Escaping the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

boys began to be a major event in my life. Every street or road I went down, I expected to see Bill sitting there in his car with the door readily open, casually waiting for my arrival. In my mind I could see him clearly with a confident look on his face. This look registered with me; it was a look that meant he knew that I would automatically get in the car with him and allow him to drive me somewhere. A somewhere where he would be undisturbed. It was an expression on his face I’d seen many years before, on each occasion that he had called for me when I lived at home.
I knew I was being stupid. I knew there was no way he could get hold of me because he didn’t know my address or where I lived. I also knew that he wouldn’t go to see Dad again and try to wheedle the information about where I was out of him. Mum and Dad had divorced, soBill couldn’t use the excuse that he had just popped in to see Mum.
It seemed that I was at a crossroads again, and I had to make a choice. Do I continue with this silent sin, a sin I felt I was committing? Or do I speak out and try to put my chequered, despairing, sordid past into context? (Not that that would be an easy option.) Or should I just try to ignore it? Simply ignore Bill, the dreams and the past. Ignore it all. Hoping that it would bury itself underneath the Sahara or the pyramids in Egypt.
I don’t know why I had asked myself such insignificant questions when I already knew the answers. Looking back, I realise that my next move was perhaps the only move I had available to make. It was a decision for action that I took quickly; if I had considered it for a while, taken time to think my actions through, I would still be sitting here caught in the nightmare of bad dreams and a damaged past. I was a woman who had been robbed of her childhood, and the thieves were getting away with the wicked act of stealing something so precious.
With no one knowing.
And no one caring.
I would have become just another unknown statistic.
Later that morning I began a journey that would take nine years to really begin, and sixteen years to complete. This journey would be like no other I had ever taken. It would bring heartache but eventually, I hoped, as the journey ended, there would be peace. And so the next day, as Sam left for work, I began the first faltering steps thatwould take me along this winding, uneven, bumpy path I had now chosen with such nervous trepidation.
As usual I took the older boys to school and dropped William off at playgroup. Once back home I rang my doctor to see if I could get an appointment to see him that morning. I was lucky that there happened to be a slot free at 10.15. As I finished the phone call, I looked at the clock: 9.10. I had fifty minutes to spare. I quickly ran upstairs and stripped the boys’ beds and put fresh bedding on them. I carried the dirty linen downstairs and put one lot of bedding in the washing machine before I left the house. Once I was home again I’d put the next load in and hang the first lot out to dry.
It took me fifteen minutes to walk through the estate, along the park path and down to the clinic. I felt relieved that it was a nice dry day and the sun was comfortingly warm as it shone on my face. It gave me hope, even though I felt I was about to fall down and crumble into millions of tiny pieces that would have no chance of ever putting themselves back together again. Once in the doctors’ waiting room I sat waiting to see Dr Tranor. The surgery was full and I felt as if all the eyes that had looked up at me as I entered the building knew the secrets I was hiding. It was as if those neon lights that were on my forehead years before, were now flashing brighter than ever. As usual Dr Tranor’s surgery was running a little late so I had to wait an extra ten minutes past my appointment time. I remember how very apprehensive I felt. It was as if I was going to talk to him for the first time.
Every second that ticked by on the big, white,