Growing Pains - Snippets

 

 

The Engagement

 

Family Matters

 

A choice

 

Retribution

 

Amy knew it was inevitable that this night would come, with her growing strength and abilities, she knew she would eventually stand up for herself. It would just take the right combination of events for her to be shocked out of her standing there and taking whatever it was he felt like dishing out to her. Unfortunately it was the hospitalisation of her brother and some extremely bad timing by him that finally pushed her over the edge.

They were out in a wine bar, when her father called and explained that her brother had been shot while on a training exercise and was in hospital on the critical list, he was scheduled for surgery the following afternoon, it was unknown whether he would survive. She said she would be on the first train there the following morning.

She explained to him what had happened and said that she was going to go there the following morning. He remained quiet, as they left the bar, Amy recognised it as him being annoyed and knew he probably wouldn’t speak to her until he got home. Her relationship with her brother had been pretty close, he had always been the archetypal big brother, looking out for her protecting her. Which is why her husband had taken such a quick dislike to him, she knew very well that if he knew what her husband had done to her he would kill him, which was the reason she had lost contact with him like she did. She wanted to protect him from what he would feel obliged to do. Right now though she missed him, she missed his black and white view of the world, she regretted allowing her husband to come between them, and now he was annoyed that she was going to see him. She knew he was going to try to stop her going, but equally she knew there was absolutely no way she was going to allow him to do that. She also had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do to try to stop her and she knew what she was going to do about that. Amy knew a lot of things that night, every word he didn’t say on the drive home made Amy’s clarity of the matter all the clearer. All of the rage and anger she pushed aside for the duration of her marriage had suddenly been thrust into such an overwhelming desire for retribution against him. She breathed in his silence, lingering in these last moments of a chapter of her life because she was full in the knowledge that before the night was out she would be a new woman. She breathed in the silence and felt incredibly sad at the loss of all she used to be.

At home, for what seemed like the longest time, still nothing was said, he sat at the kitchen  table, while Amy tried to work out how to avoid what was about to come. She knew it was inevitable but she just wanted this to stop, for him to just let her go see her brother and be with her family. Quietly sobbing she knelt at her husband’s feet to ask him to not do this. Before she could speak, he pushed her aside, and stood up. Landing against the breakfast bar she tasted the familiar taste of her own blood filling her mouth and the unfamiliar taste of vengeance coursing through her veins.

“you already know you’re not going anywhere, why are you even bothering trying, but don’t worry you’ll be crying for something other than your brother soon, now get up and take what you’re getting”

She raised, and walked to him “I wasn’t crying for him, I was crying for you, but the crying is over now, I’ll never cry for you again, so come on, hit me show me how much of a man you can be”

“You’re not going to talk your way out of this one baby, you’re getting what’s coming” the back of his left hand cracked against her jaw, knocking her slightly off balance.

“is that it? That your best shot baby? Come on I know you can do better than that, maybe you need a little bile to help you along” with that she spat the blood from her mouth into his face “now fucking hit me” after an instant of shock, he wiped the blood from his face then pulled his right arm back to bring a punch to her face. She easily moved out of its path then deflected the left that was following it with her right arm, landing her own left fist sharply into his stomach. He collapsed to the floor, curled up, unable to catch his breath.

“you little fucking whore” came in his gasps between obvious pain

Once again kneeling at his side, stroking his hair, softly whispering “I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry that I let you do this to me, I wish I had been stronger before” he flew his arm out to grab her, she dived back out of reach, returning with a punch into his kidney. “please don’t make this any harder on me, I need to go see my brother, I want to leave now, I want all of this to stop, I don’t want to fight you’

He writhed on the floor for a moment, then turned to face her again “I’ll fucking kill you for this, I promised you that if you ever went against me I would fucking kill you”

She reached out to stroke his hair, he winced away, sliding her fingers against his cheek instead “then you give me no choice baby, I wish you hadn’t made me do this, but I have no choice” taking a fistful of hair she pulled him up to take another handful with her other hand and with the whole weight of her body and every grain of anger she forced his head back down onto the cold granite floor. Unconsciousness slipped from him as his blood seeped across the floor.

 

When he came to, Amy was sat at the breakfast bar, in fresh clothes with a small travel bag on the stool next too her, with a glass of wine, watching him rousing. As he came round enough to look at her she picked the phone up from next to the wine bottle she was drinking, dialled a number and held it to her ear, never taking her eyes from his.

