The voice I once forgot was mine

I was married, but to me, it wasn’t marriage. It was poverty-induced— a fate sealed by hunger and silence. I was an orphan, taken in by my mother’s brother— the uncle who accepted that I could live with him. But he was abusive, an emotional robber. He broke the seal of my womanhood when I was just into the third of the teenage years. Long story short— he called me one day and showed me a man. “This is your new husband,” he said. No ceremony. No wedding. My kind of orphan needs no such, especially since I was still far below the radar of marriage. Later, I discovered the man was forty-eight, twice previously married, but with no child. And if not for the experience with my uncle, I wouldn’t have understood his blankness beneath the sheet. But he was a good man— he gave me a joy I had only imagined, but never before experienced. He helped me understand why he chose me— not just for my beauty, or the shape that made men turn once, twice, again, and again. But for what my body could give him: children— the ones he desperately needed to silence those who mocked him. But not his own— from another man that could kick better beneath the sheet. It took me a while to find an innocent victim. He kicked well— and within three months, my belly was well-rounded. My husband soared— as if lifted to the top of the world. And nine months later, a baby boy bounced on our bed— to kick the shame of childlessness out. But it lasted just a year or two... A good horse is never ridden once. So, two years after avoiding our baby donor, I had to go back to him— a good fill deserves a refill. And the money he was swimming in gave me the comfort I had always lacked. So I began to love him more than my husband. I detested getting pregnant too soon— I wanted to feel the fullness of a man. Until one day. I’d noticed his strange habit of slipping out into the night. But I never knew he was an armed robber. His best friend gave the first clue. Then I saw the butt of a gun neatly tucked beneath his belt. I knew a gun when I saw one— my husband was a policeman. And because I caught them off guard, he confessed— but not before cunningly making me partake in one of their robberies. Then— I thought I was surviving~ but I was only shifting wounds from one skin to another. Again I know: the body remembers what silence tries to bury. And freedom— it doesn’t come from any man’s hands, but from the voice I once forgot was mine.