Restorative Justice

When she got downstairs he was already in the kitchen making breakfast.

‘Morning darling!’, he chirped at her over the shoulder. ‘Have a seat your wonderful, hot brekkie will be ready in a minute! Perfect timing as always!’

Her smile is there, modifying the features of her face, but she does not feel it inside. Inside she is almost nauseous and feels like getting up, going out the door and never coming back. She is put in the most horrible situation and there is no right way to handle it.

As he lays the plate on the table in front of her, she can get a glimpse at the scar on the side of his head. That is where it had been, the evil that had clawed at their family for over thirty years. Now gone, surgically removed by a skilled scalpel. Gone, but not forgotten.

He sat in front of her chatting away about the weather, plans for the day. Isn’t it wonderful retirement is so close and then they will be able to spend more time together and travel?

The feeling of nausea got even stronger and she had to force herself to eat and pretend she was enjoying it.

‘Yes, of course.’, she nodded while he went on.

‘I wonder why the kids haven’t been to visit. I have been back for more then two weeks now.’, his genuine puzzlement hurt her. He does not remember the times he yelled at them, the times he broke their things because they were too noisy or just there. He has no inkling about the pain he has caused with his belittling, his mocking them and giving them names, making them feel useless and inadequate.

Despite him, now, they are grown ups, they have made good lives for themselves, but they are still unable to forgive him. Despite knowing the tumor was to blame. The doctor explained it all to well. They had been appalled and incredulous.

‘You are effing kidding me!’, she remembers John getting up and pacing around the doctor’s office. ‘You cannot be serious and blame all his … his… meanness on a tumor he has been carrying all these years. I cannot deal with that!’, and he was out. Left without a word. She received some what’s up messages from him, she knew he was ok, the kids were ok, Mairead was doing well, but he could not come and visit, he told her repeatedly, he cannot deal with it. His hate is the only thing he knows to feel towards his father and he sees no way of changing that. She is welcome in their home at any time, him not so much.

‘I should call them! For some reason I do not have their numbers. So odd! Is my phone new?’, his washed out blue eyes were looking at her, but all she could feel was a cold, demeaning stare, because that is what she had felt from him for most of her life. Her voice trembled.

‘No, it is not. Might be one of those updates they keep pushing on them, might have deleted something… ‘, the explanation seemed sound and she felt a tinge of pride in herself. Just like when she used to survive his berating for buying something or visiting someone he did not approve of. Her mantra, repeated obsessively to herself when he was in one of his moods was ‘I am not a winner, but I am a fighter!’ And fight she did for the thirty something years of their marriage. She had fought for herself, for her children for every inch of life they could get.

He used to tell them all repeatedly ‘What would be of you if I was not here?!?’, he did not wait for the answer, he had it and he needed to make sure they knew it too. ‘You would be out on the street begging and selling your bodies for a piece of bread! You have not idea how easy you have it!’ And he would smile condescendingly satisfied with his superiority.

When the children left home she was sure she will just melt and disappear being the sole focus of his anger, but then, he discovered golf. The God sent miracle of golf, that took him from home on the weekends and that came with a bunch of new friends he would go out and meet. Of course, she had to also entertain and prepare meals for them, and be the doting wife when they visited, but it was fine, it was all worth it. During those few hours of freedom she would visit the children and that is when, sometimes, she had the feeling that her life had not been in vain. They were doing well, they had good lives with good people, and there was no new trauma added to the old.

And then he got a bad headache and collapsed on the golf course. They took him to the hospital had an emergency MRI and saw it, the unbelievably large tumor. They had to operate, otherwise death was certain. The operation too was a risk but at least it gave him a chance. She prayed he will be ok, he will recover well. The doctor said the rehabilitation will be long, brain surgery is very taxing on the body, but once done he will be right as rain. He is in excellent health. There is no reason why he should not live another twenty something years.

Tears started to gather at the corners of her eyes. He saw.

‘Don’t cry! Oh, I am ok now. No need to worry anymore!’, he got up and half hugged her sitting down body. ‘What do you want to do after work? We could go shopping! I know how much you enjoy spending money!’, and he giggled while going to the sink to wash his plate.

She was stunned, that was a comment he used to make before. The kind of comment that would lead to him asking to see her purse, and leaving her with an insignificant amount of money that she could not do anything with. In recent years, it had become easier for her to hide money from him, with virtual cards and online bank accounts. John had taught her so much and would always give her something every month, just for herself, because she knew he would track how she spent her paycheck. She could only use the money for the house bills and groceries, every penny needed to be accounted for.

She left for work, but that comment lingered in her mind.

He, the old he, was still there.

