The Bequest

Dan had been watching the game with our little boy Benjy. As the excitement grew, the pace of drinking escalated. I started counting the bottles, steeling myself for the inevitable blow up.

“Get us a beer, Hon,” He shouted from the couch.

“OK, in a minute” I answered, fully intending to stretch out the time from request to fulfillment as long as I could. Ten minutes went by.

“Hon,” he insisted, "beer!” He barked the order cave- man style which could have been funny but wasn’t.

“I’m doing something in the kitchen,” I yelled back, avoiding.

He stormed into the room knocking the recipe book on the floor with one swipe of his powerful paw. Inside my mind I projected the next action hoping that I could prevent it, but it took too long for the message to get from brain to body. I watched in distorted imagery as his arm came forward, the elbow straightened out and the blow connected with my face. My mind didn´t even send the order to turn aside to prevent my face from taking the full impact of all that power. Like a tsunami, the fist hit me full force sweeping me from the kitchen stool to the floor, arms and legs splayed out like a rag doll.

“When I ask for a beer why don’t you just get me a fuckin’ beer? Why do you make it so hard?” He stood over me looking of all things, perplexed. I looked up at him from the blue haze of pain coming from my throbbing face. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Don’t fuckin’ cry, you know you deserved it. You pushed my buttons. Can’t get respect. I do everything. Damn family,” The words trailed off as he stepped over me and retreated to the living room.

I turned on my side and caught the trapped look of desperation on Benjy’s face as his Dad put his arm around him and turned him away from me and toward the TV.

I lay there for several minutes panting. I knew at that moment that we, our family, had navigated to a new space. A new reality. Nothing from this moment to a future whose course I couldn’t see or imagine would ever be the same.

I heard him screaming at the game. Nothing from Benjy. I turned all the way over on my side and got on all fours. My face throbbed but there were other pain synapses firing at different points all over me. I guess the ricocheting from stool to island to cabinets had left its hurt trail on my body. Same for my spirit. How would we ever come back from this?

Thinking back on that first time, how could I possibly have believed it would be different? Seven years later now and this pattern was fully established. It was always one beer too many and then, judgment suspended, he would lash out. Mercifully he never beat the children, although who knew what the consequences would be for Benjy and Emmy in later life. Suddenly, all of that changed.

"Hi honey, I'm home." Dan called from the front foyer. "Tough day. Get me a beer." He walked into the living room and turned on the TV. "I think I recorded the game from last night." He flipped through the list of recorded programs.

"Where is it?" His voice got louder.

"God damn it, where is it? What's all this crap clogging up the recorder?" He yelled these last words. I walked in front of him and tried to hand him the beer, hoping that would settle him down. That’s when his arm shot out and caught me on the side of the face. Did he slap me or just hit me? Doesn’t really matter, it sent me crashing across the room jettisoning the beer. I bounced off the wall and landed on my stomach on the ground. I was dazed from the shock and just lay there.

“Get the fuck up. It wasn’t such a big deal. You always make everything into a big deal. Gonna be a cry baby now?”

He leaped up then and grabbed me. He pulled me up by my hair using it to hold me steady while he punched me full in the face.

"Leave her alone!!" I heard Benjy's voice from outside of my fog.

"No Benjy, don't." I tried to yell but the words came out as barely whispers.

Benjy pushed Dan against the wall but the advantage was a momentary reprieve. I saw the silhouette of his fist outlined by the sun streaming through the window. It crashed into Benjy's face and he folded onto the floor.

"You fuckin' never touch me you piece of shit!! Dan deep red, face contorted, stood over Benjy with his fist threatening and his lower teeth bared like an attacking animal.

"This is between that bitch and me, You fuckin' stay out of it or I'll give you the beating you deserve. I'm your fuckin' father!!" Menacingly he pulled his fist back, but instead, stepped over Benjy and left the room. I rolled over on my side and crawled to the prostrate Benjy. I cradled him in my arms.

"My sweet hero, my sweet boy. You'll be all right." I smoothed his hair.

"I hate him. I hate him!!" Benjy said into my breast. With tears of frustration and in measured tones he said, "You have to do something, Mom. You have to stop this. He's going to kill us." He looked up at me through his swollen eye.

Emmy stood crying with her face buried in the doorjam. "Mommy I'm so scared." She faced me with tears tracking down her face.

"Come here honey," I said. "I will. I'll do something. We'll be together and we'll be safe." Emmy came down on the floor and joined the family hug with Benjy and me. At that moment I knew there was no hope. This is the first time he had gone after Benjy but I knew it would not be the last. Benjy was already fourteen and it wouldn't be long before two alpha bulls would be in the same house. At the least, the fights would escalate to a conclusion that would bring no peace for any of us.

