The darkness

           Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did. Have you ever sat and thought to yourself, “is this real life?” 

          After growing up in such a loving family, I was looking at my son thinking, “how did I get this so wrong?” Many things occurred in the last year but it would take me a lifetime to write about all them, Kayden was about a year old now, I was almost done with my maternity leave. When I was about to go back, I was informed I didn’t have a job. This was against all the labour laws, long story short I took them to court and won my case. Thank god I had gotten a settlement and was able to make it by for a little while.

       We had moved now about 4 times since Kayden was born. Now living in a house outside of the city. It was a cute house and I thought maybe we would be away from that lifestyle. I was very wrong. It didn’t take long and the bedroom in the basement was turned into a grow up. I couldn’t stand the smell of my house it was absolutely overwhelming. I hated that my son was in this house, I confronted him and gave him back my wedding rings. It was the first time I ever sold up to him and it was nerve wracking. Yet he didn’t care, he went downstairs and watered his plants and smoked. 

       I was working at a hotel in the city and selling Partylite candles from home now. We had a huge conference we could attend in Quebec so my girlfriend and I went together. It was amazing I remember my first time ever on an airplane. It was so hard to leave my son home but he was going to be with his grandparents most of the time. It was a great trip and I returned home. 

       I got home picked up my son and brought my bags into the bedroom. Yet I thought to myself something is off? There was things in my room I knew I didn’t own. A few days went by and our house phone kept ringing and every time I’d answer they would hang up. It was the same private number over and over again. I waited one night for him to fall asleep and I grabbed his phone. I was in shock to see photos of my son in some other girls bedroom. She was in my house in photos and then I noticed rings on her finger in a photo, he had given her my wedding rings. How does this all happen over a 3 day weekend to Quebec? 

       I knew this girl, I went to elementary school with her. She was the sister of the man he accused me of sleeping with, when he had a gun held at me. I wondered how long this had been going on for. So I reached out to her, they had been together the whole weekend. She told me he got her the rings and they were driving around in his truck. I didn’t need to hear anymore. It was nothing but lies from him, those were my rings and it was my truck. I had a very girly decal on the back window and the front bug deflector said, “daddy’s lil gurl.” It wasn’t hard to know it was a girls truck. 

        I called my girlfriend and told her what happened and that I needed to get out of there before he got home. I packed everything Kayden needed and my stuff and she was on her way to get me. I went downstairs grabbed every single weed plant loaded them into the trunk of the car and tossed them into an open pit down the road. They were destroyed. When he returned home he was furious and when he contacted me I told him exactly everything I knew. 

        I lived with my friend who was dating my husbands brother for a while. His brother had nothing to do with him at this point and it was a safe place for us to be. A few months passed and I received a phone call from his cousin. “He tried to kill himself Katie he needs you,” I didn’t know what to do this was the father of my child. So I met up with him he was a mess, he convinced me that it was because he needed me and Kayden. That things would be different and he would never hurt me again. I always wanted my child to have a family a mom and dad under the same roof like I did. I was naive to think this was ever going to happen with this man for my son. 

         Yet here we are in another new house, down the block from his brothers. I was praying things would change, little did I know this was only the beginning of the absolute darkness. It was a two bedroom with a loft house with an unfinished basement. Kayden’s room was painted like the movie Cars and had the stairs to the loft in it which I used as my office for selling Partylite. We welcomed our first dog into the family her name was Electra she was a Rottie with bright blue eyes. An absolute baby and Kayden’s best friend. 

         However the weed had now turned into cocaine and the people who started coming around our house were not people I wanted myself never mind my son around. I would send Kayden to his grandparents on the weekends to keep him safe and away from this life his father had. 

        He had one of his buddies move into the basement, which I wondered how it was cold, dark concrete basement but he had no problem throwing a mattress down there. They set up a tv and before I knew it, my house had video cameras put up so they could watch the doors from the basement. I was truly living in some kind of movie I didn’t want to watch. 

         I had no idea what he had gotten himself into when we were not together for those few months. I questioned him and he told me he joined a gang and he was protected now. I was so scared and realized now I was truly silenced. His dealers would come to the house to do his drug drops and I had to sit in our room. I wasn’t allowed to see who they were, until they felt like they trusted me. That I wasn’t going to go to the cops. Once they left I could come out of our room and then he would go into the basement and start selling it. We had a side back door that people would go to so they didn’t come into the house. 

        It was non stop people at our house at all hours of the night and he never came to bed. Kayden and I would do our own thing upstairs and I tried to give him the best life I could despite what was happening around us. I was close with my cousin and her boyfriend. He was much like my husband. So it wasn’t shocking when they got close. My cousin’s boyfriend was a tattoo artist and found out my husband would get tattoos from him in exchange for cocaine payment. It was nice to have my cousin close as he never allowed me to hang out with anyone. My phone was always monitored and I had distanced myself from my family to protect them.

        One night I was sitting in the living room and Kayden was asleep in his crib and I heard a loud bang. I went and looked and there was someone trying to climb the front of our house and break in through the loft window. I grabbed Kayden and yelled and called my brother in law down the street to come to our house. My husband came upstairs and dragged this guy into our house. I left with my brother in law and Kayden and stayed the night there. I was so shaken what if he would have gotten to Kayden I hated this life. Yet I knew who he was affiliated with and I didn’t dare say a word or I would have been killed. 

        How did I get here? How do I get out? How do I keep Kayden safe? How do I stay alive? I asked myself these questions on a daily basis and never found an answer. Yet I was in the cycle of abuse so part of this life felt like it was as if I deserved this. As if this life was love and supporting our family. He had me so brainwashed that this, this is what love for me looked like. That I could never find better nor was I worth anymore than the life and love he was giving me. 

       This was the trap he wanted me stuck in, the control of me he needed to feel powerful. I was right where he wanted me, too scared to say anything to anyone and too scared to leave with our son again. I was trapped in the darkness, scared, silenced and alone. He knew exactly what he was doing and now he could do so much worse.