CONTENT ADVISORY: This story portrays domestic violence in vivid and gritty scenes, and may be triggering for some readers.
It’s 4 a.m. and he’s hard against you. You know better than to protest, so don’t, only hope it’s over quick. “Why are you always so dry?” he says as he enters you.
Streetlight strobes through broken blinds, catches the spot his thrown phone gouged a grey hole in the wall. He still hasn’t filled it. Won’t. It’s a reminder. A warning like the poke in your ribs when you snore through your broken nose. If only that hole were a little bigger, you might crawl through it, back to a time where he was always charming, not just in company, not just for a week, two if you’re lucky, until his silence simmers and you take toothbrush to shower grout, scrubber to floor and those dark corners where skirting boards meet; damp-dust headless trophies; condense open cereal boxes; straighten books; polish the clock face —Tick-tock, bitch. Tick-tock and you know it —shush the bedroomed children, hidden faces blue-screened under sheets—Tick-tock motherfuckers, if you don’t nip this shit in the bud, they’ll grow up to be criminals. Tick-fucking-tock.
You cry out as he pounds your cervix. “You like that, huh?” “I love it, baby. Love it.” Move against him. Moan. Tickle his balls. He grunts. Releases. Falls away from you. Snores.
Ten minutes later, you slide from military-tight sheets. Tip-toe carefully round the wardrobe door which hangs by a hinge, and the creaky floorboard in front of the fist-dented, broken-lock door. In the shadow play, a vision of yourself cowering in the furthest corner of the room, one simpering, terror-trembling child under each arm when he kicked in the door. You think you can run from ME?
You make it to the kitchen. Sit at the table on the only chair, the other three broken, their remains kindling for a cold hearth. Sit there, quiet-like till low sun streams through gauze curtains tucked behind chipped mugs. No one calls round so you don’t bother to buy new ones. They’d only get broken.
You think of another coffee in another country. His country. A small café on the banks of a mighty river. His green eyes dark as he leaned elbows on uneven table and spoke of how they’d lined his people up along the bank and shot them. How fast the current was. How no one would ever find them. Hard to imagine in sparkling sunshine, his handsome, haunted face a lure he did not set but you fell into anyway. Easier when you trip over the city’s half-crumbled walls and fish your fist in concrete mortar wounds.
Research for a book brought you there, but love found you. He was your interpreter, his immaculate English learned by watching American cartoons in the refugee camp. He told you all this over wine with the meal you bought. A few more glasses, and he spoke of the road through the corn, the only route from the besieged city. How snipers on surrounding hills waited for escaping vehicles to kick up dust as they sped over fallen, unharvested corn. How as a child, he cowered in the back seat under his mother’s fallen body, her blood dripping into his eyes. How the mortar screamed but he couldn’t.
How loud he screams now.
The rising sun reaches the ceiling bleach streaks. Only last month, you’d painted over the coffee stains from the mug he launched at your head. When the frying pan of sizzling carrots, onions and leeks followed last week, you couldn’t bring yourself to paint again. Bleach did a good enough job anyway.
You rub at the smooth, grease whorls burnt on your forearms before popping the lid off a small brown bottle and palming a pill. Change your mind and dump them all out. Count. Twenty-four. When are you finally going to Sleeping Beauty all those blues?
Out back, a broken swing dangles by one rope over an immaculate lawn. He built it for the boys when he first arrived. How long had it been since they all smiled as they had then?
You check your shattered screen phone. There are no messages. You have no job. No family or friends. Your research sits in a plastic bucket, forgotten, along with your dreams. If you swipe a dry finger just right across the screen, you can at least see the time. Need to rush now. Wake the boys.
Up the stairs you go, careful where he ripped out the banister, cave-manning it as you sheltered the boys under the umbrella of your arms. Everyone screaming. How do the neighbors not hear? You tell no one cause there’s no one to tell. He’s an immigrant but so are you, both clinging to the past like a shark-fin life-preserver.
You ease open your eldest’s door so the frame plaster doesn’t crumble further. Inside, your newly-minted teen drool slumbers. You stroke his face. His hair. “Time to get up, son.”
“Fuck-off, stupid cunt.” He scrambles from bed and slams the door in your face as you retreat. The force of it see-saws the child’s rocking chair just outside his door. He used to sit on it while you read to him, but the back is broken, the arms hanging. You can’t bring yourself to bin it. Maybe, someday, you’ll get it fixed.
Your younger son clings when you wake him. His long curls tickle your neck as he tilts his head to listen for the tell-tale rumble as step-dad wakes. He trembles as your bedroom door opens. The world tightens as your husband stretches, shirtless on the landing. His body taut from exercise, you his punching bag. He smiles; ruffles your son’s hair. Kisses you, his lips soft, not hard. His whisper in your ear, a memory, not a promise, “I love you.”
You believe him because you must. He checks the watch you bought him that first Christmas, then takes his ice-cold shower. You have bruises; he has a house of rubble, and nothing you can do will ever rebuild his city.
House hoovered; sink cleared; dishwasher emptied; toilets flushed; skid marks scrubbed; urine drops wiped; lunch boxes emptied; speakers straightened; remotes charged; fire going; dinner cooking.
Door opens.
“Hi, Honey!”
“Hi.” He stands in the hallway, does not take off his coat or shoes. You wait for it; what did you miss? “Why are the bins still out front?”
Shit. The bins.
