MUTATION

Heavy footfalls sound on the staircase. You roll off the bed and huddle behind the door. Your nightgown is caught on the bedpost in your haste, snagged on the jutting nail you've been meaning to hammer down. It rips, the sound resonating in the still room. You feel an alien pang, so tiny, you almost miss it. The nightgown was a gift from him, your beloved husband whose wrath you’re about to face.

You know what’s coming, but still you pray. You know that praying has not changed anything, not yet, at any rate. Praying did not calm him down the day he raged against you and poured ice water on your face in front of your children. Praying did not keep your hair glued to your head the night he yanked large chunks of it off your scalp and hit your head against the wall. Praying did not make the padlock on the front door magically unlock the night he locked you out of the house for returning late from the market. Praying did not render your hand immune to the flames when he held your wrist and forced your hand into the fire of the stove and you screamed and screamed and begged God to let you die. You rub the satiny scarring that covers the back of your right hand now and pray, regardless.

He bursts into the room and doesn't see you at first. His eyes roam over the bed and around the large bedroom. You shakily rise because you know that it will be much worse if he finds you crouching behind the door. His eyes light upon you and he approaches you in that almost quizzical way that you have come to dread. You know what is coming because you have come to know this man, to cast out what you knew he was and now know who he is, after the accident. You immediately begin to stammer out explanations, to explain that you didn't invite your sister over; you didn't know she would be coming. To reassure him that you share none of her sentiments about him. To apologize for the insults she hurled at him for his perceived mistreatment of you. To register how appalling you found her ridicule of his condition. To earnestly swear that you haven’t been telling her anything, that you've been true to nobody but him. To promise that you will forbid her from visiting ever again until she can keep a civil tongue in her head.

You never get to finish your profuse explanations because the back of his massive hand has just connected with your teeth. You taste blood and blink back tears and doggedly continue your appeal. He mutters under his breath and drags you by your hair to the center of the room. Your scalp screams in pain as you try to claw your way away from him. He pulls you back and slaps you so hard, you collapse to the floor and black spots dance before your eyes.

You feel the familiar fear now, dread filling your belly and rising up to choke you. You look up at his hulking form, the powerful build that once upon a time filled you with excitement filling you with terrible trepidation. His eyes are vacant, ruthless. He slams your head against the ground and stands up. The next thing you feel is the weight of his foot against your cheek, bearing down. You grunt in pain as you feel your tooth hang loosely from the gum. He hunkers down beside you and yanks you up to your knees. He forces your mouth open with one hand and reaches into your mouth with the other, pinching your tongue between two massive fingers. He pulls your tongue hard, all the while muttering unintelligibly. By now your tears are flowing hot and free, blood trickling down the side of your mouth. Your eyes meet his and he stills.

He stares at your tear-stained eyes as his erstwhile blank pair fill with tears of their own. You can’t tear your eyes away from those orbs as the tears leak down his face in twin rivulets. He lets go of your face slowly, gingerly. His fingers leave your tongue one first, then the other. He sinks to his haunches and buries his face in his palms, his great shoulders quivering. You don’t even register moving; you find yourself kneeling beside him, your arms going around him as much as they can. You place his head against your breasts as you sob with him, for him.

You pray, knowing that praying has not changed anything, not yet, at any rate. Praying has not given you strength and courage to stare him down and declare that enough is enough. Praying has not given him peace and acceptance of his acquired lot in life. Praying has not miraculously made his tongue grow back, since the day of the accident when he fell while at a building site and sustained several serious injuries, the worst being biting his own tongue off and rendering himself incoherent. Praying has not miraculously turned back the hands of time and restored him to the smooth-talking, playful man you married.

As you kneel there, cradling your sobbing, bitter husband, your face swollen, bloody, tear-stained and stinging, you know these things. Still, you pray.