 

“hello, yes can I have an ambulance please... yes... thank you” after a short pause “hello, I need an ambulance my husband is unconscious... yes he has a head injury and a compound fracture to his left leg” he began to rise as he heard this, feeling his skull unsteadily walking towards her, as he got closer Amy stood from the stool, finishing the call she wrapped her fingers around the neck of the wine bottle. “now baby, you are probably going to be in hospital for about a week, should give me enough time to get to see George and make sure he is alright, then I’ll come to the hospital to you, and we will sort things out, and oh yes, before I forget, I need to borrow your car, you don’t mind do you?”

 

The last memory he had of that night was watching the blood pouring from his leg through the wine bottle that was exploding around his face.

Amy picked the bag up, collected his keys from the hook, and walked out, leaving the front door open to allow the ambulance people in. She then drove through the night to be at her brother’s side by morning.

 

Hospitalised

Amy’s estimate of her husband being in hospital for about a week was slightly off, it took three days of intensive care treatment to even make him stable enough to have his leg operated on to reset the bone properly. By the forth day he was regaining consciousness, but still heavily sedated.

On the fifth day Amy arrived to see him, but between the one working eye that he had, the other had required surgery to remove a piece of glass and so was patched up, and the drugs he was on, he it wasn’t until a week after he had been the catalyst to Amy’s metamorphosis that he finally regained enough state of mind to recognise her. Or at least recognise her enough to be able to react.

Since she had come back she had spent pretty much every hour at his side, when she first saw him lying in a hospital bed because of what she had done she felt physically sick through the guilt that had apparently nearly killed her husband. She spent the first day wallowing in the guilt of this thought. Then she thought about all of the times he had hospitalised her, of all of the times he had come close to killing her, she knew that there was no guilt for him, he never came to the hospital to her, he never apologised, when she called him from hospital he didn’t ask if she was ok, just when she was coming home because the housework needed doing.

“how long have you been waiting there?”

“couple of days, you’ve been out of it for a week now, how you feeling”

“pretty shitty”

“ever likely, you took quite a beating it seems”

“feels like it”

“Sure you’ll be glad to know that George is on the mend though”

“well that’s a load off”

“we had quite a heart to heart actually, patched up a lot of bridges that you made me burn”

“I never made you do anything, it was your choice, you wanted to be there”

“yeah I remember the choices you gave me”

“so what do we do now then?”

“I’ve no idea, but you’re not going to be hitting me again”

“looks that way”

“I’ve been sat here wondering for the last couple of days what we should do, I only did this because I wanted you to stop hitting me, I figured if I could stop that, I could get back with the man I was in love with, without all of that shit getting in the way, maybe we could even have kids and have a normal family I could go back to being the good house wife at home, you go out and work, and just live our lives.

“it isn’t going to happen though is it, too much has changed now”

“nothing has changed baby, I’m just not going to let you hit me anymore, I still want you, I still love you”

“yeah it feels like it” rubbing bandages around his head

“you know how many times I’ve lay in this hospital feeling the places that you love me, get over it you’ll be fine in a few days”

“I know”, bringing his eyes to meet hers for the first time, “I know”

“so do you think you could live that life with me?”

“I don’t know,  I don’t know anymore”

“you don’t want me to have your children anymore?”

“we can’t remember, we don’t seem to do that bit very well”

“we don’t do that bit because I had a coil put in”

“you did what! How could you do that to me, you know how much I wanted us to have kids”

“and you know why I didn’t want your kids, but that time of our lives has gone now, it is simple to reverse, another twelve months you could be a daddy”

He lay there in silence, no longer looking at her

“I know you’re scared baby, I know this is all new to you, but it is pretty new to me too, we can make it work if you want it to work”

His silence continued.

“but you don’t want it to work do you, you can’t handle this relationship anymore, because you can’t control it anymore. That heart to heart I had with George, did you know he’s known about what you’ve been doing to me for a few months now? Apparently he guessed it when we went up there last, he told me then that you were a fucking coward, and I didn’t really understand what he meant, thought it was just because he didn’t like you, but he is right, you are a coward, you only want a relationship that you can control with your fists. When I told him what I’d done, he was pissed at me because I hadn’t killed you, told me I should have taken my revenge against everything you’d done to me, he said you’d never want to live a normal life with me, you’d never want to give up your control, I thought you would, looks like I was wrong doesn’t it”

“guess it does”

“so the other thing I’ve been sat here wondering, is what I’d do if you decided you didn’t want to live that life with me, because maybe he’s right about the revenge part to, we’re a vengeful family, I’d hoped I could rise above it, but now I know what you were really about, I’ve no intention of doing so”

“what, so you’re going to kill me now”

“you think that is the worst thing I can do to you! No, I’m not going to kill you baby, you know I’ve always been a big believer in an eye for an eye, so get used to this place, because you are going to be in here a few more times yet”

