Besides Jake’s looks, his personality changed a lot in the months following his accident. He didn’t talk to me about how he felt. He wouldn’t kiss me; he would barely even look at me. Dale tried over and over to help him. He even encouraged Jake to begin studying so he could go back to school and become a veterinarian, or at least an assistant. Dale offered to let Jake work with him but Jake refused. He oftentimes got very agitated at anyone who made suggestions like that.
I stopped trying to convince Jake that he could have a normal life. He would sometimes call me stupid and then he would beat himself up afterward for treating me that way. The only thing I could do was try my best to make Jake comfortable. I continued working on the ranch so that we would have money. I ordered everything that a handicapped person could possibly need and had it all delivered right to our doorstep.
The doctors convinced me that Jake didn’t need pain medicine anymore but he would get so aggravated if I tried to lower his doses. He would tell me that I was lucky I didn’t know what it felt like to be crushed by a horse. He was wrong, though; the pain and guilt I felt was like a stampede of twenty wild horses trampling my heart every day.
On the coldest night that winter after the accident, Jake found a bottle of whiskey under the sink. I sat on our couch and watched him drink glass after glass in front of the fire. Before I went to bed, I went to him. I brushed a hand down his arm from behind and bent to kiss the side of his face.
He grabbed my hand, stopping me, and squeezed it so hard I had to hold my breath to prevent a scream from escaping my lips. Pulling me down toward his face, he seethed through gritted teeth: “Don’t. Touch. Me.”
He let go and I grabbed the bottle. “No more of this, Jake.”
He reached his long arm up, took a hold of my hair and neck from behind, and slammed my head down on the TV tray over his chair. I tried to pull away but he slammed me down over and over again. Scratching at his arms and trying desperately to get away, I could feel my hair being yanked out with every effort. I was crying and screaming and shocked by his strength. When I tasted blood in my mouth, I pleaded for mercy.
“Please, baby, stop,” I cried.
He held me down over his chair and whispered, “I’m taking you with me.” He smelled of whiskey and thick B.O. mixed with the muskiness of his greasy hair.
I fell to my knees as he gripped my neck tighter. “Please! Let go, you’re hurting me!”
“You want to come with me, don’t you?” he said, matter-of-factly.
Seconds later, I felt Redman forcing me out of Jake’s grasp. He didn’t say two words to Jake as he scooped me up and carried me out.
Walking toward the big house with me in his arms, Redman said, “You’ll be okay.” His voice was low and soothing.
He took me into the guest room and laid me on the bed. Bea came in with a bowl of warm water and a washcloth to clean my face. I reached up and felt my swollen cheeks and the blood mixed with tears.
Bea’s expression was stoic as she dabbed at the cuts over my eyes. “You don’t deserve this,” she said.
“Yes I do.” I believed it like it was the ultimate truth, just like I believed that the sun would rise in the morning and fall in the evening.
She started singing “Danny Boy” quietly while she continued cleaning my face. I fell asleep wondering when Jake would come back to me. If he would ever come back to me.
One eye was swollen shut in the morning. I shuffled back to our cabin with my head down and found Jake staring out the front window with his usual blank expression. He turned his chair and looked up at me, studying my face for an entire minute. It was the first time since his injury that I saw any sign of compassion or of the man I knew before. He was guilt-stricken by what he had done to me. He scowled and shook his head but didn’t say anything. He just turned and went back to looking out the window.
After cleaning the cabin, I put on a thick jacket, baseball cap, and sunglasses and headed for the door. “I’m going to get milk and bread and cheese for sandwiches. Is there anything else you want?”
He didn’t answer me, which wasn’t unusual. At the bottom of the ramp, I looked up to the window and saw that he was watching me.
I love you, I mouthed to him.
I love you, he mouthed back.
I let a smile touch my lips before turning toward my truck. When I reached for the handle, I heard the explosive, ringing sound of a gunshot. I whipped back toward our cabin and saw, through the window, Jake slumped over in his chair.
It was a cold January morning when my husband, Jake McCrea, put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, taking his own life just seconds after he had told me he loved me.
I couldn’t fix him. There were no healing powers in my hands.
He hadn’t physically taken me with him, as he had threatened to, but he took what was left of my heart, ending any semblance of life inside of me. At nineteen, I became cold and hard and looked forward to the end of my bleak existence.
CHAPTER 4
Binds Us
Nathanial
SPRING 2010