For Love - Part IV: A Fairytale Ending

“So… When are you gonna tell your ex about us?”  I knew this was coming.   Sooner or later I was going to have to introduce my new boyfriend, Mark, to my evil ex-husband, Bill, but not today.  And not tomorrow either.  How about never!

            “I don’t know.  Soon, okay?”

            “You look nervous.”

            “Do I?”  I tried to smile and laugh as if I didn’t feel sick to my stomach, but he was right.  We were headed towards Bill’s mother’s house in Mark’s car at that very moment to drop off Faith to accommodate Bill’s visitation rights.  He was bound to notice the shiny red camaro and the hunk of beef cake behind the wheel. This was step one of my master plan.  First, they would establish visual contact from afar… many, many times.  Then Mark would stand outside his car and say “how’s it going,” or something equally casual as I hefted Faith’s baby carrier and diaper bag through the front door of Bill’s mother’s house.  And then…

            “Hey, is that it?” Mark asked, pointing up

Lakeshore Circle

at the grey two story house with the perfectly manicured lawn.  Oh God!  We’re here!  The car slowed to a stop in front of the mailbox with the 401 label.  “Sharon?  Is this the right house?”

            “Uh, yeah.  Yeah, this is it.”  I scrambled out of the passenger side door to get Faith from the backseat.  “I’ll just be a minute inside, okay?”  He was already getting his seatbelt off.  “Really, this stuff isn’t that heavy.”  I tried my best to make lifting Faith’s two-ton diaper bag and car seat over my seat and under the shoulder strap of the front seatbelt look effortless.  I failed miserably, grunting and making embarrassing faces to boot.  Darn two door cars!  I need to work out more. 

            “Here, let me help you with that.”  Before I could say no, or even think Oh, shit, Mark got out of the car to help.  He grabbed everything and headed for the front door with me in tow.  Wait!  I’m not ready for “and then…” yet!

            I rang the doorbell and walked in.  The door was left open for me.  It usually was in case Bill and his mother were in the backyard or the swimming pool.  “Hello,” I called out loudly to announce my presence.  I didn’t want Mrs. Engle to die of a heart attack if she saw Mark first.  Wouldn’t that have been a cheerful way to start our visit.  Hello Bill.  Sorry about your dead mother.  By the way, this is my boyfriend, Mark.  At least, I hoped she would be the one to greet us.

            No such luck.

            Bill came through the back screen door from the patio and found me standing in the hallway next to Mark, who was picking Faith up out of her carrier.  If I hadn’t known Bill since middle school, I would have said that he took in the new and unexpected male presence with perfect ease, but I saw the awkward, split second up and down, side to side glance he gave Mark before recalling his usual cool.  I smiled to myself.

            “Hey man.  How’s it goin’?”  Bill waved his greeting at us from across the room.  Ha!  Yeah, that’s right.  Mark here could crush you like a bug. 

            “Hey Bill.  This is Mark Foster.”  What did I say his last name for?   

            “Foster?  As in Melissa Foster?”  Melissa is my best friend, also from middle school.

            “Yeah.  Mark is her older brother.  He just got back from the Navy.”  I just had to throw that last little tidbit in there.

            “That’s cool… (long silence)… So, can you pick Faith up at around 6:30?  We are going to cook dinner on the grill out back.”  He was addressing me.  Only me.

            “Yeah, no problem.  We were just gonna hang out until you called us anyway.”

            “Oh.  Okay then,” he said, taking Faith and the diaper bag from Mark.  “I’ll see you guys later.”  Faith began to fuss as usual, but I knew that in about thirty seconds Bill was going to hand her off to his mother so that he could swim or play video games anyway.  To be honest, I felt Faith was safer with her.  Then again, what was the point of me bringing her over there if he was just going to ignore her anyway?  I let it go.  She had Mark now.

            Once we were back outside, I grabbed a hold of Mark’s arm, laid my head against his hard bicep, and began to breath normally again. 

“You see,” he said looking down at me with his gorgeous dark brown eyes and pouty lips.  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”  I knew he hadn’t been planning on meeting Bill that day.  He just did it.  I could not be mad at him, not while he gave me that look.  His face was a mixture of tenderness, assurance, and playfulness, and it said, “Of course that wasn’t that bad silly.  I was right there with you, and I always will be.”

Thump-thump, flutter-thump.

Oh, boy.  Here I go again.

As I said before, Mark is my best friend’s older brother, a dream come true for every young girl who ever wanted to be sisters with their best bosom buddy.  The first time I went to Melissa’s dad’s house in Towanda, Illinois, I saw Mark’s Navy picture hanging up in the narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms.

“Whoa!  Who is that!  He’s hot!”  My thirteen-year-old hormones were in overdrive.

“That’s my older brother, Mark,” she said, not even bothering to turn around to see which family picture I was ogling. 

I turned to Melissa’s father, who was sitting at the kitchen table near by and said, “Yup.  That’s the man I’m going to marry.”  He laughed.

