Pivotal moments that change the course of your life. We all have them. I’ve had way too many. This is one of the biggies...
Reversing down the driveway of the cottage my husband and I had moved into only days before, I gripped the steering wheel and fought the heaviness in my heart.
I loved my husband. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to.
He could return at any moment. If he did, he’d most likely kill me. Since moving into the house, I’d pretended everything was fine. But as I unpacked, I also repacked. If he’d known what I was doing, I might not be alive now to tell my story.
I had to get out of town, and quick.
The plan that had evolved over the past few days was now in motion. There was no turning back. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach.
Early that morning, my husband had left for a tennis tournament in Brewarrina, the closest town to Bourke, the tiny outback town in New South Wales where we’d lived for the past year. Brewarrina was an hour’s drive away. Not far enough.
With our three daughters, aged five, two, and three months, I would drive an hour and a half in the opposite direction to the town of Cobar, ditch the car in a derelict barn, and then take the twelve-hour bus ride to Adelaide. That was leg one. If we made it there without him finding us, we’d be on our way to safety, and a new life without him.
But our old Holden station wagon was well-known in Bourke, and any number of my husband’s friends could see us driving out of town. There were no alternative routes. At least not one an old car like ours could take. I prayed no one would notice.
Could I pull this off? For my three daughters, I had to. If we stayed, we were in danger. Each day, he grew more volatile and unpredictable. I feared for my life.
As I pulled away from the house, I brushed tears from my eyes. I grieved for him. He was losing not only his wife, but his three little girls. But I was doing the right thing. He’d had so many chances to fix his alcohol and drug problems, but each time he drifted back to his old ways. I’d already left four times. This time I couldn’t go back.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. My throat tightened. For the sake of the girls, I had to pull myself together. How could we make it to the other side of the country if their mother was a blubbering mess? I had to be strong.
I dried my tears and drove through town, hands fixed so tightly to the steering wheel my knuckles were white. It was the right thing to do, although it went against every grain of my being. Marriage was for life. Ordained by God. Until death do us part. The problem was, my death could come prematurely if I stayed.
He wouldn’t mean to kill me. It would happen in a drunken rage, but it could happen at any time.
I’d done everything possible to avoid this moment, but now I had no choice.
Fleeing across the country and going into hiding to protect my own life and that of my three young daughters, one of them still a babe in arms, was the only option.
