Different but the same
As she lay on the top of their bed, breathing slowly, almost too slowly; she wondered how her life had arrived at this point.
Was it past the point of no return.
She hadn’t moved since she had sunk into the lofty quilt that covered their bed. Bridget hadn’t even slept there since Franky’s arrest, unable to bring herself to lie in the bed where they had shared some of their most intimate moments over the last near year.
Instead, she had drifted in and out of sleep on their couch, in their lounge room in their house.
Their.
It was the life that they had created together. The life that they shared, their memories, their laughter, their tears, their celebrations, their fights and their make ups. It was ultimately their unwavering commitment to each other that formed the foundation of their relationship and what Bridget had thought, would be their life together.
But was it.
As Bridget lay there, numb, disconnected she wondered if she was even still here. Was this happening? Yes it was. The pain was unbearable, the weight on her chest unbearable, the pit in her stomach, unbearable. She couldn’t even recall the last time she had eaten something, or even finished a cup of tea.
The feeling of grief, of disbelief that hung over her. Fuck, she didn’t even know what she felt as she searched in her mind for a label, anything to help her process what was happening. She couldn’t.
Her face felt taught, irritated from the tears that had fallen and had continued to fall as she lay there, almost motionless, willing herself to sleep, to dissolve, to….. Anything to avoid her dealing with what had occurred and what this meant her, her relationship with Franky, her career and her life.
It was growing dark as the sun started to set. Bridget had no idea what time it was or how long she had been lying there. She looked around, she normally loved this time of night, but not it felt suffocating. There was no clock in their room as Franky had moved it - she said it always made her anxious clock watching when she woke and couldn’t sleep.
Bridget had deliberately left her phone out in the kitchen. She couldn’t bear speaking to anyone, couldn’t bear being asked questions about what had happened or why she had left work early. She knew Vera knew something was wrong. She had supported Bridget thought her meeting with the ombudsman. Fuck. Bridget couldn’t remember even one thing about the meeting. She had sat there, in what felt like a trance like state, willing herself to interact, to support Vera’s comments and explanation – after all Vera was going out on a limb to back her up, to lie for her, to enable her relationship with Franky.
Her mind again drifted as she forced herself to sit up. Her upper back was sore and felt bruised. She couldn’t remember if she had hit it against the wall when Franky threw her back or whether it had happened after using all her force to heave Franky’s body off her. But her physical pain was irrelevant.
As she sat and stared into space and thought about what had happened. How and Why. Had it come from nowhere. Yes and No. Was it consistent with a pattern of behaviour. Yes and No. The thoughts whirred around in Bridget’s head. As her partner, Bridget had always made a conscious effort not to analyse Franky’s every move and words. Whilst, to an extent this was impossible given her training and the way in which her brain processed and analysed things as second nature and subconsciously, but, contrary to what many people thought, she did not spend her every waking moment in psychologist mode.
As she got up slowly and smoothed the quilt down, she leaned down to rearrange the pillows and she was hit with Franky’s smell. Again she broke down. Still on her feet, her upper body collapsed onto the bed as she pressed her face into the pillow and breathed in heavily, trying to breathe in any sense of Franky that lingered, the scent of the woman that she loved more than she had ever loved before, for whom she had been willing to give up her life, her career, her friends, the woman who had, hours earlier, thrown her against the wall, pinned her hands, groped her chest, violated her space, but most of all who had broken her heart. Lying with her head on Franky’s pillow, she felt the tears fall as she curled her legs up to her chest and closed her eyes and slowed her breathing to the point where she was barely taking on air.
Bridget wasn’t blind to the difficulties and the risks of being with Franky.
She knew, better than anyone, the complexities of a relationship founded in the circumstances that was theirs, which was why there were fucking restrictions around the patient therapist relationship. She had provided specialist advice to recidivist programmes, she knew the high rate of reoffending, the high probability of anger issues surfacing and resurfacing. Had she been blinded by her desire for Franky to succeed? Had she in fact placed too much pressure on Franky. She wanted Franky to experience success and freedom so much, had she not been cognisant to the struggles that she was facing?
She had counselled thousands of people who were victims of domestic violence, she knew about patterns of behaviour, about the cycles, about indicators and predicting behaviours. She went into her relationship with Franky with her eyes open. Or had she? Had she underestimated the personal toll this would take on her, that even with her years of training and experience and she knew she was one of the best psychologists in corrections in Victoria; that nothing could have prepared her to deal with the way Franky attacked her today.
Had she ever been frightened of Franky? No… not before today. She had heard of the legend thst was Franky Doyle as soon as she had started working at Wentworth, but her interactions with her, right from the beginning, had never rung true. She had never been on the receiving end of Franky’s violence, nor did she expect to have been. Had she been naïve to think that she would never be the subject of Franky’s rage, of Franky’s torment…. Or Franky’s despair.
She knew it might appear wrong to accept it, to make excuses for it, to acknowledge the real source of the behaviour. But Bridget could see what Franky was doing, what she had done all her life. Pushing people away was what Franky Doyle did best. As she struggled to come to terms with what Franky had done to her, she understood it. She didn’t like it, but she saw where it came from and how Franky, in her own way, had been trying to protect Bridget. But it still didn’t take away from the fact that Franky had crossed a line, had violated Bridget’s body, her trust and her love.
Bridget was devastated. Broken. Exhausted.
As she rolled over onto her side, she glanced at a photo of the two of them on the bedside table. Silhouetted, so it wasn’t possible to make out who it was -as any photos on display were- the picture was of the two of them, meandering along the beach at Port Fairy, hand in hand. One of Bridget’s trusted friends who they had met for a drink that afternoon had snapped it whilst they were unawares and had later sent it to Bridget.
How ironic, Bridget thought. That up until this point, they had both been so worried about the impact of their relationship on Bridget’s career. But now she didn’t care. She would get another job. She would visit Franky…. even if it meant visiting her forever.
As she leaned forward to pick up the photo, her eyes followed her wrist, red welts surrounded it like a bracelet. The words that she had told hundreds of patients she had counselled echoed in her mind ... “people who love you don’t do these things”… “it is never your fault”… and what was the absolute advice that she always gave them ….. end your relationship.
But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Sniffing, she sat up. She walked in to the bathroom and stripped off her clothes. She stood and looked at herself in the mirror above the vanity. Her face bore the impact of the day, her eyes showed her exhaustion, her loss.
Her eyes were drawn to a red mark above her breast. She hadn’t remembered Franky scratching her, but it must have happened at some point as Bridget fought desperately to get Franky away from her. She didn’t want her to cross that line, didn’t want Franky to do it. She knew what Franky was doing from the minute the threw her back into the wall, as much as the disbelief overwhelmed her, she tried so desperately to stop it.. she wanted to stop it for them. Her mind drifted off…
Refocusing her gaze on the mirror, she saw herself reflected, twenty years younger, a swollen jaw, her left eye puffy, bruising over her upper arm and collarbones. She stared back at herself.
It was different this time, she told herself. It was different, but yet still the same.