At 29 years of age I never thought I’d be the girl with bruises and a black eye, trying to escape a prison I once called home. My fairytale, complete with a prince charming as my husband, has turned into a hell that I can’t escape.
My husband, Kenny, could be back at any moment and I don’t want him to find me here. I hate him with my entire being. He has turned me into a weak woman with self-esteem issues. I pack my last set of sweatpants in the suitcase and grab my make-up bag. Just as I’m entertaining thoughts of a clean escape, I hear the thunder of footsteps echoing closer to the bedroom door. Shit! He’s here. In a panic, I slide my suitcase under the bed.
“Dineo, what the hell is this?” Kenny says, looking at the make-up bag in my hand.
“Huh? Uh… This?” I point at the make-up bag, at a loss for words.
“Yes, that. Why do you have that make-up bag in here? We have a bathroom for that. You know I hate when the powder gets on my shirts.”
“Ha yeah.” I laugh nervously.
Kenny looks at me inquisitively. “What’s up with you, Dineo?”
Maybe if I’m honest with him, he’ll see where I’m coming from and let me go. The man I fell in love with must still be in there somewhere, covered by this beast facing me.
“Kenny, I need to go back home,” I say in a shaky voice.
“This is home,” Kenny states matter-of-factly.
Come on Dineo stop being nervous, man up! I look him in the eye and say, “I don’t feel safe with you. A man is supposed to protect his wife. All you do is slam me on walls!”
“Well I don’t know, Dineo,” he raises his arms, mocking me. “Maybe if you performed your duties as a wife, I wouldn’t need to slam you anywhere. But instead of performing your duties you want to be the man of the house.”
He just knows how to crush me.
“You want to leave?” He drags me by my arm.
“You’re hurting me Kenny!”
“Shut up!”
I feel that familiar yet excruciating blow on my left cheek. More blows follow as he kicks and drags me down the stairs.
“You came with nothing, you’ll leave with nothing!”
We reach the end of the stairs and as I’m struggling to find my feet, Jeffrey rushes in.
“Get her out of my house. I don’t care where she ends up. You could toss her on the street for all I care.” Kenny’s voice disappears as he walks back upstairs.
Jeffrey has been Kenny’s chauffeur long before I even came into this house. His loyalty to him is unquestionable so I can’t ask him to take me to the police station. The moment Kenny vanishes Jeffrey rushes to help me up. As loyal as he is to his boss, he’s still human.
If anyone had told me when I left my parents’ house in Diepsloot to move into luxurious Sandhurst with Kenny that I’d be moving back a year later, I would’ve laughed in their face.
Slouched in the backseat of the car, the drive to Diepsloot feels like it takes hours.
Walking through the small gate of my parents’ house I see that the lights are already on. They must’ve been waiting for me. The sound of the swinging gate prompts my mom to peep through the window. She makes her way out of the door and just folds her arms. My heart drops.
“Ma,” I say. I can hear that I sound like I’m crying.
“Dineo get in the house, don’t embarrass me. You know these nosey neighbours,” Ma says.
My body isn’t even fully in the house when I hear my dad’s roar. “Tell me why my son-in-law just called to say you left your marital home?” He stands up from the light brown Gomma Gomma couch he was sitting on. “You are so ungrateful, Dineo! Your mother and I have worked to the bone to give you a good life, yet all you do is bring shame to this family. What are your uncles going to say?”
“Ba—”
“Shut up! The least you could do is stay married to this man before he pulls his investment from the business.”
I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that my dad wants me to go back to my abuser or that they see the bloody graffiti on my face and neither of them offer to help.