…she was controlling everything I did.
It was like trying to climb a fence with a vicious Pit-bull on the other side…watching my every move.
Except in my life, Carmina was the Pit-Bull.
One false move and she attacked. She used others to attack me as well…especially Nick.
She often warned me that if I didn’t do what she told me to do, the whole town and all of our relatives would hate me.
“Oh, I almost forgot…don’t forget to have my snack ready when I get home. Not a lazy peanut butter and jelly sandwich either,” Carmina yelled back at me as she rode away.
I was captive to a seven year old.
One good thing about Carmina being seven was that during most of the day, she was at school.
Carmina loved going to school…
But she arrived when she wanted to…usually around lunch time. Of course she never got in trouble for it.
I suspect that she loved being there so much because she enjoyed tormenting the other kids in school as much as she enjoyed tormenting me. At least while she was there, I felt safe and free.
But as soon as she arrived home, it all started again…
“Mom! Come quick…ouch, I think I hurt myself!” Carmina called out while in her tree house one day.
I didn’t believe that anything was wrong with her, but I knew that I’d catch a lot of flak from Nick if I didn’t at least check on her.
“You okay Carmina?” I called up, trying my best to sound like a concerned mom.
“Yeah…my mistake, it was just a splinter. Wait there…I’ll be right down.”
I waited for Carmina to come down, but she didn’t…
Instead she surprised me with a big bucket of ice cold water.
I felt like I was drowning as the seemingly never ending flood of water poured down on me.
I was steaming mad as Carmina laughed at her little joke,
But she and I both knew that there was nothing I could do about it.
I dried off in the house and stood barely able to look myself in the mirror. As Carmina aged, she became more beautiful…
While I began to age faster.
While her hair grew and became more luxurious…my hair began to look dull and started to thin out so much that I had to wear wigs and hair pieces to hide it.
She was growing quickly like the typical seven year old child, while I lost a ton of weight and my body began to take on more of a skeletal appearance.
Carmina’s skin was the prettiest I’d ever seen…light honey colored, smooth and healthy. I was starting to see premature age lines and my complexion was uneven with dark spots here and there.
She had the whitest teeth possible. As soon as she lost a baby tooth, a new permanent tooth was there to fill the spot right away…perfect and straight.
My gums were beginning to recede for no reason as my teeth slowly began to show signs of rotting.
No one would believe that I was only thirty years old… just as no one would believe that Carmina was a little monster.
And I knew that she was slowly sucking the life out of me.
Nick couldn’t even stand to look at me anymore.
I’d dress in his favorite lingerie and walk into the room unexpectedly…
Most of the time he didn’t even look up from what he was doing.
“Niiiick…” I’d say, singing his name out as seductively as possible.
He’d put his book down, but his expression was never one that I wanted to see while standing half naked in front of him.
It never failed that he came up with some excuse to leave the room,
“Oh damn Diane… hold that thought, I forgot that I had a client that I need to call.”
I knew he was lying and even worse, I knew that he was no longer attracted to me…but I guess I was just a glutton for punishment.
“Call a client? At this hour?”
“Uh…yeah. You know as much as I do that running a business is a 24 hour job.”
“Just go ahead and relax…I’ll be back soon,” Nick said continuing the lie.
“Ok,” I said, barely managing to hold back tears.
I was usually only able to hold it all in for the few minutes it took him to leave the room.
But as soon as the door closed behind him, my tears left a hot dirty mascara trail down my cheeks.
The one thing I thought would save our marriage had obliterated it to the point of no return, but I knew Nick would never leave me.
Carmina made sure of that…just to keep me simmering in the living hell that she made sure to keep aflame.
I never bothered to stay up and wait for Nick. I knew he’d just come up with another reason for not sleeping with me.
Instead, I just cried myself to sleep each time.