I wasn’t joking.

There were a few problems with my plan.  For one, he was only a picture.  Since he was in the Navy, I would never be able to get to know him except when he came over on holidays, and holidays are for family.  Secondly, and more importantly, I was thirteen.  If he was in the Navy, he had to be at least five or six years older than me.  In other words, my plan was illegal.  Finally, the next year, in eighth grade, I met Bill.  I settled on obsessing over “Mr. Right now” instead and left Mark adrift at sea.

But now I was 22, and he was… (How old is he anyway?), well, older.  I was single.  He was single.  We lived in the same state, and, oh my gosh, he was even better looking in person.  I had met him before when he came home on leave every so often, but I always enjoyed his good looks from afar.  The law demanded as much.

And so, when I was invited over for Thanksgiving dinner the year I left Bill, the most painful and devastating year of my life, I found myself staring across the long table at Mark as if he were an angel in blue jeans and a tight cotton shirt.  “Doth thou want some more sweet potato casserole” he might say. “Why yes, thank you,” I would reply, blinking my lashes at him.  

“He’s hot.”

“Excuse me?”  The dream vanished.  I was now staring at Melissa’s goofy grin.  The color of my cheeks must have rivaled the cranberry sauce.    

“What?  Oh… I said, ‘Careful, that’s hot’.”  Her smile widened, as did mine.  I knew it was a lame cover, but I thought I might get points for being clever.  “Oh come on!  You know what I said.”

“Yeah, I know what you said,” she teased.  “I’m just happy you found something nice to think about.  You deserve to be with a good guy.”

Apparently, Melissa was not the only one who thought so, because every time Mark was to come to his mother’s house, I was invited over.  I found out later that his mother, father, brother, and sisters were all on board, telling him how smart, funny, and sweet I am, assuring him that I would make a good wife, and giving him general  pep talks to ask me out.  I was not spared this treatment either.

They would start in on me as soon as I came in the door. 

“Did you know that Mark led drug patrols in the Navy?  He received medals and everything.  He’s never smoked or drank alcohol either…” 

“Mark is a pre-med student, and he is doing really well in school.  He is so goal oriented and studious, just like you…”

“Do you want to come over next weekend?  ‘Why,’ you ask?  Oh no reason.  Mark is going to be here, and I think he was hoping you would be here too…” 

“Mark said the sweetest thing about you the other day.  What was it?  Oh, darn.  I forgot, but you can call and ask him.  Here’s his number…” 

Still, I wasn’t quite ready to dive back into the deep end right after I nearly drowned.  Time was not my friend, especially at night after I put Faith to bed.  I sat alone in my tiny studio.  I was a failure.  I would sit on my little red couch with my knees drawn up under my chin, hug them to my chest, and do nothing but stare at the walls for hours.  I almost never slept.  I bought myself a clock with bright blue numbers to keep me company.  It’s 11:45.  You’re a failure.  It’s 2:06.  You’re a failure.  It’s 6:00.  You will always be a failure.    

Before the divorce, I had purpose.  I was on fire and so ready to be free, but the reality of divorce was like a bucket of cold water.  I sat on my couch night after night, a sopping wet pile of ashes living in a dark, three-hundred-fifty square foot hole with nothing but an obnoxious clock to tell me that my situation was never going to change.   And then along came Mark.  On the days I saw him, I basked in every compliment I got from him or through his relatives as if the words were rays of bright golden sunshine.  When night came, I had a ready supply of pleasant warmth.  Little by little, I began to dry out.  

In the second week of March, the first hint of balmy spring weather appeared.  As usual, I was out in Colfax to visit “Melissa,” who lived there with her mother, Linda, her step-father, David, and her baby girl, Skyla.  Mark was staying there through his spring break.  As always, I was wearing two or three extra layers to keep myself warm in Linda’s personal ice box of a house.  I rubbed my arms as I stared out the window, then at the babies playing on the floor, then at Mark.

“Does anyone want to go for a walk?  It’s really nice out,” I said still facing Mark.

“Yeah.  I’ll go.  We could take the kids to the park,” he said immediately.  He must have been waiting for the invitation.

“Yeah!  That sounds great.”  Suddenly Melissa and Linda figured out what was going on and couldn’t leave it alone.

“We’re coming too!  But… you can start without us.  We’ll be right behind you.”

And they were.  They puttered along innocently pushing the babies in strollers about twenty feet behind us with Christina, Linda’s eldest daughter, on the phone, giving her a play by play of the action.

“Are you going to be up here this whole week then?” I asked.

“Yeah.  I’ll be out here mostly, but I’ll be coming to town to visit my dad and my grandma.”  I lived “in town” too, which is Bloomington-Normal.  “What about you?”

“Oh.  Well… I usually try to come out here on the weekends, like today.  He’s going to ask me out!  Just breathe.  Act normal.

“So, what are you doing on Monday then?” 