“Look I don’t want to complain but I work hard all day, am I supposed to come home and put the bins away too?”
“Sorry, honey!”
“The fellas at work, they don’t have these problems. They’re happy to go home every day. One’s got four kids, not two, FOUR. All under six! Two strong boys in our house. Had to walk straight past them on their way in.”
“You’re right. Absolutely right. I’m so sorry, I’ll do it now.”
“Just fucking leave it. I’ll do it.”
“I said I’m sorry. I didn’t go out all day, I forgot.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. What else do you have to do all day? Why do I even bother? Stupid fat bitch sits around doing fuck all. Two bastard losers can’t do anything other than give me cheek. Look at you. The absolute state of you.”
You brush dog hair from your fleece, pick at a stain on your leggings. “I don’t buy myself new clothes ‘cause I don’t want to spend your money.”
“Spend my money for fuck’s sake, you look like shit. You’re an embarrassment. No makeup. No nails, the fuck with your hair?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
“Sorry, always sorry. Nothing ever changes. Am I supposed to be happy living like this? A stupid, fat bitch and two lazy leeches. 99.99 percent of our problems are your fault.
What did I do to deserve this shit?”
Over his shoulder, a drawing of you hangs on the wall. You were beautiful then. Loved. An ex-lover drew it. A famous singer. You had to sever all ties with him. With what you used to be. For this.
“Fuck you.” It comes out of you no more than a whisper.
He leans in, eyes wide. “What? What the fuck did you just say?”
The empty house holds its breath.
“Fuck you!”
Your roar is guillotined by his hands around your throat. Spittle rains upon your face like tiny bombs as he squeezes. His words hard as his eyes as he roars in his own language. You don’t understand but know the meaning as the edges of your vision disintegrate like burning film.
The doorbell rings and he releases. Sunbeams the neighbor at the door. She flutters her eyes and touches her hair, “Would you mind moving your car so I can get into my drive?” she says.
“So, sorry. I couldn’t pull in because of the bins.” He eye-crinkles a smile as he brushes past the neighbor, touches her elbow to steady her as her knees go weak. Grins.
“Oh. My. God, you are so lucky,” the neighbor says.
“Yeah,” you say. “I know.”
He apologizes. You believe him because he never cries. Begs. He’ll never do it again. How could he? He leads you to your bed, lies you down. Strokes your hair where it meets your forehead just as you like it. You jerk from his hands. He cries harder. Kisses you. Kisses you everywhere. Tears a talisman.
“One more…c’mon, baby, just one more.” He grinds, angles his cock inside you just like he read online. “One more. One more.”
You’ve already had three orgasms. “I can’t…breathe. Stop. Please. I can’t. My heart.”
He stops. Pushes himself up above you. Shakes his head. “Who complains about too many orgasms?”
He’ll know if you fake it. You tried it once. Never again. You shut your eyes. Think. But all your true-blue fantasies don’t work anymore. Think. There is a scene in the movie, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Janet Leigh, human carnage in a waste-strewn alleyway, on a cum and junked-up mattress. Riding that train…
One more, baby…one more.
“Turn that music down.”
Thump. Thump. Thump goes the beat.
“Turn that fucking noise off!”
Thump. Thump. Thump goes the stomp of his feet up the stairs.
“Turn it off now or I’ll rip it out of the wall, wrap the cord round your neck and hang you by it.”
The teen’s voice breaks but he doesn’t back down. “Fuck off.”
In the kitchen, making Sunday roast you listen carefully but know better than to intervene, until…
“WHAT DID YOU FUCKING SAY TO ME?”
The spatula drops from your good hand, topples to the floor as you turn, race past the one chair, the cracked floor tiles, broken banister, smashed picture frames, mangled rocking chair, kicked-in door and he’s got your teen in a strangle-hold on the floor and is punching him.
“STOP IT. YOU’LL KILL HIM! STOP!”
The sea glistens like God pissed diamonds from the sky. A wide, concrete waterfront stretches along the shore and steps down to the water. Haunting music fills the air. He shows you the holes in the steps that comprise the sea organ. Tells you the water is a musician without any score. You lay back and listen. His hand stretches to yours and takes it. You close your eyes.
As night falls and stars fill the air, he pulls you up and leads you to a circle of lights which plays across a platform. Pulls you into his strong arms and you dance. His sun-warm cheek on yours, lips trembling with denial of a desire impossible to contain on such a night. He kisses you that first time and your world stops, and in that moment, a bomb of happiness bursts within you.
And the stars begin to fall.
“Mom? Mom? Go. Go, mom, go.” Your teen screams in the seat next to you while your youngest sobs behind you. You tear your eyes from your husband’s as he pounds on the bonnet of the car, his fists mortar shells on your marriage.
You hit reverse and the tires spin on gravel, leaving him behind in a trail of dust.
Barbara Byar is a working-class, hearing-impaired American writer living in Ireland for over 25 years. Her critically acclaimed, collection of stories: Some Days Are Better Than Ours (Reflex Press) was short-listed for the Saboteur Awards. Her short fiction has been published and prize-listed widely. She was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Irish Short Story of the Year in 2023 and longlisted in 2021. A recipient of an Irish Arts Council Literature Bursary and an Agility Award, she is a previous Novel Fair winner. Barbara is a Fiction Editor at Variant Literature and Editor of MOTEL from Cowboy Jamboree Press. She is currently writing a novel. Her writing can be found at: