July 6<sup>th</sup>, 2002
Sara Madden sat on the hillside looking over the city, it was just six in the evening, but because of the black storm clouds forming, it was already getting dark. The temperature had quickly dropped twenty degrees as the storm rapidly moved into the area, and the lights from downtown Kansas City began to light the sky as darkness descended on the city. This was her favorite spot in the whole city, not only could she see the lights of downtown from here, but she could also watch airplanes as they landed at the Kansas City Downtown Airport.
As a young girl, her whole family would come here to watch planes land. Memories of her parents and brothers, spending hours together in this same place, brought tears to her eyes. They are all deceased now. They died in a car accident several years ago and Sara would be dead as well, if she had been with them on that terrible day.
Sara had been sitting here for about hour thinking about her marriage to Paul, who had been so romantic while they dated. Sometimes bring her flowers, or small little gifts, and other times he would just write her a love letter. She never saw him get angry, no matter what stimulating incident arose.
They dated for about nine months before Paul proposed to her. On the night he asked her to marry him, he took her out for a romantic dinner and movie, and while they sat in this exact spot, he popped the question. Sara was ecstatic and could still remember the butterflies that flew around in her belly when he had asked her, as she had been waiting for his proposal for months. They decided on a short engagement, making their wedding date the same as their first date, March 7.
They were trying to spend as little as possible on the wedding so they could save up for a house. Sara found a formal at a used clothes store, Paul borrowed a suit from his brother, and they tied the knot at the home of a Justice of the Peace. Paul’s father and brother were the only guests present, and his brother took pictures of the ceremony for them. Sara thought the wedding was a depressing affair, even though it was her own wedding ceremony.
They moved in with his father, another money saving idea of Paul’s. Sara figured it was for a different reason, as she did all the housework, the cooking, and the laundry. The men were too busy drinking their beer and watching football, one game after the other, to help with women’s work as they call it. After nine months of this living arrangement, and, of course, with Sara working a second job, they finally had enough money for a down payment on a small older house.
Paul was too busy drinking with his father to help Sara look for their new home. She felt the real reason Paul didn’t help her look was that he really didn’t want to move from his father’s home. Sara made sure the house was as far from her father-in-law as possible, and soon she found a cute two-bedroom house, a perfect starter home for them on the other side of the city, about 20 miles away from Paul’s father, and the price of the house was low enough that she could give up her second job. As soon as they received possession of the house, they began moving in, which didn’t take them long, because they didn’t have much in the way of furniture yet, as they had been waiting to buy their furniture after they got a house.
It was after their move into the new house, Sara realized that Paul had a drinking problem, and began being abusive to Sara. It was as if he had been on good behavior just while they were living with his father. At first, most of his attacks were verbal. Mostly he called her nasty names and telling her everything wrong in his life was her fault. Paul thought she couldn’t do anything right. He had become physically abusive to her just this past year. He was drinking even more now, and he almost lost his job a couple of times because he had gone to work drunk.
The day after he was abusive to her, Paul would always tell Sara he was sorry and promised never to hurt her again, but he would always break his promise to her the next time he got angry with her. Sometimes months would go by before there would be any trouble, but eventually, the attacks always came again.
The time before last, he gave her a black eye, bruises all over her body, and a broken arm. She was taking night classes at the nearby college, and luckily for her, she was right-handed, as he had broken her left arm, as she couldn’t write anything legible with her left hand at all.
Her four friends told her to divorce Paul and get on with her life, as she didn’t have to put up with abuse in her marriage. The women met a few years ago while taking the same accounting class at the nearby college, where their teacher would give take home worksheets and tests, and they would all meet at the library to work together on these projects. The four young women became close during this time, their ages ranged from 20 to 32, but the age difference didn’t matter to them, even though they did mother Brianne, the youngest after her mother died. They continued to see each other, meeting at least once a month for dinner to catch up on each other’s lives.
Sara and Kayla both were working on their Accounting Degrees, as because of financial reasons they hadn’t gone to college right after finishing high school, so they had gotten a later start on their degrees than the other friends had.
Kayla wanted to quit school after her husband’s death last year, but the other three friends talked her into continuing with her education. Kayla now had a new boyfriend, the women hadn’t met him yet, but Kayla would grin from ear to ear whenever she would talk about him.
Maggie recently graduated with her Management Degree, and she too almost quit school as a few months ago, her husband had passed away as well. It has been hard on her to lose him but was harder now as the wealthy in-laws were giving her legal trouble by trying to get custody of her son.
Brianne was working on her teaching degree and would be graduating soon. Both of her parents were dead now, dying within a few months of each other. She lived with her sister and their stepfather, who her mother had married shortly before her death because of some unknown reasons.