“don’t talk stupid, you’re not going to do anything of the sort, I’ll leave you, you’ll never get chance”

“ask yourself a question, if I had left you two weeks ago, before this happened, would you have just walked away and left it at that? Or would you have spent every minute you had trying to find me so you could teach me the lesson, so no, you’re not going to leave, you’re going to get yourself all fixed up and you are going to come home to me”

“so you can send me straight back again, sounds fun, can’t wait”

“give me some credit please, beatings don’t hurt after a while, they fade and heal, no we are going to have much more fun, I’m going to give you a taste of some of the pain and humiliation that you have heaped on me, I’m going to have three little sessions with you over the next month, each one will be an example of the worst things you ever did to me, so you know the pain you inflicted, give you something to remember for your next encounter”

“a month?”

“I want to get on with my life, when I’ve finished with you I will tell you to leave, from which point if I ever see you again, I will kill you, I’d suggest you take your brother up on his offer of going to live with him on that farm in Australia”

Again he was silent

“you’re looking pretty tired baby, you’ve a lot to think about, I’m going to go home get showered and things, I’ll come back tonight to see how you are, do you need anything?”

“no, I don’t think so”

Amy got up, kissed him on the forehead, and headed to the door

“Actually, can you ask the nurse to come in, I’m feeling a little queasy”

“sure, see you later baby”

As she closed the door on her husband, she had to take a moment to compose herself, for all her brother had said to her about him being a coward she had desperately wanted him to just accept what had happened and allow them to go back to the way they were before he turned into the monster she married. Before this started he used to be so caring and sweet and kind, and then in a heartbeat he changed to this. She was sad for the fact that she had lost her husband, she was sad for the lengths she had had to go to in order to stop him hitting her. Most of all however, she was sad for the vengeance and need for retribution that she had discovered in herself.

 

She took a deep breath, wiped the tears away, straightened herself up and came face to face with Doc Brown, after the initial startling he gave she felt a wave of shame for the thoughts and actions she was currently in the process of orchestrating. 

“hey there, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you”

“It’s ok Doc, you didn’t, just startled me a little, was away with the fairies a little bit there”

“I noticed, you ok? Anything I can do?”

“no, No, I’m fine thanks.”

“so what you doing here? This is a fair distance away from the accident unit”

“I could ask you the same question! I’m just, urm visiting someone” pointing a thumb over her shoulder to the door she’d just left.

“they’re a little short staffed today, so I’m standing in” he said as he moved closer in order to look through the glass of the door

Amy stood still as The doc came closer to her, for the first time she realised the freedom she had reclaimed, the ability to stand next to another man and enjoy his closeness and his scent, without the subtext of fear beneath it.

“so who’s that?, it’s not” He looked at Amy with a slight raise of his eyebrows “is it?”

“Doc Brown, meet my husband” gesturing an open hand to the door

“he’s in a pretty bad way, what happened to him”

“you know what happened Doc”

“you did that!”

“remember I told you that when I was ready I would sort my life out, well I’m thinking you’re not going to be having much need to patch me up much more”

“I’m sorry to hear that” stumbling over the words as he realised what they meant, “I mean it’s good that you won’t need patching up, but, well...”

“I always said you’re a sweetheart Doc, it’s ok I know what you mean, and I’ll miss you too, you helped me sort my life out a lot, and I’m probably going to be here visiting him for a while yet”

“he isn’t going to be here for much longer, few more days and he’ll be discharged”

Amy stood in silence, unable to speak the thoughts in her head

“you’re planning on doing this again aren’t you? This isn’t over for you is it? Don’t you think it is time to just walk away now, you’ve proved your point, he’s not going to be hitting you again”

“I’m sure he won’t, but I’m equally sure that if I were to leave him now, the first woman he got close enough to he would take his revenge out on her for the humiliation he feels for what I’ve done”

“sure it isn’t about you getting your revenge for the humiliation you’ve felt?”

“can’t it be about both?”

“I know he has put you through pain that I can’t even begin to comprehend, but don’t let him drag you to his level in order to get closure on this for yourself, talk to the police, get him arrested for the things he has done to you, I know your records I’ve seen what he has put you through”

“and the first thing he did when he got out of prison would be to beat another woman up, just to prove to himself that he hasn’t been beaten, that he can still be the man he is”

“so how is that different from what you’re going to do”

“it is impossible to spend an amount of time being beaten up by a person without learning a lot about what sort of person that’s beating you, equally you can spend your life beating somebody and never really know the first thing about who they are, I know my husband, I know what this is about for him, and I know how to purge it from him”

“and what is it about?”

