,” she said in a soft tone. Was she warning me?

I had no words. Nothing was coming to me. We could only stare at each other as her words sank in. She wasn’t being malicious. She was being honest. And she was right. There was no way I would ever be able to free myself from Tony unless I was dead. It was just so surreal hearing it come from his mistress, and hearing her say it as if she sympathized with me. Did she know something I didn’t?

She moved passed me and headed back into my home as if she owned the place. I had no other option but to follow. I had nowhere to go. I wanted to run away, go anywhere but here where Tony could easily find me. But he would find me no matter where I went so I shouldn’t even bother.

We sat in the living room and waited for Tony to come home. I swear I felt every second that ticked by on the grandfather clock to my right. With every second, my anxiety rose. My mind was already playing out what would happen. That car had been his precious baby, his token of his achieved success, his pride and joy. And now it was gone. He would see it as my fault. Even though I didn’t pay the bills, I wasn’t the one that drove it to the house, I wasn’t the one that left it in the driveway… it would still be my fault. In Tony’s eyes, everything was my fault.

When Tony finally pulled into the driveway, I thought I would jump out of my skin.

Thirty seconds later, he was opening the door and walking toward the living room. I stopped breathing when he entered and my heart stilled, cold in my chest. My eyes were wide with fear as I watched Laurie walk up to him and meet him. Neither one of them gave me the time of day.

“Are you all right, honey?” he asked tenderly and then kissed her on her forehead. Why was he so concerned for her? It wasn’t her car, or her house. She wasn’t the one facing a brutal punishment. I was. So why was he so worried if she was all right? It only angered me even more.

She immediately slipped into the role of the submissive girlfriend as she nodded demurely, but kept her confidence at the forefront. It was sickening to witness the dynamic of their relationship.

He kissed her passionately and I felt my heart start to thud back to life. I knew he fucked around on me. I had known this for a long time, but to have it thrust into my face like that was beyond hurtful. It made me sick. Knowing about it versus seeing it with my own eyes were two different things entirely.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not at all. If I were jealous of Laurie, it was because of how lovingly he treated her. He didn’t rough her up and slap her around. He didn’t yell at her or call her despicable names. No. He was gentle with her. That was the only thing I was jealous of.

I sat there completely stunned by their display, yet unable to take my eyes off their passionate embrace. I felt like I was on the outside of my life looking in. This was just too unreal for me to process.

When they finally stopped kissing, he held her chin in his hand lovingly, and that’s when I knew. He didn’t love me and never had. He had never once looked at me like that during our entire relationship. The truth hit me in the gut, hard. I thought back to all of the looks he had given me in the beginning, when things were good, before the abuse started. The way he would look at me mimicked love, but looking at his face now, his dark eyes and the way they brightened as they took in Laurie’s face, what he had for me was never love. Maybe it was something akin to it, but it was never the real thing. I was sure I had looked at Sean that way. I knew the way I looked at him was brighter than the way I had ever looked at Tony. It made me wonder if Tony had ever noticed it or not. Was that the reason why he just wouldn’t let me go? Was it yet another one of his tormenting games he loved to play?

Tony walked toward me and I cowered into the sofa, wishing feverishly that it had the ability to swallow me up and hide me. He put his hand up and I flinched, waiting for the blow.