“Nothing.  I have to work until five.  Then I get Faith from the daycare.  Why?”  He slowed down and almost stopped.  I did the same.  I looked up at him, waiting for him to continue.

“I was just wondering… do you want to go out to dinner with me?”  Yes!  Yes!  Yes! But…

“I’d love to…but, I don’t have a babysitter.  It’s hard enough leaving her in the daycare.  I just… I can’t leave her.”

“I know.  I want both of you to come.”

“Really!?!”

“Of course.”  He paused for a moment, contemplating how he should say what he wanted to say.  “I understand that you and Faith are a package deal.  I would never ask you to exclude her.”

“Are you sure you want to take all this on?” I asked, pointing my thumb back in the direction of the strollers.

“Well, most men my age already have families.”

“Most men as good looking as you could have any woman they wanted.”  He smiled.

“I suppose.  But most women are not like you.  So… will you have dinner with me?”

“We’d love to.  Oh, wait just a sec,” I said, turning to face our stalkers.  “Hey!  He asked me out!  We’re going to dinner on Monday.”  The squeal coming from the receiver of the phone was audible from twenty feet. 

“By the way, just how old are you anyway? …Really!  You look younger than that.”

I called my mother when I got home that night to tell her the news.

“Guess what I’m doing on Monday,” I said quietly.  Faith was asleep in her section of the room as I sat on my couch painting my toe nails cherry red with the phone pressed between my ear and my shoulder.

“Hmmm.  I don’t know.  Are you… going shopping?”

“I have a date.  I’m going out with Mark Foster.”  I was beaming.

“Oh.  Huh.  Is he that big guy with the ponytail and all the tattoos?”

“No!  That’s his brother, Scott.”

“Oh.  So Mark is the one who was in the Navy then?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well good.  I’m happy for you.”

“I think you’ll like him.  You should come visit so you can meet him.”

“I think I could manage that.  Until then, I want you to tell me all about him.”  Oh boy.  Here comes the hard part.

“Well, he’s uh… he’s thirty-two,” I began.

“Uh-huh.”  Did she hear what I just said?

“He’s ten years older than me, Mom.”

“And?”

“So, you’re okay with that?”

“Of course.  I’ve been telling you for years that you need someone at least seven years older than you.  You’ve always been much more mature than the boys your own age.”  Phew!  “Speaking of which, how are things going with Bill and the visitations?”

“I don’t know.  Bad, I guess.  I stopped calling him to see if he wants to have Faith come over because every weekend he says he’s sick or cancels last minute when I call to see what time he wants me to drop her off.  I’m just tired of the whole mess.  I thought I’d be done with all the arguing and excuse making when I got a divorce.”

“I hate to tell you this honey, but the mess has only just begun.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?”

“Seriously hun, you need to be prepared to deal with him, and so does Mark if he ends up sticking around.

“Mark won’t have to deal with him.  I will.”

“Yes he will.  Believe me.  Whether you like it or not, Faith’s connection to Bill makes Bill something like… your ‘other man’.”

“Well, in that case, Mark is really never going to meet or talk to him then.  I’m not going to lose the perfect man over him.” 

“You don’t need to go that far.  I just wanted you to be prepared.  When the time is right, they will meet, or talk on the phone, or whatever.  If Mark really is the perfect guy for you, he’ll stand by you and help you deal with your relationship with Bill.”

Back on the lawn at Bill’s mother’s house, I smiled up at Mark. The perfect man. The man who could make fire dance on water.

For Love - Part III: Wake Up Call

RING!!! RING!!! 

I fell out of my bed onto the floor in my rush to end the unwelcome noise violating my slumber.  That was stupid, I silently scolded myself for leaving the phone on.  I pushed the talk button and hurried out of the room so I would not wake my baby girl, Faith.  “What do you want Bill,” I whispered.  I did not need to check the caller ID to know it was him.  The blurry red numbers on the digital alarm clock read 2:00 am, Bill’s new favorite time to call me in a panic and beg me to come back home. 

I hurried downstairs hoping that my idiocy had not disturbed the rest of the house.  My longtime friends, the Andersons, who had been good enough to put me up, never complained about the many nuisances they endured because of my troubled marriage.  I wanted to keep it that way. Over a period of five months, I fought with Bill to get counseling and get the drugs out of the house so that Faith and I could live with him again.  Hope would bring me back to him for a month, a week here and there, then only a day or two at most.  I stayed with the Andersons in between. 

I never ceased to be amazed at how an entire month worth of fighting could be condensed into a single day or how embarrassing luggage could be.  I became so good at packing the baby’s and my personal belongings that I could have all of our most necessary and dearest possessions precisely tucked into my tiny two-door car in under an hour.  Then the inevitable pleading phone call would come from Bill when he found the nursery and my half of the closet empty, or when he finally decided that the kitchen and toilets seriously needed my attention, and I would rush back with high hopes that he would keep his promises this time.  However, the tedious job of unpacking my car in the afternoon with a baby on my hip and my husband glaring at every new item to re-enter the house went slowly while the neighbors tsk tsked, shaking their heads at me from their cement porches. 

