Alexandria Thomas had always considered herself a solitary person, but her heart”s desires had led her into marriage and a few years later she had what she’d always yearned for, a daughter of her own. In the instant when she had first laid eyes on her little angel all her suffering had seemed worthwhile. A couple months later, though, Alex had begun to wonder if she could continue to live with her husband’s abuse.
Jake had always had a very short temper. When they were dating she had seen him bloody a man’s nose just because he’d smiled at her. Jake was very protective of her, but as the years passed Alex was quickly realizing that protective was very much an understatement. What Jake felt towards Alex was ownership and control, possession and power. With her daughter, Anna, now in the picture Alex was increasingly aware that things with Jake were not as they should be. After three years of marriage, she didn’t feel much for the man who shared her bed except disdain. Jake had put his hands on her one too many times, but that she could handle. It was his lack of concern for Anna’s safety that Alex couldn’t tolerate.
She should have left him when he’d first started to abuse her early in their marriage but Alex had always felt like she’d deserved all the horrible things Jake said and did. When she came home twenty minutes later than expected and had forgotten to call she knew she had been inconsiderate of Jake’s feelings and indifferent to his worry, and Jake was quick to point this out. “You thoughtless bitch,” he’d said as he slapped her in the face. When she was late paying their rent and Jake was forced to pay penalty charges she accepted that she was an “incompetent piece of trash” and was banished to sleeping in the floor for a week. And when Jake had let his temper get the best of him and accidentally blackened her eye because she’d burned his dinner, she figured she probably deserved that as well; but Jake had apologized and swept her away to Rome for a week. He was always doing extravagant things for her. Once he had filled their entire pent house apartment with roses and candles, fixed her dinner, bought her a diamond studded platinum bracelet, and created a tropical oasis in her bathroom complete with coconut bath oils, bamboo trees, and a miniature waterfall as a way of making her forget about their fight the day before when he’d tried to strangle her.
With Jake life was always a roller coaster ride. One minute he’d be treating her like a princess and lavishing her with gifts but the next minute he’d be calling her names and dragging her around by her hair. She never knew if she was worthy of his affection but always felt that she deserved whatever punishments he dished out. Alex thought that she wasn’t good enough for unconditional love, at least she used to.
The first time baby Anna had looked into her eyes and smile Alex knew she had found someone to love her no matter what, and that she would never love anyone as much as she loved Anna. She wasn’t going to let anyone, not even Jake, take away the love that she and her daughter shared for each other.
Anna was just nine weeks old when Alex decided it was time to leave Jake. It was apparent to Alex that her daughter was developing a difficult case of colic, but to Jake Anna’s crying signified a complete lack of respect and that wasn’t something he would tolerate from anyone, not even their nine week old baby girl. The ore Anna cried the angrier Jake became.
“Shut that little rat up,” he yelled at Alex who was desperately trying to soothe her baby, and it wasn’t long before he was storming over and yanking Anna from her arms. He looked at their baby with a disgusted look, smacked her behind two or three forceful times, then threw her in her crib. Strangely, Anna seemed to sense that she was in danger. Her eyes grew wide with fear and her crying softened to a barely audible whimper.
“See, she’s quiet,” Jake roared as he shoved Alex to the floor on his way out of the room. Alex quickly got to her feet and rushed to Anna’s side. The baby seemed to be alright but for the next two days Alex didn’t take her eyes off her daughter, just to be sure. Then she spent the rest of the week secretly making arrangements to get her and her baby safely away from Jake.
When Alex and Jake had started dating, most of her friends and family had tried to warn her to stay away from him but she hadn’t understood why they didn’t like him. In Alex’s eyes Jake had simply hung the moon. When her best friend Mary had warned her against moving in with him, Alex figured it was because Mary had just suffered a messy divorce and was feeling a bit jealous. When Jake proposed, everyone begged her not to go through with it but Alex was in love. Over the course of their marriage Alex had pulled away from most of her friends and family so it took her some time to convince her loved ones that she was leaving and needed their help. In the end, Alex concluded that no one could have more forgiving and understanding friends and family than she had, especially when it came to Mary.
Mary had always been there for Alex despite Jake. She had known, even before she met him, that Jake was bad news, and even though she did occasionally try to convince Alex to get rid of him, she never turned her back on Alex. So when Alex called and asked her for her help Mary was quick to give it.
Jake had a business trip planned for the weekend and he never took Alex with him on those trips. For the last year or so she had begun to suspect that he had a girlfriend in each of the three locations he most often visited. He always called her every few hours while he was away but the phone calls always stopped coming promptly at 9:00 when he called to say goodnight. If Alex tried to call him, the front desk would tell her the same thing every time, that Mr. Thomas had asked not to be disturbed until the morning. Jake, however, was never without an eye on the prize.
Alex did not know that Jake always left strict instructions with the housekeeper to call him if anything out of the ordinary happened. On Saturday morning when Alex greeted her at the door and told her to take the day off, Georgetta found it very strange. She knew that it was exactly the type of thing Mr. Thomas had been referring to but her gut told her not to make the call. She knew that if she didn’t call him, Mr. Thomas would fire her as soon as he found out. She has seen how he treated Mrs. Alex, and after much debate, Georgetta finally decided not to say anything. If this was Mrs. Alex’s attempt to leave that monster, she didn’t want to be the one to stand in her way. She could always find another rich person’s house to clean, and by the end of the day she had already done exactly that.
Mary and Alex’s parents arrived about two hours after Georgetta left, followed by Alex’s cousin Mac. They spent the first hour gathering Anna’s things and loading it all in Granny and PaPo’s car while Granny played with Anna. The next hour was spend packing Alex’s things in Mary’s car. Mac loaded the crib in his truck, then they all hit the road.
One of Jake’s biggest mistakes was not getting to know Alex’s friends. Mary had a sister who lived in Tennessee, five hours away. She had always been fond of Alex and had offered to let Alex and Anna live in her unoccupied rental house, free of charge. It was fully furnished, which worked out great for Alex since the only furniture she had was the baby’s crib. She would also be closer to her family. Alex’s parents would live just two hours away now instead of three, Mac lived one hour away, and Mary was just one town away.
Everything went smoothly and by Sunday morning Alex and were pretty well settled into their new home. She had left everything with Jake except her clothing, personal items, and Anna’s things. It hadn’t taken long to pack nor did it take long to unpack.
It wasn’t long before Alex, with Mac’s help, had filed for divorce. Having a lawyer in the family made it that much easier to get the divorce moving right along, even with Jake fighting her ever step of the way. Mac handled everything for her and she never had to see Jake. They were able to prove he had been abusive with help from Georgetta and Alex was granted sole custody of Anna. Their address and whereabouts were kept strictly confidential so that Jake could not find them. A domestic violence order of protection was set in place up until Anna’s eighteenth birthday and Jake was ordered to pay alimony and child support for a monthly total of $2500. Alex and Anna lived comfortably for the next twelve years.
Even with all of the precautions she had taken, Alex always found herself looking over her shoulder. It wasn’t until three months after Anna’s twelfth birthday that she was finally granted peace. Mac, who had become like a father to Anna, appeared on her doorstep, newspaper in hand. He opened it to the obituaries section and Alex immediately saw the face of the man who had haunted her dreams for the last twelve years. Jake Thomas had suffered a massive heart attack and passed away at the young age of forty-one.