Chapter
2
Exile
in Gibbstown
If you don't know
where you are going, any road will get you there.-
Lewis Carroll
My mother
groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt. - William
Blake
The bed was hard, the spread pocked with
cigarette burns, and probably as disgusting as the rest of the room. It smelled of smoke, mold, and a hint of pet
urine. Marie stared up the at the water
damaged ceiling. A stain, vaguely round
but with tentacles stretching out and away, with flecks of mold scattered
throughout, like some abstract art of the Impressionists. The fullness of what she had done was
starting to settle upon her mind. She
had done it. She had escaped. Escaped from everything and everybody she had
ever loved. Left her elderly father to
take care of himself and run the business.
Hopefully, Holly, the office manager could step up and help at work, and
maybe Karen, Marie’s sister would look after dad here and there. And, of course, Roger.
Roger was the reason for all of it. They had been married for eighteen years. Most of them loving, carefree days, spent
melting into each other. They had built
a life together. Though, in retrospect,
Marie realized that she had done most of the heavy lifting in that area. They had lived with her father after getting
married, promising to save up for a house of their own someday. But, with Roger, that was never going to
happen. To him, saving had no meaning,
no purpose. Money was spent to be spent
as quickly as possible. That was always
his way, even before things started to change.
Roger could not keep a job. He
worked a lot of minimum wage jobs, flipping burgers, busing tables, washing
dishes, bouncing at clubs. Eventually
Marie got him a job where she worked, at her dad’s company. A family business started by her dad, uncle,
and grandfather. He, of course, quickly
took advantage of that situation…dropping his hours unilaterally to just two or
three days a week. Work was not
something that Roger enjoyed doing.
Love was never the problem. When Roger was in a good mood, he was loving
and devoted,. And if, he let the house
chores slide…well, Marie would overlook it…because…well, because he was her
Roger, her everything. So, she would get
home from working ten hours and clean up a little, do the dishes, and make
dinner. It’s not that Roger couldn’t
cook. Once or twice a year, he would
make his famous lasagna or one of his other specialties. And that was enough. He was an artist after all; a poet, and one
doesn’t want to break the flow of creativity by making a poet do menial labor. He had once had one of his poems published in
a prestigious literary journal, though that was before they were married.
It would have been bad enough if that was
all there was to it, but there was more.
Marie probably could have tried to manage to maintain their status quo,
but then things changed. Looking back,
she tried to pinpoint when things turned sour.
It was when Roger got sick. Yeah,
that’s when it was. She knew it in her
heart when she looked at his discharge papers.
Roger had been diagnosed as bi-polar II
about ten years ago. Aside from his
manic periods, his depressive periods, and his road rage, his meds kept him balanced
and functional. Well, as functional as
Roger got. Sure, one could consider his
behavior as abusive…he would rage at her, belittle her, get mad if she talked
to her friends or even her family. She
had left her band where she played guitar to make him happy. Roger wanted Marie
for himself. And she was his wife, so
she conceded her liberty, social connections, and creative expression. She felt it was her duty. Roger was sick. Roger couldn’t help it. Roger was Roger; her Roger.
Her heart fluttered as she stood by his
bedside at the hospital, staring at disbelief at the words typed neatly on the
discharge form, the part which detailed his medication schedule: three
words. Three words that deep inside her
heart, raised a quiet alarm, a dread that her world was going to fall apart.
“Klonopan—As needed”
That was the end of her life and part of
her knew it.
Roger probably hadn’t even noticed the word
yet. But he would. She knew would. He was just happy to be feeling better and
leaving that dreadful place. It was not
place for a gentle artist’s spirit to reside, he said. But the words were there. And they spelled the end of her world, though
she quickly fought those feelings, smiled broadly and with love, and squashed
his hand. Roger was coming home.
Klonopan was Roger’s tranquilizer, or one
of them. He had been taking it twice a
day, once in the morning and once at night for the last three years. It really seemed to bring out the good Roger
more often than not. The first month
everything was fine, he was so happy to be home, feeling better, and putting
distance behind his health scare. It was
like old times. The old Roger, the one
she fell in love with was there, smiling, caring, loving. Of course, he stretched his health leave from
work out well beyond his expected return.
But that was Roger. He was often
sitting contemplatively at his desk, scratching a few lines here and there of
poetry. Sometimes, he would write a poem
about her, and her emotions soared to elation at his words. He was gifted. He was her Roger.
The second month, Roger changed.
She was moving clothes from the washer to
the dryer when she first met the new Roger.
“I’m fucking hungry. When are you going to make my damned lunch?”
Those were the new Roger’s first words to
her. His voice was aggressive, and full
of barely repressed anger. Behind his
blue eyes, seething rage was swirling in his soul. She didn’t recognize the man she was married
to. His fists were clinched as though ready
for a street brawl. The veins in his
temples bulged. He was clearly manic.