The stepfather, Scott, wasn’t a likable person, and both girls took a disliked of him from the start of their mother dating him. Brianne and her sister, Amy, thought he would disappear after their mother’s funeral, but for some strange reason he received legal control of both girls and was still living in their home.
For Sara, the ending of her marriage started six months ago when she came home from class and realize that Paul had been drinking. When he started yelling at her, she knew there was going to be trouble.
“Where is my dinner, bitch? Why in the hell isn’t on the table yet? Where have you been?” He grabbed her right arm, wrapping his fingers tightly around her wrist. “Answer me woman!”
“Paul, today is Wednesday, I was at school.” She tried to break loose of his iron tight grip, but he wouldn’t let go. “Paul, you are hurting me.”
“I’ll do more than just hurt you this time, you worthless piece of trash.” He quickly started dragging her towards the sink, her eyes grew wide when she saw him moving in the direction of the large butcher knife lying in the drainer.
Before Sara could stop him, he grabbed the knife with his free hand, and she watched in horror as he brought it straight for her body. Sara began pulling with all her might to get away from him, afraid Paul was going to kill her this time. So scared that she picked up the first object within her reach, which just happened to be the iron skillet off the stove.
She clutched with her left hand, almost dropping it as the weight of the skillet pulled on her arm. Knowing her life depended on what she did next, she brought the skillet up and hit him in the head with as much strength as she could with her weaker arm.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The force was hard enough to knocked Paul unconscious, which instantly made his grip go slack as he fell to the floor. At first, Sara was afraid she had killed him, and was scared she would go to prison for accidentally murdering her abusive husband.
She sighed with relief when she saw his body slightly move. Good, he wasn’t dead, not yet, anyway. If he should ever try to hurt her again, he might not be so lucky the next time, or maybe next time he would succeed in hurting or killing her. A neighbor must have heard the argument and called 911, because the police arrived within minutes of the incident, and the paramedics arrived a few minutes after the police. The paramedics told her, Paul would have a terrible headache when he woke, and would be surprised to wake at the hospital. If she pressed charges, he would have medical treatment and would go to jail after he recuperated.
She had been praying to God, asking Him what she should do, and this last attack was his answer. He was telling her to get out of this marriage while she still could. She hadn’t ever pressed charges against him before, but this time had been different, as he would have killed her tonight if she hadn’t protected herself.
Leaving Paul was the only way for her to stop the abuse, and not only did Sara file assault with the intent to kill charges against him, she also filed for a divorce. She just couldn’t live this way anymore, wondering if the next time he would succeed in his attempt to kill her. Paul agreed to the divorce, if she would drop all the charges, which surprised her, as he was always so controlling of her. He wouldn’t even letting her go to a Tupperware party without him, and who would want their husband along at one of those affairs?
He also agreed to sell the house and give her all the profits, which was only right, as it had been her who paid for the down payment as well as all the payments for the house. They had lived in the house for five of the six years of their marriage so Sara would have a nice nest egg. At least, they didn’t have children to fight over because they had decided at the beginning of their marriage to wait to have children until they were financially ready. As Paul became more abusive, Sara decided never to have children with him, afraid of what Paul might do to an innocent baby when he was angry.
The lawyer called her this morning to tell her that the divorce was final, and she was a free woman, which was a good thing, as she was expecting a baby from a quickie one night with Paul. After she and Paul had signed all the paperwork from the sale of their home, Paul decided to celebrate with a bottle of champagne, which turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made.
Their sex life was the only good part of their marriage, if there was even a good part to it. Unfortunately, they both drank too much and ended in bed together and birth control wasn’t on either of their minds. Since Sara wasn’t sexually active anymore, she had quit taking the pill and Paul just assumed that she was protected. Sara left the next morning before Paul woke up, hoping he wouldn’t or couldn’t remember the previous night’s activity.
That night was over four months ago, and she hadn’t heard from him since that night, so she just assume he hadn’t a memory of it, which was good as she found out a month after that night that she was pregnant. Sara made a doctor appointment as soon as she had missed her period, the doctor told her the baby was due in late November.
Yesterday she was sure she felt some little movement, but she wasn’t sure if she had, or maybe it had simply been just her stomach growling. Some nights she would stretch in her sleep, which would cause her legs to cramp and then she would spend the rest of the night crying herself back to sleep. She cried not only because of the pain, but because she was lonely and want someone to hold her. She felt a deep sense of loss of being on her own, but wasn’t sorry she left Paul, but she wanted someone special in her life.
She wanted someone to be with her to experience all these wonderful changes her body was going through, someone to be with her during the miracle of birth. Sometimes she would call one of her friends, but they were all busy with their own lives and they had their own problems to deal with, which didn’t leave much time for her. She couldn’t watch romantic movies anymore without crying through most of the movie.