“fear, everything he does is done through fear, but he has never really known real fear so I’m going to introduce him to the fear he has shown me”

“I think you are wrong, but I understand what you are saying, I think that this is much more about your retribution than you are allowing yourself to believe,

“you could be right Doc, but you’ve seen my records, you have seen the things that man has done to my body, I’m sure you can only begin to imagine the things he has done to my mind, so ask yourself this, if somebody had done those things to you wouldn’t you want just a few weeks alone with them for no other reason than to take your revenge for the things they have done. How wrong would retribution be in your eyes under those circumstances”

It was the Doc’s turn to be quiet

“I doubt I could have done this without your support. You’re a good man Doc, that wife of yours is a very lucky woman, she has my envy, Thank you for everything you have done for me, from the bottom of my heart, and with all of my love, I Thank you Andy” and with a kiss on the cheek she walked away. 

 

Now it was time for Andy Brown to compose himself outside that room, as he watched Amy walking away, he took a couple of minutes to ponder her words and went to talk to her husband.

A matter of record

Andy Brown had encountered an uncountable number of abusive husbands in his time, he always felt a little uneasy in their company for some reason that he couldn’t quantify. It was being in the presence of Amy’s husband that finally made him realise how different he saw her. He usually had a degree of animosity towards such men but this man brought forward the vilest of feelings in him. His role as a doctor meant that he should put such feelings aside in all of his professional interactions. He was finding it very difficult to do so at the moment he walked through that door.

“Doctor?”

Talking a deep breath, and shaking the thoughts from his mind “Yes, sorry, it has been a long shift so far” walking over to read his charts “well we’re glad to see you awake now, you’ve had quite a bit of work done the last few days”

“yeah, I’m feeling like it, are things supposed to be hurting this much?”

“after what you’ve been through you’re likely to feel some tenderness for a while yet, are you feeling any particularly sharp pains? Or are they just general aches?”

“Don’t suppose it is anything in particular, just feeling not quite with it”

“you’re on a strong pain killer they will make you very drowsy”

“when would I be well enough to be able to talk to the police?”

Andy hadn’t quite anticipated this question, and it slightly threw his state of mind for a while. “urm well if you are feeling well enough to talk then whenever you feel you want to, I need to do a few tests to make sure there are no signs of brain damage. Don’t worry it is just a formality, is pretty rare that anything actually comes of, but once that is done if you want me to I can inform the police that you wish to speak with them”

“what sort of tests?”

“just a little poking and prodding, questions mostly, nothing invasive”

“then you’re done poking and prodding I would appreciate it if you would inform the police that I would like to speak with them”

“I’ll let them know, now let’s get on shall we, let’s start with the easy one’s, what’s your full name?”

 

 

After the tests Andy Brown went to the reception desk to let them know that a patient wished to speak to the police. While he was filling the paperwork in the local beat officer came in on his rounds around the hospital grounds. “hey Tom, I was just filling in a green sheet for you”

“Hi Andy, can’t you keep hold of it for a while, I’m going off shift in ten minutes, was only coming in so Deirdre could make me a cuppa tea” said with a wink to the girl behind the reception desk

“You’ll be lucky, anyway I’m glad it is you I could do with having a word with you about this one, be good if I could get your ear before go”

Tom took the green form from Andy’s hand  “so what’s wrong with him?”

“he was found at his home with severe head injuries and a compound fracture of the left Tibia, basically took one hell of a beating”

“so he’s going to tell us who did it? Sounds simple enough”

“I’ve no idea what he’s going to tell you, but that is what I want to talk to you about”

“ok, I’m hooked, tell me what you got”

“come across to my office, then let me show you something first”

 

In his office Andy rummaged through a pile of medical records on his desk, slid one out from near the bottom and handed it to Tom. “the medical record of the girl I believe this guy is going to say beat him up”

Tom looked at the front of the record, then at the green slip he still had in his hand “a battered wife then?”

“read the file, I’ll go and get you that cup of tea you wanted”

“that’s bribery you know, but white with two since you’re there”

 

“ok, so they are the facts, now tell me the things I don’t know, you see a thousand battered wives a week, what makes this one so deserving of your attention, is the good Doc playing away a little”

“don’t be absurd, no, I’ve been treating her for a while now, and well” he paused as the memory of the feelings he had when he entered Amy’s husband’s hospital room returned “She’s just a nice girl who fell in with a bad guy”

“yeah yeah Doc and I’m the easter bunny, but if you say so, what’s he doing in here then?”

“she started on some karate lessons a few months ago, I guess she finally decided to start putting them to good use”

“so the courts will take her medical history into consideration, I’m sure she’ll just get a slapped wrist”

“I was hoping you would help it not even get that far”