red hill - jamie mcguire

all he does is yell at me and the kids. He acts like he hates us.”
“Maybe if you were easier to live with he would want to be home.”
Standing in the hall, in front of that picture, I held my fist to my heart in an effort to stave off that
years-old hurt. When I chose to leave him, he had the support of his family—and mine. To them, it
was a badge of honor to wear his ring. But he was an angry, sometimes cruel man. Of course, I was
no doormat, but refusing to let him bully our children only led to louder arguments. The yelling.
Christ, the yelling. Our former home was full of words and noise and tears. No, he wasn’t a drunk, or
an addict, nor did he beat me, but living in misery is not so different.
I stayed as long as I did to protect the girls. The only person that stood between them and Andrew
during one of his rages was me. When he would chase Jenna up the stairs and scream in her face, I
would chase after him. I would hold him back, out of her room. His anger would be redirected at me
so Jenna wouldn’t have to be afraid in her own home.
But he didn’t beat me. No, he did not.
Sometimes I wished that he had, so at least that was something I could offer my mother. A tangible
sacrifice to lay at her feet so she could see that selfishness or something as shallow as boredom
didn’t influence my decision. She might allow me that excuse instead of taking Andrew’s side and
commiserating with him about what a horrible person I was to live with, and how they had that in
common.
Our home was so quiet now, and the slamming doors and screaming were replaced with laughter
and yes, persistent arguing between the girls. But in the next hour they would be snuggling on the
couch. Their home was a safe haven. I owed that to them after what Andrew and I had put them
through.
I put my hand on the knob and turned, unsure of what to expect. Mema, my mother’s mother, was
refreshingly neutral. She simply nodded when I told her my marriage had ended, and said that Jesus
loved me, and to keep the girls in church. Nothing else really mattered to her.
The door moved slowly. Part of me braced for something to jump out from the shadows, and the
other prepared my heart to see something awful. But when the door opened to reveal their tiny
bedroom, with their four-post bed and dated wallpaper, I let out the breath I’d been holding. The bed
was made. They hadn’t been in it, yet.
Just as quickly as the relief washed over me, it left. They would’ve been in bed by now. They
weren’t home. That meant they had been collected, and if it was by the soldiers, the girls were more
than likely not at Andrew’s, either. A sob caught in my throat. I refused to cry until there was
something to cry about.
The picture in the hall grabbed my attention. The Jeep waiting for me on the outskirts of town
didn’t have the same wallet-size photo of my daughters that the Suburban did. It didn’t have their
drawings and school papers littering the floorboard. I reached up and grabbed the frame, and then
threw it on the ground, letting it crash. Quickly pulling the picture from beneath the shards of glass, I
folded it twice, and slid it snugly into my bra. Every photo album we had was sitting in a hutch
cabinet at home. Their baby pictures, snapshots of birthdays and of them playing outside. It was all
left behind. The picture poking into my skin might be all I had left.