It started with minor things .... a small mistake while cooking his favorite food , a crease in his otherwise neatly ironed shirt , a missed call from a wrong number viewed with suspicion , a slightly messed up dining table , the house not neat when he returned home , a dissatisfaction with her dress , a loathing of her shyness in social situations .... It seemed like nothing she did pleased him anymore and the more she tried the worse it got until the displeasure was displayed in physical terms and she became what she never thought she would be - a dreaded statistic - just another abused wife.
She did not go out of the house for days , the bruises were too visible. She did not know where to turn or to whom. She felt too ashamed. She had read about such things and knew that she had nothing to be ashamed of - yet a part of her felt she had asked for such treatment with her behavior. That she was not good enough to be loved. That she could not do anything right. She felt herself lacking in every department. She was a failure. The thought of telling anyone about her situation made her cringe. The thought of being pitied seemed more painful to her than her wounds. She knew .... a part of her was responsible for the way things had degenerated and living with that self-disgust made her recoil from herself.
In her more rational moments she realized that she could not be as useless as she was being told. That her worth was not directly proportional to her ability to cook or clean or talk or be glamorous. But none of that seemed to matter when she felt the cutting edge of the biting sarcasm that shredded her confidence to tatters. Or when she faced that rage with nothing but her arms over her face ...... hoping it would just end and she would never feel any pain ever again.
She could not pin point when things had started to change - within her as well as within him. Was it when she quit her work due to the move across cities ? Was it when the years did not bring an addition to the family ? Was it when the business started to keep him more and more away from home ? She suspected perhaps it was more than business. But the beginning did not count. Once he had been her friend ... now .. she just hoped he was in a good mood when he came home and would not bother her.
As she stood at the window looking out into the sky ..... thinking of escape - she tried to understand why she was unable to muster enough courage to walk out. Why did she believe that his remorse after every episode was real and that he would not do it again ? Why asking for help from anyone seemed to hold more trauma than everything that had happened so far. With a humorless laugh - she thought of the
story of the frog being slowly boiled alive. It seemed more true to her than anything else.
Why did she behave like that bird whose wings had been clipped for so long... it had not only forgotten how to fly ; it did not want to fly. The exhilaration of rushing wings had been replaced by a trepidation of the unknown dangers lurking in the air.
She wondered ...... when had hope for a better life become more terrifying than a fear for her life itself ?