I knew we had to escape; not so easy when your husband is a cop. Cops are a brotherhood. They circle the wagons and protect their own, no matter what he did. No matter the law. I would have to be doubly prepared. It wasn´t really an escape, it was a self-imposed witness protection plan. I had been hiding money from him for years. I had been researching where we might live without him. I had planned for new identities. But those plans were never really real, until now. Now I knew they had to be. Where could we live? How would we hide from him? Without the help of the federal government I would have to work out all of the details for myself. I couldn't just go to a shelter. He's a cop. He would find us.

I would hatch my plan and work it, step by step. There was so much to do, so many details. New identities. New home. New social security cards. New names. I didn´t know how I was going to do it but I had to; he left me no choice.

On the surface everything needed to look normal. Dan was always loving after these "episodes"---what a cover-up word--- and so he was during the next months. I was too. Everything was normal in our make-believe family. While the plan was being worked nothing could look different or unusual. I would be at work at my desk as always. Then, as so often in life, fate intervened in a totally unexpected way.

“Can you come into my office, Susan?” Jane was saying to me.

The tone was so serious that I was taken aback. Her job as the principal outfitted her to be perennially cheerful with students, parents and an assortment of bureaucrats. Why so serious? I went into her office closing the door behind me like everyone did. It really was the inner sanctum.

“Sit down please Susan,” she began. “Susan, I have something to discuss. It will come as a shock and it will begin a series of processes that will affect both of us.”

“Sounds scary, Jane.”I said instinctively pulling my sweater over my chest. I hoped she wasn't laying me off, I needed this job to escape.

“Oh I am making this so dramatic.” Jane said. “Let me just plow ahead. OK. I have been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.”

“Oh Jane, I am so sorry,” I said, tears leaping into my eyes. How could such a terrible thing happen to this good woman? I folded my hands into my lap and stayed speechless. What was there to say?

“Now listen to me carefully. No one is to know. I’ll be fine for two to three months. I’ll be having some pain relief medications but nothing else. Taking five months of chemotherapy to live for five months seems fruitless to me.” I made a movement like I was going to interrupt.

“No Susan. Please don’t make a case. I’ve decided. This is what I’m doing. I don’t want my last months on earth to be characterized by people with long faces and pity words coming up to me in grocery stores and church. I don’t want people looking at me and seeing cancer. I just don’t want it. I’ll get sick. I’ll get hospice. I’ll pass on.”

“Oh Jane, it’s so sad.”

“Yes, for me too. I was hoping for about forty more years but that’s not going to happen. I’ve had three days of self-pity and now I am used to the idea. That's settled. Now I want to talk to you about you.”

“Me?”

"Yes. You. You and I will have about two to three months to make the plan.”

“What plan?” I hadn't told her about the escape plan.

“Your escape plan.” She looked straight at me. What was she talking about it was my deepest secret.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. And I know. We have never been intimate, so to speak. We have kept a professional distance. But I have the utmost respect for you and I want to see that you have a good life.” I didn’t know what to say. Where was she going with this?

“I’m saying this. I’ve watched you for years, coming to work with black eyes and bruised arms barely covered up by makeup. I’ve signed medical claims for broken bones. There’s no secret here, Susan. Dan has been using you for a punching bag for some time now." I put my hand up to protest.

" No, no please don’t deny it." She waved my hand away. "I felt that it was a private matter between the two of you and that you would work it out. I’d be here to help in any way I could, should you want to discuss it or need me for anything else. I knew you were excavating your tunnel to freedom when you asked for the savings to be deposited in an account outside of town in your name only. Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong. But I didn’t want to involve you in my mess.”

“I know and you never did. But now I am asking to be invited into your mess. I want to be involved. It’s so difficult to escape from a violent husband. We have seen it over and over at the school here, haven’t we? How do women get away? How will you get away with two kids? From a cop?”

“Of course you're right, Jane, but I have to do it. I've been making the plan for some time. I still have things to work out but I’m progressing.”

“That’s where I come in. I’ve got time to help you. It will be the last thing that I ever do in my life and it is the last thing I want to do. It will be my supreme pleasure to help you and I will get the benefit of living on.”

“Jane, I'm sorry, I'm confused. What do you mean?”

“Susan, how do you and two kids just disappear when you carry Dan’s name? How do you get away from your husband the cop?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I figured that or else you would’ve been gone. A new place. A new identity. But how? We have electronic cages that contain us---paper trails made up of birth certificates and driver’s licenses and social security cards. How does a woman on the run get a new life?”
“I can actually answer that one. I could buy a social security card from the guys who supply the agriculture workers with fake ones.” I was proud of this idea, actually.

“Ok, Susan. You just don’t look like a Maria Teresa Gonzalez,” Jane laughed. I laughed too because of course it was so ludicrous. “You’re so right.”