Not his usual manic state that Marie was used to. This was heightened
beyond anything she had seen.
She gulped down the lump in her throat,
“Darling, you seem a dash manicky, you might want to take your trancs.” The
timidity in her voice surprised her.
Part of her knew this moment was coming, like when you can feel a storm
approach from the pains in your body.
Like when you hear a distance siren coming ever closer. Now, the moment was here.
“Yeah, I’m not taking that shit anymore,
the doctors at the hospital said I don’t have to.”
There it was. She just stood there holding the wet clothes,
in a horrid shock that ripped through her being. The words, “Klonopan-as needed” flashed once
again across her memory. This was the
first harvest of those words, and she knew exactly what would come next. And it did.
Two weeks later Roger, finally back at
work, came raging into her office.
“Who were you talking to last night after I
went to bed?” This time, his face was
contorted, his brows knit was suspicion.
She smiled in an attempt to diffuse the
situation. “No one, Darling, remember, I
fell asleep before you did?” That was
the truth.
“Yeah, but I heard you on the phone.”
Now he was shouting at her.
“You lying fucking whore. How fucking dare you?”
He pulled his wedding ring off and threw it
at her. Marie felt a sting on her cheek
as the golden band hit her square in the face.
It was the first act of violence that Roger had unleashed upon her since
they had met all those years ago.
“I want a fucking divorce, you cheating
bitch”. He screamed at the top of his lungs.
That was all. He turned away from her and stormed out of
the building.
She was dumbfounded. She was lost.
She assumed he had discontinued another medicine of psychiatric
nature. Yeah, she was sure of it. After a few moments of stunned silence Marie
broke down into tears.
And so it went for the next two
months: paranoid ravings, divorce threats,
the snooping into her emails and web forum conversations, accusations, baseless,
but not to Roger. They were as real as
the Sun or Moon to him, as the Earth and Sky, and just as primordial. Marie would try; oh she would try and assuage
his awful moods. Sometimes it worked and
sometimes it didn’t. Something had to
break, or she was.
Every morning, she woke up to her nightmare
saying, “I wish I were dead. I wish I
were dead.”
It became her mantra, always there in the
back of her mind. This was her
life. This was her destiny.
At one point, she had pointed out to Roger
that his behavior was bordering on abuse.
Bordering, she chuckled grimly to herself. Of course, that was all Roger needed. He spent the week after that telling everyone
who would listen, how Marie was being terribly abusive to him. She got the cold looks from the grocery
clerks at the store, sideways glances from postal employees. Roger’s job had become to slander her. He no longer went to work, of course, nor did
he work on his poetry. He simply sat and
thought and thought, winding himself up, considering the many ways that Marie
was destroying his life.
“I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead.”
It all came to a head two weeks ago. They were talking in bed. Roger was once again monopolizing the
conversation and had turned their light-hearted talk about Batman to a diatribe
on Roger’s upbringing, as was now his near constant habit. It always went back to his childhood, his
uncaring mother, his absent father, his abusive grandmother. Marie tried to let him go on, listening as
patiently as she could to his rant. But
she made the mistake of interrupting him.
“You really, need to find a way to get past
that, babe,” Marie suggested.
“Don’t interrupt me!” His tone went from
woe is me to rage in a mere second.
“You’re always fucking interrupting me!”
She was shocked.
“I’m sorry …” she offered meekly. But she wasn’t. And she knew she had to try one more
time. She had tried a hundred times in
the last month, each time only to be indignantly rejected by her husband. But she had to try. She couldn’t live like this much longer.
“Are you sure it wouldn’t be a bad idea to
just take a Klonopan to calm youself down a little?”
And that’s when it happened. Without hesitation, he swung his arm around
and hit her right in the face. Marie was
in shock as Roger shouted at her.
“Don’t you ever say that to me again, you
fucking bitch!”
There it was. And she swore silently to herself it would
never happen again. Right then, she
decided that she wanted to live.
And there she was staring at the water and
mold stain on the ceiling, looking at the patterns as though she were a child
watching the clouds and seeing dragons and sailing ships and funny looking
people in their billowy, mutable shapes.
There remained the question of what to do
now. Marie had not planned her escape
out that far. She had been afraid to
search for hotels in the area on her computer; she was terrified of giving any
clues to her whereabouts. She talked to
no one. Not her sister. Not her father. Not her mother. Not her old band mates. Roger would doubtlessly make inquiries of
each. She could not risk his even
gleaning any idea of where she might go.
The best way to achieve this goal, she concluded was to tell no one that
she planned on leaving, and further, to have no plan in place until she was out
of her nightmare situation.
She rolled off the filthy comforter, sat up
and stretched. She got up and set up her
laptop, finding an outlet and plugging it in.
She was booked at the hotel for three days. Today, she would relax, and consider her
position. Tomorrow she would sell her
guitars and Pop-Pop Brabant’s coin collection for additional funds, and make
her plans.
