The Dancing Woman 

      Today, June 20^th, 1936, is my wedding day. I am marrying the love of my life John. We are going to be very happy together, I can already tell. I have very few precious minutes left before I walk down the aisle and become Mrs. John Canon.  This is the start of a whole new beginning. I must go, the pastor is ready and the wedding procession is all lined up. All that is missing is the bride. I shall return to you later old friend, and I will return a new woman. Say goodbye to the woman you once knew.

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     John and I have just returned from our honeymoon! It was spectacular I tell you, nothing shy of perfect. We went to New Orleans.  New Orleans is such a bustling town; I have never seen the likes of it.  Returning to our mediocre lives will be a bit of a struggle, but with the love of my life by my side, I know that anything is possible. John is off to work this morning and he already left me a list of things to do while he’s at work, how very thoughtful of him. He does not want me to be bored or sad while he is away. Being separated from my John is so very hard, dear friend, I am so glad that he has left me all of these chores to keep my mind off of it. John is always showing me how much he loves me. Just yesterday, on the last day of our honeymoon, he took away the dessert menu and said I should be watching my figure. I thought that was very thoughtful of him, to be concerned about my body. John has always said stuff like that to me, always watching, always guiding me in the right direction. He is just so caring; I don’t know where I would be without him. I should get on with my chores, John would be furious if he realized I was pining on him in this journal like a little school girl and not working on the household duties.  Farewell till’ next time.

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     I am very upset dear friend. John says I have not doing my chores correctly and that our dinner last night tasted positively disgusting. He says that if I do not fix this, he will have to punish me. I just want to make John happy, so tomorrow I will not write in my journal at all and I will focus on doing my chores the way John expects me to. I know he only wants a presentable household, that’s not too much to ask at all. Other than that, life has been wonderful. John works during the day and when he comes home at night, we eat dinner together and then we retire to the living room where John turns on his radio program and we listen until 8.  Before bed, John writes my chores list for the next day and then we head for bed. I love these nights with my husband.

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      I know I said I wouldn’t write in you today friend, but it is so very difficult not to talk to anyone during the day, I must do something besides chores every once in a while. Today’s list has a new item, different from the other days of chores I’ve had. I must spot clean my wedding dress, press it and then find a space for it in our bedroom closet. I hope I have enough time to work on my other chores.  I must go now and get a move on; I must complete all my chores today.

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     John hit me. I was so focused on my beautiful wedding dress that I did not have enough time to work on my other chores. I am so ashamed of myself. I have let John down. I may need to take a break from journaling, I must put all of my energy into my chores, it is my responsibility, John says, to make sure that he is happy, and if chores make John happy, then I must do them with everything I have. So goodbye for now dear friend, I must find a small chunk of ice for my cheek.

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      It has been a week since I’ve written you. I do not know what to do. I have done everything John tells me, yet every night when he comes home he beats me. What am I doing wrong? I sit on my bed after he is done and he leaves the house to find a bar, and I look at my wedding dress hanging in the closet, and I wonder where our happy marriage has gone. We were so happy before our marriage, but now? Now I do not know what we are. I love my husband so very much, but I cannot seem to please him anymore. We just got married, how can it already be falling apart?

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     John and I have a routine now. John writes my list the night before he heads to the bar. At some early hour, he enters our bedroom, pushes me out of the bed and beats me while he screams at me about the chores. I don’t try to fight back anymore. I stare at the wedding dress in the closet and remember a time when I was a happy and care free woman, excited about marriage and love and life. After John falls into a drunken sleep, I get up, attend to my wounds, and return to the closet. I stare at my wedding dress for hours at a time. Sometimes, and this may sound crazy friend, I can see a young and happy woman, twirling around in the dress, smiling and laughing on the barn floor where John and I had our wedding reception as well. The woman looks familiar, but I cannot place her. Probably someone I’ve seen in town in passing. I must get to bed because when John wakes up, I must be asleep for I don’t want to face him when he is hungover. Who knows what he will do.