“So here is the beginning of your great escape. I will be leaving this earth permanently and you will be leaving your life permanently. The difference is that I am making a final bequest to you. Firstly I have cashed in my life insurance and that is $300,000 which I will be giving you in cash.”

“No Jane I couldn’t take it.” It sounded like so much money at this moment.

“Don’t be absurd. Amy died years ago and there is no one else I want to leave it to. This bequest will make a new life for three people, what a wonderful gift for me.”

“Oh my god, I know I shouldn't take it, but for the kids, I will. Thank you so much.”

“You're more than welcome. I have known those kids before they were even born and it is wonderful for me to be able to help them. That is the easy part. The real bequest that I will give you is my life.” I looked confused.

“You are in need of a life now. I don’t need one anymore so I am bequeathing mine to you. My birth certificate. My social security card. You will be me. I am bequeathing you the best gift I can give you, a new life free from fear. I very carefully did not leave a will and my estate will be in probate for a very long time. I can figure out how to make it very complicated with the property in Mexico and the stocks and everything. Time will be on your side. No one will be looking for Jane Englewood when you leave Dan. They will be looking for Susan Ferrin and she will be the one who has died, not me. In a way I am leaving one life for three because sooner or later Dan will turn on Benjy or Emmy. While you think about that, here is one more present."

She handed me a totally chewed up laminated card. It was barely recognizable as a former driver's license.

"Pretty good, huh? For once I let Aida chew away to her heart's content."

"She did a great job." I fingered the puncture wounds that permeated the poor innocent license.

"You're going to need an excuse to get a new license in my name with your picture. There you have it." She made a flourish toward the card in my hand.

"No one would doubt I need a new license but they may want to see the ferocious animal that devastated it." I laughed at the picture of the blood hound on her desk.

"Yeah, not much left to save there." We laughed together then.

"We are officially in this together now, Susan. The plan has to be fool proof."

I left the office in a daze. I had been working on the plan, but she was right, I would never make it on my own. I needed help and this woman was there for me in a way I never imagined. My family was growing by one amazing woman.

“Honey there’s something I need to talk to you about.” A week later I started that conversation with him so innocently? I asked that question in the most non-threatening way.

“Yeah, is it ominous? I’m busy right now” he answered. “It’s a bit unfair to come to bed in a teddy or a cami or what do you call this?”

“A teddy.”

“Yeah teddy and go into a big discussion. Go on I’ll be here nibbling.”

“Well I know it’s Benjy’s little league tournament this weekend but I have to go to an all-day conference with Jane.”

“That’s OK you can come to the game at the breaks and lunch.”

“That’s the problem, I can’t, it’s all the way in the Western part of the state.”

“Uh oh, bad for Benjy.”

“Do you think you could make it a big deal? A Special Day with Dad kind of thing?”

“I think that will work, c’mere you.”

I couldn’t believe that he had agreed to that. He didn’t even ask a lot of questions so I didn’t have to get myself caught in a network of lies.

On the day itself I slipped easily out of the house carrying the precious flash drive in my purse. I drove east for two hours.

When I pulled up to the parking lot I saw the single car parked in the spot labeled “Principal.”

She was standing there, a solid, small woman. Her body looked to be covered with concentric rings like the Michelin man. Perfect chords of fat encircled her waist and her thighs and even decorated her neck. All of this was topped by a round albino moon pie face, circular glasses and ringlets of curls. She was a round woman. A benevolent smile rested on her face.

“Is it Susan?”

“Yes. Mrs. Farthington. So nice to meet you. Jane has told me so much about you.”

“She’s a wonder, dear; I’ve known her for years. We principals stick together. Better park your car alongside the building so it can’t be seen from the road, dear, we don’t want to take any chances. Then come inside, second door on the right and I’ll be waiting for you.”

I did as I was told, parked the car and found her office. As I entered I stepped back into Downton Abbey. The office was chock full of objects from a bygone era. Ruffled drapes were pulled back over lace curtains. Skirted furniture sported crocheted doilies. Victorian dolls in velvet and satin dresses were lined up on a shelf which traveled all the way around her office. Planters and vases held a wide array of silk flowers. There was even a rocking chair.

“Come here dear, let me give you a hug,” Mrs. Farthington, said coming around from behind the desk. She grabbed me then and swallowed me up in her soft inviting bulk. For a split second I nearly let myself go and relax into her warmth. Not yet.

“Thank you for doing this. I know it breaks all the rules.”

She let go of me and sat down in a chair beside me, fixing me with her compassionate gaze. She pulled my hand into her lap and enveloped it in both of hers. She stroked it gently as you would a tiny kitten while she talked.

“My dear girl. No one has to be a victim of the brutality of others. It is an honor. A real honor to help you. When Jane told me the plan and asked me to help, I jumped at the chance. Our jobs in life are to help others. To guide and protect children. That’s what we do. At the same time we must guide and protect their parents if that is needed. Now let’s get started.”