The whole world was open to her, within
reason. It wouldn’t be long before her
money ran out, and she would need another source of income…but for now…she
should be okay. She knew that somehow,
she had to recover from her co-dependency and her dark weariness. She had to find out exactly who Marie
Brabant was, what she wanted from life.
What she wanted. That’s not
something she had ever even considered as possible. But’ now, despite being a fugitive of her mad
husband, she was free. Free from all
obligations, but to herself. A bang of
guilt grabbed her. Was she just being
selfish? How would her dad manage? How about Roger? No, fuck Roger, she thought. Fuck him.
“The world is my oyster, or some shit,” she
mused.
She hit the power button on the computer
and it whirled, buzzed and chirped to life.
She opened up her web browser and then stared for a half an hour at the
patiently waiting, blinking curser on the search line. She had absolutely no idea as to what to look
up. How does one figure out what to do
with the rest of one’s life, life that for most of the last twenty years had
been about living for others? Who is
Marie Brabant and what does Marie Brabant want?
She knew she needed to get away from New
Jersey, maybe leave the country.
How does one even figure this stuff
out? Maybe, you start at the beginning;
as far back as you can and try again?
What whims or childhood fancies held any relevance now? Was she still that girl anyway? That girl who had always wanted to travel to France? That had been her dream when she was twelve
and a few years beyond, and the world seemed like an exciting and inviting
place. Before she convinced herself it
wasn’t; that being a rock-star guitar-goddess was the plan. And, then when the harsh reality of that
lifestyle and economics crashed down on her and smothered that dream too, to
work then for the family business, helping dad, and then Roger. Until there was nothing really left of that
girl. That innocent, not yet jaded kid,
whose perky smile and yearning optimism defined her. Maybe she was that girl.
Once upon a time, she prepared for that
dream. She began teaching herself French
at fourteen. Why France? That’s where her family came from. Her people.
Her ancestry read like a history of the French people. She was a daughter of Normans, of Gauls, of
Franks, of Cathars and Occitans, of Merovingians, and Troubadours. And though her family came from all over
France, North, South, East and West, it was the idyllic South of France where
her childhood daydreams lingered.
Her fingers typed the words, “Retreats
South of France” into the waiting search engine. In a moment the results splashed onto her
screen. Links to writers retreats, spa
retreats, religious retreats. She wasn’t
a writer. She didn’t like spas. And she wasn’t religious. Besides, they were all too expensive. Marie spent hours pouring over every
link. Some of the retreats had barter or
partial barter positions available, and none of them really suited her. Then she saw a link that looked interesting,
finally on page 34 of the search results.
It was for a general barter retreat.
Well, not exactly. The place was
a retreat for physicists, but they had an opening for a barter position for
anyone interested in a retreat in a mountain village outside Carcassonne in the
Languedoc region of Southern France.
Three and a half days a week, the barter would keep house for the
physicists in residence, cook, clean, keep the gardens, and occasionally
assistant in the lab. The rest of the
time was yours, to relax and do with as you please. No prior experience was necessary the ad on
the link claimed. The pictures were
amazing, ancient stone buildings high in a tiny mountain village, roses,
lavender, ivy and grape vines crawling over the whole scene, exactly like she
pictured it as a young girl. She knew at
once that she was going to apply for the position.
She clicked on the apply button with a rush
of energy and excitement running through her.
She forgot the complete hole of a room she was in. She forgot about work. She even forgot about Roger.
“Applying to Chateau de Pays m des
Merveilles for Barter Retreat.” Her
French was failing her. That little girl
that had studied so hard, the high school student who had only taken two years
of French before deciding she was going to be a rock star, she was gone. At least her knowledge of French was gone. She wondered what the name meant, but bothered
no more with it. She delved into the
application requirements.
“Applicants must submit the following in an
email:
“1. Why you wish to come to Chateau de Pays
m des Merveilles.
“2. A brief biographical essay, including
hobbies and interests.
“3. A brief essay on any interest you may
or may not have in theoretical physics (optional)
“4. The names, birthdates, and birthplaces
of your parents (required) and grandparents (optional)
“5. Amount of time you wish to spend at
Chateau de Pays m des Merveilles.
“6. Please state whether or not you have
ever had a pet cat.
“Please place Application for Barter
Retreat on the Subject line, and be patient.
We only have two spots open at this time. Applicants’ responses will be judged on their
merit. Thank you for your interest in
our retreat program. Note: We do not accept applications for Fellowships
for Theoretical Physicists at this time.”
Marie spent the next four hours writing
essays for the application. She couldn’t
figure out any possible reason why the names and birthplaces of her parents and
grandparents would be relevant, or her past pet history. But, she included that information
anyway. She had no interest in
theoretical physics so she left out the option.
She was sure that would sink her, but she didn’t want to lie. She carefully reviewed her work and pressed
“send.”
Copyright 2017 Diana Hignutt
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