A Cold Toilet

CW: Domestic abuse, mental health issues

Memories remain in the drywall. They haunt doors and corners. You remember this one time when your hands were in your hoodie pocket; you leaned against the wall. The wall is cool to the touch, even through your sweater. He swings and misses on purpose, instead he placed a fist sized hole next to your head. The blue drywall crumbled with it and around it. Holes weaken the surface and when they are larger than 5 inches, it can’t be fixed. 

In our house, the holes in the drywall are permanent, carrying sounds and shrieks. It is like an internal begging for it to just stop. You don’t say it aloud because that is how to give over additional power. You stop counting the holes. The number of disagreements is too numerous and regular. Not all end with holes in the drywall. 

You remember this one time he chased you through the house, as you hid in the bathroom between the toilet and garden tub. The door has no lock, but it was the last door you could run towards. If you run outside, everyone will know what you hide. You hope he gets tired and maybe his phone will ring, moving his thoughts to you on the other side of the door. He kicks the door and you watch it buckle from the top and bottom, opening space to see to the bedroom ceiling from inside the bathroom. The hallway is connected to the bathroom through haunting memories of running and hiding against the cold toilet. At least the kids are outside in the truck this time. The kicking stops. Perhaps he remembers this door doesn’t have a lock. Then you hear a small voice from the other side. One of the kids is inside and talking. They wouldn’t have seen this terror, and they don’t see you hiding on the other side of the door. You still hope the toilet will keep the door from falling on you. 

The memories stay and haunt the walls of this house and overshadow the times between the frightening ones. You can’t remember what set him off at that time, but you don’t ever forget the chase and the way the cold toilet feels against your thighs. Every time you use the restroom, you remember. The cold toilet reminds you. You close your eyes and try to think of something else, anything else that could ground you to a different moment before you are triggered and trapped in a memory. 

You learn to block his actions without asking for help. Others close to him see his rage and do nothing, so it must be normal to have reminders around the corner of walls and behind partly crumpled doors left unfixed. Then there are other people who see a completely different version of him. He’s always a helpful and social butterfly. The star of every show knows how to do everything and has a story in parallel to the ones being told. Gentle with kids and attentive with crying babies. His terror isn’t on display for everyone, just people he knows cannot leave. 

Drywall holds on to memories like an unwilling observer. Like those people closest to you who would call it “abusive” with one another but will never call it “abuse” to you. Your life becomes idle gossip fodder that feeds the mouths of those disconnected by concrete and street signs miles away. 

“Why can’t you stop him? He shouldn’t be doing that in front of the kids,” said your aunts. 

There is no stopping him until he is done. Until he has reasserted his power and control over you. When you shy away from him and certain rooms, he has learned to repeat this tactic. 

“If you call the police, they will just let me out,” he said. 

And you believe him. 

When you finally leave him for good and you file a police report for a break and entering, the officer said, “I had no idea this was going on. I don’t remember being dispatched here. 

He wasn’t on call the only time you did call for help. Four officers arrived and an ambulance was dispatched. After what felt like an hour, he was released from the back of the squad car. He smiles at you. You have learned a valuable lesson. Keep what happens at home. Allow the haunted walls to remain, silently. Keep the holes uncovered and unpatched because they are reminders to not incite him to violence. Holes greater than 5 inches can’t be repaired. It must be replaced. That requires allowing someone else inside, behind the door where the corners hide frightening secrets for only a few to see. You don’t let others in. 

See, he doesn’t ever hit you, so you are confused if it is actually violence and physical abuse. The only violence is for the sheets of drywall, layers of plaster and fiberglass and the terror resides in yourself. And when he is not here, the walls remind you, he is everywhere, always. Does it really count as something to leave? Does it count as something to report? It is a haunting of the walls. Until you move away from him, the memories remain and until someone comes in and sees your holes in the walls and crumpled doors, no one would believe you. You paint the walls, but the stories remain.

Years later, you take a virtual tour when the property has traded hands to someone new. They have replaced the drywall and doors. The holes are gone, but you still recall where they once resided, which corner had monsters behind them. Monsters within a home are trapped in the networks of my mind. Can others see them? Do the corners and edges of the hallway and entrance into your bedroom frighten others the same way? 

You see memories of the Christmas tree by the fireplace. 

You see the room where your children played games and where you tucked them in at bedtime. 

And you remember the way cold feels against your body. 

It’s like I never left.