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      I have started paying very close attention to my closet lately. It seems that seeing the dancing woman in my wedding dress is a common occurrence for me after John has gone to bed or to work. I do my chores as quickly as possible, for it doesn’t matter if I’ve done them perfectly, John will beat me anyway. So I have taken to looking at my wedding dress and finding comfort knowing the dancing woman is not in my predicament. I smile when she smiles, I laugh when she laughs. We have become very good friends, the dancing woman and I. But I cannot ever be truly happy like her. For behind my smile is the pain of loving a man who only sees you as a maid and a punching bag and not a loving wife. I close my closet; I have had enough pretending for one day.  

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     I am pregnant, dear friend! I thought I could never be happy again in this life, but I was wrong. I’m guessing that I am about 3 or 4 months along, but who knows, I have been too focused on protecting myself from John and the looking at dancing woman in my closet that I have not really been paying attention to the changes my body has been going through otherwise. Tonight when John comes home from work, I will tell him. Maybe this is what we need. I am sure that John will be happy with me again and we can forget that this whole ordeal happened. As silly as this may be, I have told the dancing woman my good news. Her happiness radiates through the room and I feel like everything will be okay for once.

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     I thought that John would love me again when he found out that I was pregnant. I thought that this is what we needed to fix our marriage. I thought so many things would change. But they haven’t and now I know that they never will. I have lost all hope. I have lost my husband’s love and now I have lost my baby. When I told John, he was surprised at first. He did not say or do anything. But the storm came in and I saw it hit the coast hard, and he came at me with the full force of a hurricane. The blood came quickly and it would not stop. I pleaded with him this one time to please stop hurting me, but to no avail. When he was done, he raged off to the bar and I was left alone with an empty stomach and a pool of blood. The dancing woman was nowhere to be seen, and I lay on the floor and stared at that wedding dress and hatred crept into my heart.  

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     I am not doing my chores today, none of them whatsoever. I have a plan, friend, and a very evil and delicious plan it is. John will come home to a very nasty surprise and for the first time in a very long time, I cannot wait for my husband to come home. We’ll see who has the last laugh tonight. The dancing woman in the wedding dress smiles with me and I know that soon I will be just as happy as she is.

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     As soon as John enters the door, I know he senses that something is wrong. He can see that the dishes aren’t done and the living room wasn’t dusted and that all of the laundry is in a pile on the floor. The door is barely shut before I hear him scream my name. I am ready and waiting for him behind or bedroom door with a piece of heavy wood I found in the backyard earlier today. John storms through the house looking for me. I can hear him coming up the stairs and soon, he is almost at the bedroom door. I am poised at ready for a hefty swing. He enters the room and passes beyond the door. I swing at him with the piece of wood. The wood connects with the back of his head and John goes down hard. Slowly, John passes into the state of unconsciousness and I smile at the dancing woman in the closet. She gives me an evil smile back and I begin to prepare for the next stage of the plan. I have a chair set up, and the rope I found tied to our back gate to keep the door shut, is ready and waiting to be used for another purpose. I know I hit John hard enough that it will take some time for him to come to. I prepare myself for the daunting task of getting him into the chair. After several minutes and rough heaving, I finally get John into the chair and tie him up. When he wakes, he’ll be wishing he was still asleep, or better yet, dead. I set up a chair across from John and turn to the wedding dress in the closet. I take it off the hangar. I marvel at its beauty for some time and smile when I remember how happy the dancing woman is when she wears the dress. I take off my plain dress and slip on the wedding dress. It fits like a glove.  I indulge myself with one small twirl, and then let my mind return to the business at hand. I sit in the chair and I wait.

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     I’ll save you the very gory details my friend. When John awoke, he struggled for a very long time at his restraints, but I made sure that I had him securely fastened. He screamed and yelled, and called me every name under the sun, but I just stared at him smiling while he let me have it. I got up and I told him exactly what I was going to do to him. He looked amused at first and even ventured a laugh. But when I threw the first punch, the look in his eyes changed. Suddenly he knew just how serious I was. I had taken the opportunity to wrap my hands in cloth while John was unconscious, because I knew full well what John’s hands looked like after he hit me.  I let all of my anger and sadness and loss go into each throw. Just as his eyes were about to close for the last time, I smiled a genuine smile and turned to the girl wearing a plain dress and smiled and twirled in my beautiful wedding dress. Oh how happy I was, twirling and dancing, with not a care in the world and a smile on my face. John’s eyes closed and the dancing woman spun around and around the chair, and the girl I once knew was no more.