Page 28 of The Other Woman

Both women claimed after that he’s nuts; they don’t know the half of it. He’s always buying me something, always rushing around like a chicken without a head, even though he’d hired every damn nanny in a ten-mile radius, it looked like.

I don’t think he calmed down until my first checkup and I got the all-clear. That’s when the madness left, I guess. Or it could be the fact that we found a routine that worked for all of us.

He was still salty with the mothers, who had taken to ignoring him, which was funny as hell. He lectured them that they didn’t know how hard childbirth was on a woman’s body because they told him it was okay for me to get up and move around more.

His idea was to walk me around the room at intervals, usually right after the babies had been fed. When they both reminded him that they, too, had given birth, he scoffed and said things were different back then.

His dad and mine had to sit him down and explain that he had lost his damn mind; he wasn’t having it. It all came out later that he was afraid of me feeling the way I did when I had Kevin and Sara. That I wasn’t being taken care of enough.

He'd read these stupid books that his mom burned after the second time he told her that I wasn’t to step foot out of the house until the babies were three months old. I’m not sure what book he read that in, but she’d had enough of his shit.

He vetted people before they were allowed to enter the house or get near me and the babies. People he had known for years. For some reason, they all came to the same consensus: he was nuts. He didn’t care.

With all of that being said. I was able to heal, had time to myself, and my mind was able to relax because Jacob was like Cerberus at the gates of Hades. He’s not crazy; he knew exactly what I needed even when I didn’t.

HOMEWRECKING SKANK

Iput the last bottle in the bag and sighed with relief. I looked around the almost abandoned parking lot just to be sure that I was indeed alone before pulling out and heading back to the office. I was so sure of myself that I no longer had sweaty palms or a racing heart.

Just a few short weeks ago, maybe a month and a half at most, when I first started plotting this, I thought I would die from a heart attack because I was so damn scared of being caught. I’ve been running all around our town and a few others on my lunch break so as not to be found out.

Now, I had finished the last of it, and there was no more fear, just a staunch determination to do what I needed to do for me. Doug had grown progressively worse over this time, and I came to the realization that if I didn’t get out, he was going to kill me.

The beatings had grown in frequency, and every bit of his discontent was laid squarely at my door. He blamed me for everything that had gone wrong in his life. As if I, too hadn’t lost friends and family when I got with him.

I have no one to turn to now because he sold me a dream that I thought was going to be all worth it. I’ve lost my parents, who never agreed with the affair, and most of my friends, not that I had many to begin with. The people who were so much fun when he introduced me to them as a friend had all turned their backs on him and me as well.

So now I’m isolated from everyone and everything. My days are spent between home and work, with a few trips to the supermarket when needed, but that’s about it. At the time I came up with a plan, it was after another one of his rages.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, taking stock of the damage he’d done to my face and neck when he choked me and slapped me around, trying to navigate how I was going to cover them up the next day.

That’s when I realized he knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t need to cover them up because it was Friday, and there was no work the next day. I thought back over the last few months and realized that the worst of the beatings always happened on a Friday.

Monday to Thursday, it’s punches to the gut or a belt across my back and ass before the forced sex that is somehow the worst of the abuse. But every Friday, he goes for the face. Saturday, we’re back to more unwanted sex and punches to the ribs.

If I hated him before there are no words for what I felt when I finally saw the pattern. As if the physical abuse wasn’t enough, the things he said to break me down had done their job, and I felt like less than a shell of myself. Having people constantly reminding me that I was getting what I deserved doesn’t help.

It was his sisters who so callously said that to me. I thought that as women, they would have some empathy, but his mother refused to talk to me ever, and his sisters only hadn’t blocked me because they enjoyed knowing that I would see their updates on Rachel’s life and how it would make me feel.

So, it’s no surprise that when I called them pleading for help because of what their brother was doing, they laughed in my face and told me I was getting what I deserved and not to call them again. I think that’s the moment when I realized I had hit rock bottom.

As I stood in the mirror that night, something inside me broke. I let silent tears fall and burn the cuts on my face and my split lip as I told myself over and over again that I deserved better. That nothing I had done was deserving of this hell.

Doug was the one to blame. He’s the one who cheated on his wife, not me, so why should I be the one to suffer? They blame me; he blames me, but I refuse to continue blaming myself. So, I decided there and then that I was going to take my life into my own hands and rely only on myself.

I needed out of this marriage, but I’d be damned if I was going to support his whiskey habit on my dime. I have no doubt the slime would go after alimony since he hasn’t worked in a very long time, and I am the only breadwinner.

So, the answer was obvious. He needed to die. I knew from watching ID shows that I had to cover my ass if I didn’t want to get caught because I wasn’t about to give up one prison for another. I felt my first real excitement that night, to the point that I actually enjoyed sex that night.

I hit the ground running the next day, but first, I had to lay the groundwork. I needed a new email address and online identity that could not be traced back to me. For that, I visited the next town over for a few days, going to the library to use one of their computers to do the research I needed.

I then had to dive into the bowels of the dark web to get what I wanted, open a PO Box with a new name and the list goes on. I wasn’t doing anything suspicious in anyone’s eyes. I’d made up the story at the job about not feeling well and having to go for tests on my lunch break. Doug didn’t notice anything because he didn’t care.

My only issue was how I was going to get the thallium into his whisky. I’d gone with that particular poison because it was slow-acting according to dosage and could not be detected. It’s no longer sold in this country, but you can find what you need if you’re willing to pay the price.

Once the hard stuff was out of the way, I turned my attention to getting it into the bottle without being detected. I was going to add it to his food as well, but he drinks more than he eats, and I especially liked the idea of him drinking it while I was away at work, slowly killing himself. My hands are clean.

The problem about resealing the bottles was easily solved with a little research and a ten-dollar purchase from one of those low-end online stores that sell everything from sketchy home décor for two dollars a pop to; I’m sure, human organs. They’ve got to make money somewhere, and I’m sure it’s not hawking that trash they sell as clothes.

---