When Tears Are Not Enough by VAUGHN STANFORD

Author:VAUGHN STANFORD
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: womens issues, domestic abuse, christian short story, caribbean author, caribbean fiction, caribbean stories, domesticviolence, caribbean writer, west indian literature, faith based drama

VI

If I was ever going to free myself from Franklyn I had to gain some financial freedom so I saved every cent that I could. Instead of taking a taxi I chose to walk to most of my destinations. I did not realize that I had taken it to the extreme until the day that I fainted from sheer tiredness.

Even though I was able to save some money in some places, I had to spend it in others. I had to pay strangers to help carry the groceries that my children and I could not carry. These good Samaritans refused to take money when they saw the baby in my arms, but when they saw Franklyn sitting idly in the verandah, their kindness immediately turned to indignation and scorn for me who had apparently taken advantage of their sympathy.

"Lady, you mean to say you have a big hard-back man doing nothing up there, while you toting all this load like a jackass? You making joke, yes."

Shortly afterwards, I stopped doing Franklyn's laundry. I wanted to shake him from his laziness in the hope that, if he started on one project, it would build his self-esteem, and maybe he might have a more meaningful existence. Of course I received several blows for being a wicked woman, his favorite description of me, but when he realized that it was useless, that I was unshaken in my resolve, he gave up. I was a 'deceitful woman', a 'lazy wife' and a 'whore', but his verbal assaults did not deter me.

One night he returned home at 3:30 a.m., intoxicated, and proceeded to open all the doors and windows in the house.

"Frank, what you doing? It's late," I protested. "And the children sleeping. They will catch a cold." I got up and started to close the windows.

"Leave my blasted windows alone," he bellowed.

"But Frank, the children."

"I don't care about your damn children. I want a man to come in here and rape you."

I felt like a gutted fish. I had to sit down for fear of falling. I had never felt more unwanted than in that moment. Even the time when he told me that he would bring someone else to sleep in my bed so the world would see how much he hated me paled in comparison with what he had just wished upon me. I felt like my bones were beginning to rot and at that moment, more than ever, I regretted ever being born.

"I can't take it no more, Lynette." I wailed on my friend's sofa later that day. "I just can't take it."

"Marlene, I know this must be hell for you, but in times like these God promises to carry us."

"I wish he would take me and my children to heaven instead."

"Stop it, Marlene," she said sternly. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're stronger than that." Then she added, reassuringly, "God can still use a bad situation and make good come out of it. You have to trust him."

But I did not want to listen to reason.

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