One Minute To Leave

"Just one minute, and I'll be fine," Sarah told her crying baby who was crying to be fed.

She glanced in the mirror and sobbed silently. She didn't want to cry loudly because she knew she would upset her baby.

"Do I feed him now, or do I just go?" she asked herself silently while examining her bruised neck, badly bruised lips, and black eyes in the mirror.

Sarah started shaking with fear.

She wondered what would happen when her baby grew up.

"Would you be able to see the true face of your mum?" Would you sit in a corner with your head in your hands, cowering and shaking as your dad throws one more punch in my face?" she asked the baby quietly.

She only had one minute to leave before Drake came home.

One more minute before the violence started again.

She had taken Drake's violence for almost five years before this baby was born.

It felt like a repeat of what her dad had put her and her mum through.

She experienced flashbacks of her drunken father walking through the door. She could still remember her mum's screams as he lay into her, and she could still feel the scorching sting of his belt on her legs, which left lash marks on her thighs.

She had to tell the teachers at school that she had fallen, just so her dad wouldn't get into trouble.

She felt sick as the thought crept in.

"Just one minute to go, but you need feeding. I can't let you go without your milk just so we can leave," she whispered as tears fell down her cheeks.

Sarah kissed her baby and packed whatever she could.

She took very few clothes for herself because she didn't have time to pack those on top of packing for her baby.

The baby was still screaming for his bottle. Sarah felt guilty about not feeding him straight away. She knew Drake was due home from work in a minute.

She also knew that he would walk in drunk and stinking of alcohol, which would always lead to violence.

She knew that she would be at risk of getting hurt one more; she knew every punch was a punch closer to her baby getting hurt.

Sarah remembered that she'd saved a couple of ready-made baby feeds in the kitchen. There were only two left, but she decided she could take them and feed the baby in the taxi if she had to.

"Just one minute to go," she cried to herself in the kitchen.

She didn't want to leave. She had been told so many times to think of her baby, and she knew they would be homeless for a while.

The taxi pulled up outside, and Sarah felt a lump in her throat as she looked around the flat she had once called home.

There were so many beautiful pictures of her baby hanging on the walls, and she wanted to take them with her.

She shook her head as she glanced at them one more time as more tears fell down her cheeks. Her favourite picture of her newborn in his crib, wrapped in a red and white striped shawl, smiled back at her.

She knew that she couldn't take it with her.

She couldn't take many things, including the happy photographs of her and Drake playing in the park, during the happy days before their baby was born.

It snapped her heart in two, knowing she was going to lose her precious belongings, and her marriage even though she knew it was horrible, but she knew Drake, and he wasn't horrible...until he started drinking.

It felt like her entire life was about to end; but no, she mustn't think like that.

She needed a new, safe life where she could be happy and give her baby the secure upbringing he needed.

She couldn't do that here, not anymore.

She had tried many times to call the police to have him removed, but Drake's name was on the flat, and they wouldn't move him despite her cries.

She pushed the thought that he might change back into the person he once was away.

Those happy memories would never come back until Drake stopped drinking.

Sarah and her baby didn't have time for that. Her baby would grow into a child and then an adult and she couldn't wait for Drake to stop drinking, if he ever did.

She suddenly realized that Drake wouldn't stop for her or her baby.

He had to do it for himself, but Drake didn't know he had a problem. He had denied it ever since the baby was born.

They had this conversation many times, and it only landed her getting hurt. On one occasion he had broken her arm when she tried stopping him from picking the baby up when he was drunk.

The taxi driver papped his horn to tell Sarah he was still waiting.

"One minute to go," she cried for the last time.

Sarah then picked up the few belongings she had packed, and her baby.

She left with tears in her eyes, and without looking back.

In the taxi, she looked into her beautiful baby's eyes as she fed him.

"One minute to go," she told him with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.