Alone again. Another lonely night spent waiting. Weeping softly to herself she sits. Quietly rocking to and fro. Waiting for a sense of peace that may never come. He is out again. Drinking again. Leaving her alone to worry. Does he care for her? She thinks not. How could he care if he knew the pain he caused her every time he left. If he only knew how she worried. What if he dies? What if he leaves her for some street girl? How could he love her, hearing her cries?
Does he love her? Does it matter? No, she decides, it doesn’t matter if he loves her. But does he love the children? No, he couldn’t possibly love the children. Not the way he beats them. She has seen that animal gleam in his eye. That joy, pure unbridled joy at making them bleed and cry. He does not love the children, and that maters to her.
And so she sits there, late into the night. The children are asleep, and he is out. And she is waiting. Waiting. Waiting with a knife in her hand.
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Finally he arrives, reeking of cheap gin and cheap sex. Dirtier than any street urchin he stumbles through the doorway. He walks drunkenly past her chair, and lurches up the stairs to their bedroom, where he falls across the bed. Out cold. Slowly she stands, joints stiff after sitting in one tense position for so long. After some deliberation, she follows him up the stairs. Approaching their bed, she slowly raises her knife. A huntress poised for the kill. But then she slips up. Makes a mistake. She looks down at him. His peaceful face as he sleeps. So different from his waking fury.
Slowly, regretfully, she lowers the knife to her side. Shamefully she slips down to the kitchen to return it to its proper place. But as she slips the knife into its home, a beam of silver moonlight shoots through the air, gleaming off the steel blade. A thought flits briefly across her mind then. Maybe, since she is so incapable of ending his life, she has the willpower to end her own. Slip that softly illuminated blade into her bosom, never to deal with this nightmare again.
Another thought begins to rise into her consciousness. Perhaps all of this is just a nightmare. Maybe all she needs to wake up is a push. A push off the edge of this world to fall into the next. Slowly she draws the knife out again. It glints at her mysteriously, as if to say ‘Come on, use me. You know you want to. Use me and this nightmare will go away.” Slowly she closes her eyes, and slides the blade into its new home.