The Shower

     At Elm Street, when I was eighteen, the shower was the place I acknowledged the bruises, at least to myself, and thought of what to say if someone asked about them.  It was the place where I either tensed up when I heard him coming or screamed with laughter in the midst of one of our silly love games, depending on his mood that day.  The shower door, instead of me, caught his attention one day.  He shattered it to pieces.  My nerves soon came to resemble its jagged appearance.  The Elm Street apartment was the first place I started to shower in the dark.  It was soothing.  Sometimes I felt the need to hide- from him, from myself, from everyone.  The shower at Elm Street was also the place I made the final decision of whether to have an abortion or have my daughter.  I was young and frightened.  Equally frightened of raising a baby alone if he left us or of raising it with him if he stayed. 

            At the little house on Broadway, in my early twenties, the shower was the place I cried bitter tears as I tried to change him and barring that, to leave him, failing miserably at both.  I was no better at leaving him than he was at staying away. He would come begging.  I would take him back.   I forgave him time and again, feeling like a failure every time and taking the blame willingly.  I knew I wasn’t good enough.  I never held his attention, although he always came back.  I always made him mad.  Nothing I did was good enough to satisfy him, steady him, stop the name calling, or prevent the jealous rages.  In the shower, I analyzed, strategized, and tried desperately to understand how he could be so loving at times and so brutal at others.  What was wrong with him?

     With the steady beat of the warm water on my skin, in the dark, my face turned to the spray, I hoped to find a way to still those hands that itched to push, to choke, to smash, to destroy.  I never stopped hoping.  I knew if I thought about it long enough and hard enough, the answer would come to me.  I could figure out how to make all the good in him rise to the top like cream.  My love for him could do that.  I could do that.  I could.

            By Miller Avenue, when I was in my early thirties, the shower had become my worrying place and the place to examine all the internal injuries.  By then the physical stuff had petered out to just breaking something occasionally, but the hurtful words just never stopped.  So in the shower, I’d ask myself questions.

       Was he really only with me to get to Cory?  Was he?  Or was it the other way around?  Was he using her to get to me?  Was he drinking again?  Would he ever use again?  What about the lost years?  Was he still in love with a woman from his past?  Had he ever hit them?  Did he call them by my pet names? 

       He had me now, so why wasn’t he happy?  Maybe I really was weak like he said.  Weak.  Stupid.  Selfish.  Manipulative.  Conniving.  Lazy.  Materialistic.  I tried them all on for size.  Depending on the day, I might concede to one of his labels.  It must be true if he kept saying it.

            In the shower at Miller, in the dark, with a towel up to block the window (blinds weren’t enough, he was afraid someone might peek in and look at what belonged to him), I stood with tears streaming down my face.  They were hot, so hot.  He didn’t love me as much as I loved him.  I knew it and it burned. 

 If he did, he would change.  Wouldn’t he?  After all, hadn’t I changed for him?  And what had I become?