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DRAFT
PROLOGUE
June 21, 1987
Airborne
There is a woman in the air over Edmonton. Like a hot air balloon, she looms heavy over the city. She clutches her three year old daughter in one hand, and with the other she clings to her spirit. For a moment she is suspended in slow motion, her gauzy summer dress billowing like an open Mary Poppins umbrella, the wind propelling her to stay afloat. She has lost the combs that had kept her waist-length black hair neatly in place. Long strands now tumble about her face like so many sleepy angel wings. She cannot see until her broken body hits the ground, the little girl landing on her mother’s belly, a pillow for safety. Dead eyes stare at storm clouds above; dead eyes guard the fourth-floor balcony.
* * *
“Where you going?” He is sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. He had just woken up. Night was the start of his day.
“I’m going to Vera’s bridal shower,” Jan reminded him.
“And where’s that?”
“At her sister’s. Not far from here.”
“What’s her name?”
“Shannon. You know her. She used to work with me at the hospital, remember?”
“I don’t believe you. I know where you’re going. You’re going to some bar to meet some guy. You’re staying put tonight.”
“I’ve got to go! They’re waiting for me.”
“They?”
“My friends.”
“What friends? You don’t have any.”
“But I promised. I have to go!”
He sighed; his head slumped to his chest as though it carried the weight of the world and he could no longer hold it up.
“Come here.”
She approached the table with frightened steps, felt her body fold inside out, her face drained of colour.
He gripped her wrists. “How are you going to get there?”
“The bus.”
He released her hands, swung them back with such force, her shoulder blades almost snapped.
“What bus?”
He knew how to get there. This was just a ploy, part of his sadistic nature to amuse himself, tease her, and listen to her whimper, which only accelerated his carnal excitement.
“Go on tell me,” he was shouting now.
“I’ll take the bus on the corner of our street, then four blocks later, get off, cross the street and there’s Shannon’s house. It’s not far and I promise not to stay long.”
He whacked her on the side of her head. She became disoriented, kept pointing to the living room window.
“See come here, I’ll show you where the bus stops.”
“Don’t you dare talk back to ME. Not a word. I said NO.”
“Let me at least call Shannon, let her know I can’t come. They’re expecting me.”
And then.
The tears. She knew he hated tears. So she rubbed her eyes, pretending they were itchy. Tears triggered some demon in him. Oh God. She shut her eyes. Don’t cry, she willed herself, don’t cry, and there was Nina hiding behind the sofa trying to make herself invisible, sobbing softly. What will she remember of her childhood?
And then.
The belt. She cowered, screeching like a pig sent to slaughter, spinning, twirling, running in circles, dodging his buckle, screaming, squealing.
He shoved her into the bedroom, onto the bed. She lunged toward the phone on the night stand, her hands blindly searching the receiver.
Too late.
“Do you think I’m stupid, huh? Do you think you can lie to me?”
And he wrapped the telephone cord around her neck until she pleaded, “No, it’s me that’s stupid. I’m sorry. I won’t go. Please, please, I’m sorry. Plea… ” her words cut off, fading into a chokehold of surrender.
And when he had finished with her, he laid his head with tenderness on her lap and moaned, a baby in search of a mother’s womb, a mother’s love.
“I’m sorry, Jan, I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I promise I won’t do that no more.”
“No, it’s my fault,” she said.
And then he wanted sex and she let him because she was afraid he would hurt her again. It was always like that.
After he had left for work she bathed herself, determined to erase every sense of him. She scoured her inner thighs and stomach with an SOS pad, brushing lightly over the welts and abrasions. He would punch her in places invisible — never her face. No one knew the secrets her body carried, so no one could help, no one knew to care.
She let her head slide down the back of the tub, submerging, drowning, weeping, a melding of scented soap and salty tears. For a moment there was only a kaleidoscopic muffle of water-on-water, whirling, swirling; a tunnel of bubbles surging towards the surface. She held her breath and felt her life explode.
At thirteen, the school nuns had inspired her to consider a life in Christ; instead, she compromised and became a nurse. The idea appealed to her innocent vision of herself as a modern-day Florence Nightingale, a Lady in White, a beacon to the sick and dying, the wounded, and the needy.
She had always considered herself an intelligent, well-educated professional — independent, proud, sophisticated — so how had it come to this? How had she allowed her life to sink into this nightmare?
They had met at the hospital. He was her patient, a lost puppy with a broken leg—injured, needy, hungry for affection, looking for a good home.
“There. You should feel more comfortable now. Doesn’t that feel better?” she had just finished washing him.
“Ah, Jan, you’re so good to me.”
“It’s my job.”
“Just that?”
She smiled and covered his good leg. “Are you warm enough?”
“Not unless your body is pressed next to mine, sweetheart.”
The day she arrived at her apartment and found a bouquet of flowers outside the door was the day her life changed forever. A steady stream of miniature white roses, her favourite, continued to greet her every evening until she finally relented and brought the puppy home. It took a week to yield to his charms.