This particular fight began very much like many of the others, with his rage and my discontent rekindling the moment I walked back through his door; however, our marriage ended for me that night in January when I managed to escape from his firm grasp to leave with my terrified baby girl screaming in my arms.

“Please don’t hang up,” Bill began.  “I need you.”  His pot was in the dumpster this time, along with all of his paraphernalia, and he needed me to come home right then at two in the morning to help him get through his panic.  Again with the “Please, Please come home... You said if I got it out of the house you would be there for me” routine.  I began to protest. 

“I don’t want to wake the baby up just to come over to your house to go back to sleep, Bill.  Can’t this wait until morning?” 

“No!  I need you here right now, not tomorrow.  You promised me!  I got rid of it like you asked.  You said you would be there to help me.  That is what I am asking you to do.”

“And I will, Bill, first thing in the morning.  It’s 2:00 am.  Just go to sleep.  Please, be reasonable.”  There is no reasoning with a drug addict.  If he set his apartment on fire that night trying to get rid of his drugs once and for all, he still would have called to announce that the baby and I had to sleep amongst the burning embers because of my promise to help.     

“I don’t believe this!  Now that I’m trying to save our marriage, you won’t come?  You are the one being unreasonable!”   

I packed a change of clothes for myself and Faith in the diaper bag and slung it over my shoulder along with my purse.  I felt a little odd carrying just the two bags, but this trip was only a visit, a sign of my good faith that he could change.  After shuffling my things back and forth between two houses too many times to count, he was going to have to prove that he was serious about quitting by remaining sober for a reasonable amount of time before I moved back in.  Maybe six months.  Maybe a year or two.  I would have to think about it.  He had never thrown his drugs in the dumpster before though.  That was a big step in the right direction.

Faith was still laying on the bed breathing softly with her little pink lips open.  She looked so peaceful with her pudgy red cheek pressed on the floral print pillow, and her feathery blonde hair sweeping across her forehead.  I didn’t want to disturb her, but I couldn’t leave her there with the Andersons.  The Andersons were very generous and understanding, but waking them at two in the morning to ask them to baby-sit would have been pushing it.  Very gently, I snuck my arms underneath her and her fuzzy pink blankets and carried her out to the car and away from our safe haven.

When I arrived at his door, he already had a scowl on his face.  Faith was still miraculously asleep in the baby carrier.  I put my finger to my lips to signal Bill to keep quiet while I went to lay her down in the nursery.  His glare deepened as if to say, if you hadn’t left me in the first place, she would have been asleep in her crib anyway.  Her room looked exactly how I left it.  The closet and the baskets under the bed were still empty.  In fact, the baskets were still sticking out from under the crib just as I had left them.  Bill had not entered the room since. 

I kissed her forehead and laid her back down for the night.  There.  At least she will have some peace.  I left her door open just a crack.  If Bill were going to yell in my face as usual, I would have a hard time hearing her otherwise.  I winced at the vertical black gap in the door separating me from my daughter, summoned all the patience in my being, and went back to Bill.

“Can you believe she is still asleep” I said with a small smile.  I was trying to keep the conversation light.  He did not answer.  Apparently, he was not in the mood for light.  Fine.  I’ll get right down to it then.  “Is there anything I can do for you now that I’m here?”

“Now that you’re here,” he sneered.  “You don’t even want to be here with me, you fucking cunt.  I don’t know why I even bothered to call.”

“I left this apartment, not you.  And I wouldn’t be here tonight if I didn’t want to save this marriage.  You said you needed me, so here I am as promised.  There is no reason for you to be so mean about it.”  I was calm but firm.   

“No?  All of this is your fault,” he said opening his arms wide to emphasize the enormity of the blame, “not mine.  If I hadn’t married you, I would have my pot here in the house right now!  I would be perfectly happy, and you could kiss my ass with all your fucking rules!” 

            “I’m here to help you, remember?  Don’t do this again.”

            “Do what?  Tell you the truth?  You never should have married me if you couldn’t handle being around drugs.”  He was absolutely right.  I should have run away screaming, but I didn’t.  Oh why didn’t I run?

            “Come on.  Not tonight,” I said trying to mellow his mood.  I was supposed to say that I never planned the pregnancy that rushed us into marriage, that having a family changed my opinions about what behaviors I was willing to accept from him, but I wasn’t going to follow the script.  “Let’s just go to bed, huh?”

“Oh sure.  I’m so sorry I’m disturbing your night.”  I let it go, but I was getting irritated with his attitude.  I expected him to be edgy, but his manner was more manic and aggressive than I had ever seen from him before.  He was pacing up and down the hallway clenching his fists and growling curses under his breath. 

