EVEN A CHILD KNOWS BETTER

He ran across the room to where I was sitting and opened both palms as my tears fell in them

With a little smile he looked in my face and said,

“Mummy, don’t cry.”

He came home drunk again

With the smell of cheap perfume

His zipper was opened

It was 1 am on a Saturday morning

I pretended to be asleep as he entered the bedroom

With a huge thud, he fell on the bed and slept

Within a few seconds he was snoring

Snoring his problems away

I wept throughout the night like I normally do on most nights since our honeymoon

We have been married for five years

For five years I gave this man my life

He persuaded me to quit my job and be a housewife after the birth of our son

My family and friends advised me against it

But I refused to listen to them

He was my husband and I loved him

I have not had any contact with my family and friends for four years now

My husband said they were bad influence in my life

So he warned them to stay away from me and our marriage

I do not have a cell phone

We do not have a home phone either

My husband said, he did want anyone calling the house or me to disturb our peace

But he has a cell phone

He said he needs it to make business and emergency calls

He woke up very early today and started packing his things into a huge suitcase

I am scared of my husband

He gets very violent and hit me anytime I ask him questions about where he goes

I knew where he was going for the weekend with one of his mistresses

To our beach house

I know because I eavesdropped on his conversation the morning before

It was our son’s fourth birthday the next day and I was hoping he would stay for it

He has missed every birthday of his son

So I hoped this weekend was going to be different

This is my problem

I hope a lot

I have been hoping for the past five years for our marriage to get better

I hoped for two years while we courted that he would change when got married

But hoping I have realised sometimes never changes a situation

He slapped me hard across my face when I asked him if he was travelling

He called me a fat cow and said that a good wife never questions her husband

The more I tried to defend myself, the harder he hit me

I tried so hard not to cry

I kept quiet the entire time that he was hitting me

I was hoping that by keeping quiet our son would not hear him hit me

But he was yelling insults at me and kicked me in the lower abdomen

I have had two surgeries on my abdomen as a result of the kicks from my husband

The last surgery was two weeks earlier

The wound was not completely healed

As he hit me, the stitches started removing

By the time he was done kicking me, I was bleeding on the floor

I held my abdomen tightly to avoid blood loss

But I held tighter to my mouth to avoid shouting in pain in case our son heard me

He spat on me an walked out of the bedroom and drove off

I sat in the corner and kept holding the stitches to avoid more blood loss

I knew if I did not call for help, I was going to die

But with no cell or home phone it was impossible to call for help

I was in too much pain to walk outside and call for help

Then I saw him standing by the wardrobe with sore eyes

He had been sobbing quietly

Then I realised that my son was present the entire time my husband was beating me

He had witnessed everything

I told him to ran to our neighbour and call for help

He wiped my tears and run off

A few hours later I woke up in the hospital

My family and friends were there with my son

My husband was arrested by the police

He is awaiting his trial for domestic violence

My son handed me a small notebook I had bought for him three months earlier

In that notebook contained a letter

It was a long letter to God to save me from the abuse

But one sentence caught my attention and made me weep

‘I hope one day mummy leaves dad.’

I cried because my son knew better.