During her previous doctor’s appointment, she heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time, a warm gentle radiance of love crept through her at the swooshing sound of the heartbeat, which sounded more like a washing machine to her than a human heart. At her next appointment, she is going to have a sonogram, hoping to find out if she was going to have a little girl or not. It amazed her how technology had advance in the medical world over the last few decades, so much that she would know the baby’s sex before it was born.
She was excited about the baby, but sheer black fright swept through her when she thought of what Paul might do to her or the baby if he found out she was pregnant and hadn’t told him. She knew she had to get as far as possible away from her ex-husband and moving out of this city was the only way she knew how to be safe from him.
She started searching for a new job in other states and just last week had found a job in Denver. Sara’s friends gave her a great going away party last night, and there had been buckets of tears, and they all promised to write to her. They also promised to have at least one retreat a year so they could get together for old time sake.
She was leaving tonight and had just about an hour left before it was time to go to the airport. Sara felt relaxed as she watched the lights of small planes as they flew in and out of the Downtown Airport. She was surprised when she noticed that one set of lights coming in was much brighter than the others, it was also moving faster and seemed to be headed straight for her instead of the airport.
She was transfixed on the brilliant glare and confused that there didn’t seem to be any sound coming from it that usually went with an ordinary airplane. Then the plane stopped and hovered a short distance from her, just like a helicopter would.
“How strange,” she thought. Before she could think any more about it, she heard a rustling sound behind her and quickly turned her head and gasped, “Oh, no!”
There stood Paul, with what light was left; she could make out the vicious look he had on his face. If looks could kill, Sara would be dead by now. She wavered, trying to comprehend what to do, as she quickly put her hands on her tummy, as if to protect her unborn baby.
“Paul, you surprised me. What are you doing here?” She tried to remain calm, but something wasn’t right. Why was he here? How did he know she would be here this late in the evening?
“Sara, we need to talk,” he said with great emphasis.
She could hear the anger in his voice but couldn’t seem to make her body move. She suddenly felt weak and vulnerable in the face of his anger as Paul started walking to where she sat on the hill.
He stopped just a few inches from her, and before she knew what was happening, he quickly grabbed her arm, his fingers biting deeply into her arm, roughly pulling her to her feet. He quietly pulled a gun out of his coat pocket and brought it up to Sara’s head.
She could feel the cold steel of the gun pressed against her temple.
“Sara, I have been everywhere looking for you. You should have told me about the baby.”
“Baby?” she muttered.
“I ran into a nurse from the clinic today and she congratulated me on the addition to our family. You are coming with me now and in the morning, we will start the process of getting remarried, and be a real family.” He seemed very pleased with himself.
Sara suddenly felt nauseous because of the fear that was knotted inside of her. “Paul, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the baby, but the reason I didn’t tell you is,” she paused for a split second, “because this isn’t your baby. I had an affair with a man I met after we broke up.” She muttered hastily in a small timid voice, fighting hard against the tears that threatened to appear. She had come so far in getting away from this madman, as she wasn’t about to go back to him and have a repeat of the life, she had with him before.
She prayed he would believe her lie, because if he didn’t, she was a goner. She could feel sweat starting to form on the palms of her hands and her stomach clenched tightly with fear. There wasn’t any way she would remarry this man and subject an innocent baby to a life of hell with him as their father. “I would rather let him kill me first before I’ll ever marry him again.” she thought to herself.
Her comment seemed to amuse him, smiling a smug grin, he cocked the gun suddenly, as if he planned to shoot her if she didn’t agree to his plan. “Sara, you don’t think I would fall for that line, I know you better that. You were a virgin on our wedding night, and I know you’ve never been with another man since our wedding day.” He smiled a conceited grin at her, as if he knew for sure she was lying to him.
“Well, you''re wrong. I’ve changed!” Sara exclaimed, lifting her chin, meeting his cold glare straight on.
Paul laughed. “Yeah right.” He tightened his grip even more on her arm.
Now she knew what it felt like to be petrified with fright. “Paul, let go, you’re hurting me.”
“No, you’ll never get away from me again.” He laughed. His laugh was filled with anger and the promise of the pain he would inflect on her. “Never.”
The sound of his laugh sent chills down Sara’s spine and was overcome with the nauseating feeling of despair. “Someone, please help me!” she screamed as loud as she could.
He laughed, “There isn’t any one here to hear you, but me. No one is going to help you.”
Suddenly everything changed in a split of a second. Just as Paul jerked her arm to bring her closer to him, the night suddenly became filled with a blinding light. Sara screamed and pulled away from Paul the best she could during the confusion. She heard the gun go off, then felt the bullet slightly graze her head. She felt a sharp pain at her temple and then a warm sensation of blood oozing from the right side of her head just before she slumped to the ground.