I headed for the back bedroom.  His room.  “Are you coming,” I asked sliding under the covers.  He stopped and turned to glare at me.  The hallway and bedroom were dark, but I could still make out half of his face with the light coming from the living room.  He looked down at me with dark, menacing eyes.  Slowly, he stalked towards me, his face contorted with rage, his unsteady hands ready to tear something to pieces.  He leaned over the bed.  His body was tense as he loomed over me.

“I hate you.”  His voice was low, quiet, and dangerously close.  I felt him clawing at the blanket and sheet to get into bed, but I remained perfectly quiet and still.  I closed my eyes and settled in for the night.  Ah, the worst is over.  That wasn’t so bad.  In the morning, I would make pancakes and bacon.  He would apologize for yelling at me like he always did, and maybe, just maybe, we would sit down and talk our problems out.

“What the fuck are you doing here tonight Sharon!?!  Why did you even bother to come?”  Oh, great.  Here he goes again.  “Why did I throw my pot away?  What the fuck was I thinking?  This isn’t…no... YOU aren’t worth it!”  He got up and put a pair of pants on that had been lying on the floor.

“What are you doing?”  No answer.  “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the dumpster.”

“Bill, wait!” I yelled hurling myself off the bed to run after him.  “Don’t do this!  You know I can’t stay here if you bring that stuff back in the house.  I just got here!”  He stopped dead.  “Is that what you really want?  I want to help you.  I want us to be a family again, but I can’t do that if you bring it back!  You know that!”  I steadied my breath and tried to sound soothing instead of aggravated.  “You’ve already made your choice to get rid of it.”  He still stood there facing the door, but at least he was still with me in the house.  I stood silently behind him in the living room for a moment, not sure how to continue.  “Please… stay with me.” 

Finally, he turned to look at me. 

“I’ve made my choice?  Stay with you?  You are the one that filed for divorce!  You are the one with the problem!  This is who I am.  Why can’t you love me for who I am!?!”

“Shhhh!  The baby.”  We both paused for a moment to listen for any sounds of distress, but we heard nothing.  “Bill, I do love you,” I said quietly.  “Would I be here if I didn’t?  That is why I cancelled our divorce once already to give you more time to decide to quit.  I don’t want a divorce, but you leave me with no other choice.  Besides, it was you that said, ‘If you’re not going to live here, get out. Give me a divorce,’ remember?”

“If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have left.”  If you really loved me, I never would have had to leave.

“You know why Faith and I had to go.”

Two weeks after Faith and I had moved from Maine to Illinois to join Bill at our new apartment in the Fox Hills complex, (where he now lived alone while I stayed at the Anderson’s place), I found myself staring at the outside of our front door in terror.  There were crowbar marks in the wall, and the door was hanging off the hinges against the frame.  Faith was with me in her carrier, but Bill was still on his way home in his truck.  We were all alone, and that broken door was the only thing separating us from mortal danger.  I backed away slowly and reached for my phone to dial 911.  Wait.  I can’t do that.  I knew that if the police came, they would find Bill’s drugs.  He would kill me himself.

“Bill, someone is in our apartment,” I whispered into my cell phone as I made my way back down the hallway and out of the building.

“What!  Don’t call the police!”

“I didn’t.  I called you.”

“Good.  I’ll be right there.  Don’t do anything until I move my stash.”

            I could have been killed because of him, but his drugs were more important.  When he got there, everything in the apartment was in order.  Only his drugs were missing.

            I shuddered at the memory, but Bill continued with the script.

            “Faith is fine here.  I don’t know why you don’t believe me.  I’m the only one that would get in trouble if the police found drugs here, and I give them no reason to come.”  How convenient.  Those drug addict friends of his and the sketchy neighbors that might hurt or kill us just to get to Bill’s weed didn’t count. 

            “Look.  I didn’t come back here to argue with you about why I had to leave.  I’m here to help you keep the pot out tonight because you said you couldn’t do this alone.”

            “What do you mean, ‘tonight’?  Just tonight?”

            Oh, No.  Why did he have to go there?  “Yes.  Look, it’s really late.  Why don’t we talk about this in the morning?  I’ll make breakfast, okay?”

            He did not take the bait.  He looked back and forth between me and the front door and between me and the nursery as if he were calculating how long it would take for me to leave him.  I believe he must have realized that his usual hook, his claim to quit, would no longer be enough to secure me.    

            “You’re not even going to stay after I did what you said I had to do?  That’s bullshit!”    

“No.  That is sensible.  We’ve done this too many times.  I’m not coming back until I know for sure that you aren’t going back to it ever again.” Oh, God.  He is going to snap.

            “I just threw it in the dumpster!  What more do you want?”

            “Please, let’s just talk about this in the morning.”

            “NO!  We’ll talk now bitch!”

            “Don’t talk to me like that, or I’ll leave.”

