It isn’t grocery day but she’s still leaving. She’s getting out of this house once and for all. Because once was enough.
Jenny’s waited until nine, pretending to sleep the sleep of the dreamless as Roy gave her one last kiss. His meaty fingers brushing disheveled hair from her face while he whispered I love you. Sure he did. He always loved her until he didn’t. Until she found herself with Roy’s hands wrapped around her throat.
But now Roy’s at work. He won’t be back until evening. And freedom’s come calling like a knock in the night and Jenny’s flinging open that door, ready to run into the arms of the other side.
She kicks off the covers and breaks for the closet. She’s boiling up, but not from heat. From nerves. Sweat drips down her brow. Her legs are so gummy she can barely walk. But she does.
She has to.
Hovering in the closet doorway, Jenny unearths a grungy green messenger pack hidden deep behind two thick quilts. Her makeshift go-bag, packed days ago in preparation for her escape. Two plans on her mind. She doesn’t know which direction she’ll take, only that both scare her. But she’s been living scared. Probably for most of her life.
Things didn’t always use to be like this, she thinks, but she doesn’t know why.
Moving to the dresser, Jenny snaps off the tinny radio. Some country song dying a slow death. There, she takes a quick glance around the tiny, lonely cabin where she’s been laid up for the last nine months. Antlers on the wall. A blurry wedding photo of her and Roy. A kitchenette with one flickering fluorescent.
As Jenny’s eyes brush against the bed, her entire body lets loose an angry shudder. She hates that bed. She wants to burn it to the ground, light it on fire and dance on its flames. She spent so much time there after the accident that left her without her memories. When she woke, she knew nothing. She still knows nothing. Except that her name is Jenny Williams, and she was injured in a brutal mugging.
At first, her husband was loving. Kind. For the first three months of her recuperation, she was so sick and Roy was perfect. But overprotective. He never let her lift a finger. He also never let her out of the house. You were mugged, he would say. How can I let you go? How can I lose you again?
She accepted this because she was still healing from the accident, but when she was finally better, when her mind became stronger, she thought it strange she had no friends, no family, no job.
All she had were bad migraines and broken memories.
She still does.
Sometimes when she’s alone, the walls around her peel and crumble. Sometimes, late at night, her dreams resemble a Rorschach test. A man with dark eyes, smoking metal, a song.
It won’t always be like this, Roy said, explaining away her questions. Your ID was stolen. We had friends but they moved. Your parents died in a car crash.You just need time to get healthy.
She almost laughs.
Oh, she’s healthy alright. She’s finally healthy enough not to listen.
Last week, Jenny tried to leave. She walked out of the house onto the front porch and Roy just snapped.
He took her by the throat, dragged her back into the house, and shoved her against the wall, pulling her up until her feet left the floor. A whisper into her ear, The minute you leave me, I will break your fucking neck, sweet Jenny, then he strangled her until she passed out.
It wasn’t the first time it happened, but it was the worst time. And it was Jenny’s lightbulb.
She had to get out.
Breaking from her daydream daze, Jenny snaps into action.
She doesn’t need much. Her wallet’s already in the bag, a small stash of money pinched from her grocery fund. Stashed away where Roy would never find it. Jenny moves quick, frantic. Her fingers fumble with her meager belongings: medication, coins for her bus fare, a small paperback. Her heart threatens to beat itself out of her chest. She can’t help but take furtive glances at the door, worried that any minute her beast of a husband might come in and catch her.
To calm herself, Jenny begins to sing. “Because whatever you do, wherever you go, you’re the only one who sings me home ...”
That song. She doesn’t know where it came from or what it means, only that it’s her savior, that it’s been on her mind ever since she woke up. A rhythmic mantra keeping her going in her moments of panic. Self-soothing, she supposes. Like a worry stone, only it’s a worry song. Her touchstone when she’s damn near ready to fall apart.
Finished packing, she glances up. When she meets her ashen face in the mirror, when she sees the finger-sized bruises painting her throat, her cheekbone, she swears. She wants to scream at her reflection.
Haunted. You’re haunted. You’re fucking deranged.
Goddamn if she’s going to be kept in the house like some mutt on a leash. Fury rolls through her body, and she takes a breath to compose herself.
Prisoner.
It’s a strange thought. One that scares her and fills her with strength at the same time. A final admission of what these last nine months have been.