This thought nagged her the entire day. She was doing her tasks automatically, while inside, she ruminated, thinking how the man that had hurt them all so much was still there, waiting to come out when the time was right, when they had all been lulled into a false sense of security. She was sure that one day she will make a comment about something, feeling secure in her relationship with this new man he had become, and then, all of a sudden the true him, the old him, will snap at her making her feel scared like a little girl again.

She could barely contain her tears when she got a text ‘I’ll pick you up when you are done!’

She did not want him to pick her up, she did not want to pretend that everything was ok and she was not, still, scared.

From that text on the day seemed to fly by. No matter what she did she could not stop time.

And then, time had come.

She walked outside as slowly as she could but was surprised to see he was not there. Very unlike him. He was always so punctual.

A smart red car stopped in front of her and a good looking man jumped out.

‘Hello darling! What do you think?’, his gestures pointed to the car and himself.

The car was like nothing they had owned before. Before they had only had very cheap, old cars. ‘They do the job don’t they?’ This car was brand new and shone in the evening sun.

He was totally different too. New haircut and clothes. She could not remember the last time when he had gone to a barber shop or cared about his appearance. ‘That is for sissys, isn’t it?’

He extended his arm.

‘You drive!’

Her jaw fell open. For sure with the tumor they had also done a personality transplant.

‘You sure?’, she dreaded the soul wrenching conversations in which he criticized her driving making her feel anxious and afraid to drive.

‘Of course, not many people drive as well as you do!’

Now that was too much. She felt like stomping her feet and asking for the world to stop. ‘I want to get off!’

They got in.

‘Follow the maps woman she already knows where we are going!’

She did was she was told, she always did, only this time his voice was not menacing, it was just normal, no tinge of anger or annoyance with her lack of skills.

The car drove like a dream. For a moment she allowed herself to enjoy it and to relish in the pleasant leathery smell. She noticed his shoes and his jeans. Not something he would have worn last year. She was about to ask him who helped you choose your clothes, but then she caught herself just in time. That was the type of comment he would make. Sad how much like him she had become. This brought her back and with her came that feeling of resentment that had eaten away at her for years and years.

Wolf in sheep’s clothing.

They were there.

It was one of those amazingly beautiful old houses, with huge Georgian windows on an impressive facade. She looked at him inquiringly and was surprised by the expression of giddiness and almost happiness. He looked nothing like himself. He looked like someone new, a person she did not know, a man who had nothing in common with the mean husband she and her children had endured for so long.

Inside they passed through a long, soft carpeted hall and then went into a room bathed in light. When they did, the crowd gathered there all shouted on one voice:

‘Surprise!’

She was stunned, pinned into place incapable of joining the events happening to her with her reality as she knew it.

That is when he hugged her tight and whispered in her ear:

‘Happy anniversary my darling! I will never be able to undo the past, but please give me a chance to get to know me!’

Before she had any time to react John and Eilish, her youngest, came to greet them. John gave his father a warm, manly hug and smiled broadly at his mother.

Eilish looked stunning in a green, flowy dress. That is when she became very aware of her nurse’s uniform under her coat. Eilish seemed to read her mind.

‘Come mommy, let’s get you changed!’, and grabbed her by the hand leading her to a changing room off the hall.

‘Oh Eilish, you look so beautiful!’, and she hugged her baby like it was the first and last time, with all her being and her might. ‘I love you baby!’

‘I love you too mommy, but don’t get all soppy! We have work to do!’

Then the door opened and Mairead, John’s wife, came in carrying a fantastically beautiful dress wrapped in a silk cover, which she found so pretty that it could have been a dress by itself.

While getting her ready they told her how himself had met with John and how John had yelled at him and told him all the wrongs he had done, and all the pain he had put them all through.

Mairead said that at some point she had to leave the room so painful it had all got. But then, they talked and John understood that, in a wicked, twisted way, he does not remember all the hurt and the pain. Seems like with the tumor they also extirpated something else and now all his memories were filtered focusing just on the positive ones.

‘Mind blowing, I know!’, Mairead was an accomplished hairdresser and beautician and like magic she turned the tired, confused nurse, into a sparkling, well appointed beauty.

‘And … John  is ok with this? Are you ok with this?’, she stared intensely at Eilish.

‘I really do not know mommy, that is the God’s honest truth, but now we are all grown up, he cannot hurt us as before. We will not let him hurt you as before. So let’s see where this goes, and if it goes well, then it is the justice you deserve after so many years of pain and suffering.’

‘True that!’, said Mairead stepping back to admire her work.

‘That will do! That will do nicely!’

They joined the gathering and she was surprised to see there colleagues from work with whom she had worked that day. Nobody had said a word. It was the first happy anniversary they ever had, and for that evening she forgot all the bad, while dancing with the caring, handsome man claiming to be her husband.