            “You never even planned to stay in the first place!  You’re nothing but a God damn whore running from house to house!”  That does it!  “Hey!  Don’t you walk away from me!”  I headed towards the nursery with him screaming obscenities at the back of my head, a persistent tide that crashed again and again against the unmovable cliff defying the sea.  Promise or no, I was not going to let him bully and harass me one more second.

            The baby had finally awakened from all the noise and was whimpering softly in her crib.  Just before I reached her, Bill darted in front of me to block my way.  She began to cry in earnest.  “You’re not leaving,” he yelled.  I paid no attention to his proclamation.  His words were not law anymore.  I reached out to Faith and tried to step around him.

            He lunged at me.

            His hands dug into my arms and he shoved me backwards until I was nearly on the floor.  He was an animal.  His dark eyes were wild with outrage and panic.  His teeth were bared.  I could feel each one of his fingers gripping my skin, burrowing into me like claws. 

            “Let go!  You’re hurting me!”  I stopped trying to pass.  He gave me one final shove away from the crib.  What just happened?  Did he really just do that?  The reality of what occurred came to me slowly.  Bill was not going to let me leave.  He was ready to hurt me if I tried.  I should have been scared.  Why am I not scared?  I should have known that it was only a matter of time before he resorted to brute force to get his way.  Bill always got what Bill wanted.  But, he doesn’t want me.  He wanted a nobody, a servant who would do what she was told, a prisoner under his guard.  I was not that person anymore.  I was the one standing between him and his drugs.  He was standing between me and my daughter.  She was standing in her crib screaming for me. 

            “Mama!  Ma-a-ma peeeez!  U-u-py!  Peez ma-ma,” she sobbed.  Her face was wet and turning red from crying.  She held her little arms out to me just over the rail of the crib, her little fingers stretched as far as they could go as she screamed.  Her body was pressed against the bars.  Her hair stuck to her face with sweat.  She was beginning to choke and gulp in air between her sobs.

            I tried to pass, but he came at me again.  This time I lunged back at him.  We stood there locked in combat in front of her crib, the veins bulged out of our arms, our ragged breath interrupted by grunts and snarls, our eyes engaged on our intended targets.  He glared at me as he wrestled me down and away from the crib.  I looked at Faith.  My arms and shoulders were getting sore from his grip and from trying to muscle my way past him, but he would not let me pass.  I had to let go.  As I did, he released me and stood in front of the crib again.

            I was not afraid.  I was livid.  He had taken all the love out of our marriage, forcing my heart to become ice, but now the heat coursing through me, the all consuming fire of hate and rage released me from my bonds.  If ice could turn to vapor through sublimination, then I would fly away.  I did not have to boil for him. 

            I picked myself up, walked straight for him with my arms at my sides, and stared him down.  I did not try to pass.  My face was hot and red with anger.  My nostrils flared with every breath.  I stood there shaking with rage at the coward standing before me.  How dare he!  He looked down at the floor exhausted and bewildered.  I inched my way forward and screamed directly into his face boot-camp style.  “YOU WILL NEVER TOUCH ME LIKE THAT AGAIN!!!”  I rushed forward shouldering him out of the way to free Faith from her crib.

            He obediently stepped out of my path.  Now he looked confused.

            The last words I remember him yelling before the baby and I just barely missed being slammed in the front door were, “Fine.  Leave then, you fucking cunt!”  If I had been half a centimeter slower, the back of my head would have been smashed in. 

No more than thirty seconds later, while fastening Faith’s car seat back into my car, I heard my phone ring.  When I was half way back to the Anderson’s house, I finally answered.

            “What!”

            “Oh, God!  Sharon, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.  “What have I done?”

            “You’ve lost your family for good.  That is what you’ve done.”  I turned my phone off and threw it in my purse. 

I looked in the rear view mirror.  Faith had fallen back asleep.  We were both safe, but I would get no sleep that night.  I received a brutal wake up call that turned my blood to liquid fire.  By God, I felt good answering it.    

For Love - Part II: My Only Joy

I put every ounce of effort in to salvaging the wrecked marriage I desperately wanted to abandon, but I stayed.  If the ship finally did go under, no one, not even I would be able to say that it was my fault.

I woke up with a jolt as my body sprang forward out of the sweat soaked sheets.  Of all days, I had to have a nightmare about Bill with another woman on the eve of our wedding.  He and that under-aged, greasy haired, bimbo Amy were naked, panting and moaning, hooking their limbs together and thrusting above moon lit sheets until I woke up cold, wet, and sick to my stomach.  I eased myself up on the bed, careful not to bring on the morning sickness.  It didn’t work, and I couldn’t go back to sleep.  I didn’t really want to anyway, not after that horrendous image. 

The room was still dark, but the dull gray light seeping through the crack in the thick curtains promised the night was over.  Oh thank you God!  I made my way past the half naked fireman to the bathroom to wash up.  The container of penis-shaped pasta salad from the night before was floating in ice water in the sink along with the frosted penis candle from my cake.  That was one great bachelorette party. 

My friends had put me up at the Holiday Inn Express for the night, paraded me around in sexy lingerie, fed me… (Eh hem) naughty foods, and played pin the fire hose on the fireman poster instead of a stripper.  I would not allow any men at the party, much to their displeasure.  “I have a real man, thank you very much.  Besides, do I look like I have to pay for that sort of thing,” I said pointing at my mini baby bump.  They all gasped, hooted and hollered, and doubled over with laughter at my new found audacity.  After all, tomorrow I would become my old self again once I was married, shy, sweet, and pure as a virgin.  For one night, I was going to live it up.

To make up for the lack of “real” excitement, we stuffed into my car and drove all over town like the wild, free women we were, honking the horn, and yelling crude things out the window.  “Yeah that’s right you stuck-up Bloomington Bible thumpers!  My best friend is knocked up and gettin’ married tomorrow!  Waaaahoooo!”  Well, perhaps my friends did most of the shouting as I prayed to God that no one would recognize me as the soon-to-be bride.  I thought of Bill too, and hoped that he wouldn’t be too lonely at his mother’s house with his best man Chris, Chris’s fiancé, and the girl from my nightmare.         

Two months passed, but the nightmare persisted.  I woke up drenched in cold sweat all the time, sometimes crying or screaming.  He and Amy, the girl that showed up to our wedding in a tiny, black, v-neck and mini skirt combo, were at it in my subconscious.  “No!  No, please!  Bill! …Bill!” I thrashed and kicked, then, whoosh!  My body would snap forward like a taut spring let loose.  “Oh God please …no more,” I cried into my pillow as Bill turned away from me and groaned with annoyance into his.

One night I felt incredibly sick after yet another occurrence and asked if he could please get me some dry toast to settle my stomach. 

“What am I, your servant now?  Get it your fuckin’ self,” was his reply.

“But… I just thought that,” I sputtered.  He swore at me!  I was dumbfounded.  He was never mean.  What brought this on?  “I thought that since I made you all those egg sandwiches in the middle of the night that you might help me.”

“Yeah, well… you thought wrong.”  He rolled over ripping at the covers and tucked them around himself angrily.  “Great!  Now I’m up.  Hey!  While you’re down there, make me a sandwich…with bacon this time.  And fry it!  You know I hate that microwave shit.”

The smell of bacon always made me sick.     

I couldn’t understand it.  I was the pregnant one.  Aren’t I supposed to have the mood swings?  He was so distant and detached, and I was terrified that I might know the cause.  It has to be the up-coming move, I lied to myself.  That was the real problem.  Certainly not the dream. We were moving to Maine to be closer to my family when the baby came, and so that we could have a fresh start as a new married couple.  We would find our own place, new jobs, new friends, and leave his past behind us.  No more drugs, parties, bars, or happening across ex-girlfriends.  This plan was really our best option, our only option, and he knew it.

On my last day of work at the local Christian bookstore, I came home to his mother’s house for lunch.  I usually didn’t come all the way back to eat because it gave me less time, but I wasn’t feeling well anyway.  What I really needed was a cheerful face.  My emotions were rubbed raw.  My co-workers, genuinely sad that I was moving, smothered me with hugs, well wishes, and teary eyed handshakes as I straightened up the customer service station for the last time until I was close to blubbering myself.  All the while I couldn’t stop thinking of, and fearing, what was to come.  Bill and I were to leave on Monday to see my family for the first time since I became pregnant.  With all that heaved on top of being prone to dizzy spells and vomiting, it was a miracle that I didn’t collapse all together.

“What are you doing here?”  He was actually glaring at me.  “Well?”

“I… I just wanted to see you.  And, I didn’t feel good, so I came home to rest a bit.”

“Well, go to bed then!”

“Bill, what’s going on here?”

“Nothing!” He was rubbing his eyes again, hiding them.  He was lying.

“Don’t tell me ‘nothing!’  What aren’t you telling me?  Why are you always screaming at me now?”

“What are you accusing me of huh!?!  I’m giving up my life for you.  Isn’t that enough?  You know, I feel sick too alright so, don’t go coming in here acting like I should just drop everything for you just because you’re pregnant.”

“I didn’t ask you to.  We both agreed to leave and you know it!”  This had to end.  “And that isn’t what I was talking about.  What is going on with you?” 

I knew his secret.  My dream was upsetting him. The image was particularly vivid that morning.  When I woke him and asked him to tell me that I was just a silly girl to think up such things, even in my sleep, he could not say it.  “Just go back to bed,” he told me. 

Please,” I persisted. “Just tell me that you love me, and this dream means nothing.”

He remained silent. 

“Ah, Fuck it.”  Bill finally turned off the television and threw the remote on the floor, but he would not look at me.  This was a very bad sign.  He sat there for a long while saying nothing.  Slowly, the angry groves between his eyebrows relaxed.  He sighed, a deep, defeated sound, and sank into his mother’s ugly couch even deeper.  “Come here,” he whispered with his arms outstretched towards me.  Now this was more like it.  This was the old Bill, the open, gentle Bill, who let me in.  But now he was broken.  He held my head to his chest with one hand and wrapped his other arm around my back. 

His words came to me in pieces.  “Sharon…I cheated on you with Amy…”  Oh my God!  Oh God, help me!  “After my bachelor party.”  No, not that image!  “We were both really drunk…” You had a hangover at our wedding? What am I saying?  Why did you even come to the wedding?  “And she has always been attracted to me since I took her virginity last year…” Oh I feel sick!  “It wasn’t my fault…” LIAR! “It just happened.” He paused and let out a big sigh of relief as I remained completely stiff in his arms with every emotion from boiling rage to bitter despair pulsating through me all at once.  “There.  I said it.  Oh, I feel so much better now.  My stomach feels better.  My eyes don’t hurt.  I feel so… relieved, but… uh… well, I’ll understand if you want a divorce.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

How could I leave him?  I was pregnant and scared.  And now I was ashamed.  I imagined the stern, disapproving glare of the church body and the whispered words that would go on behind my back.  “Whore,” they would say.  “Ungrateful wife.” 

“Did you know that he cheated on her?”

“Serves her right for getting pregnant before they were even married.”

“No! Was she really?

“Yes!  Didn’t you know?  That’s why hardly anyone showed up to the wedding, or didn’t you notice.”

That cruel and biting truth held me to my vows like a milestone.  I was a Christian woman.  A failed Christian, but a God fearing, God loving Christian nonetheless.  I could not get divorced.  Perhaps this is my punishment.  So I remained with the nightmare, my constant companion.  Who was that woman?  Every woman he spoke to was her.  Where was he last night?  He was with her.  Any her.  What is wrong with me?  Why doesn’t he want me? Why am I not good enough for him?  Suddenly, there was a new voice within me with ready answers.  It is because you’re ugly.  You’re worthless.  You’re nothing.  And, you are trapped in this situation until death do you part.

Three days later, I wedged myself into my overstuffed Pontiac, waved goodbye, and headed for Maine by myself.  “I need time to heal” I had told him, and I knew the area, had family and friends already in place, and would be able to set everything up easier on my own.  He was to follow once I found a job to support us and a suitable apartment for him, his four cats, the baby, and last and least, me. 

I found such a place in Augusta near the two jobs where I was hired.  The rent was cheap, but the décor was hideous.  The appliances were green or goldenrod.  There were no doors for the bedrooms.  The wallpaper was every shade of disgusting with various styles of bold, floral print, and the carpet was stiff and brown.  On the upside, the landlord accepted cats, the rooms were large, and the entire wall of the shower was painted to look like a neighborhood in Venice.  After spending all day in front of a register at Barnes and Noble and all night in the frame shop at Michael’s Arts and Crafts, I would soak in the tub and imagine how very easy it would be for someone to drown themselves in a city already half submerged in water.  When the water got cold, I’d dry off, put on my only nightgown, and cry myself to sleep on the floor of one of the empty rooms. 

When Bill arrived, a new routine ensued.  I cooked his dinner between shifts, washed the dirty dishes, cleaned up his messes when I got home for the night, and lay down painfully and obediently on the air mattress he brought for us so he could satisfy himself with me before falling asleep.  His days were spent playing video games and petting those ornery rats that puked on the carpet, shed on everything, and kicked kitty litter all over the laundry room floor.  His only duties were to clean out the litter boxes, which he did every few weeks, fill their food and water dishes, and find work. 

He did not absolutely refuse to work.  He just didn’t care enough to find a job.  There was always an excuse.  He didn’t know where to look.  I bought him a newspaper.  He didn’t get to it that day, or the next, or the week after.  I bought another paper.  This time I went through and circled jobs I thought he might be qualified for.  He didn’t have the time to pick up any of the applications he said.  No, he lost the paper.  No, he just forgot, and I should ease up already.  That is how I ended up spending my days off picking up applications for him, filling them out, dropping them off, and scheduling his interviews.  He finally got a job working at McDonalds.  By that time, the pain I was experiencing in my back had spread down through my legs and feet, and I could no longer stand for more than fifteen minutes at a time. 

When I told him I was going to have to stop working about two weeks before the due date, he looked at me as if that were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.  If his mother could work until the fetus dropped out of her, then go back to work on the same day, then I shouldn’t complain.  After all, I was going to be a lazy, stay-at-home mom anyway.  And by the way, I was to start ironing his uniforms, and make his lunch for him at 4:30 in the morning, every morning.  And don’t forget his soda at the store when I get off work at midnight too tired to think or move.  He would leave the door unlocked for me before he went to sleep.  I could carry all the bags up the two flights of stairs by myself, right?  And one more thing.  He was going to have some friends over from work, and I shouldn’t complain even though they were drug addicts.  In fact, little wife should shut up all together and do what she was told.

It was a new start alright.  A restart of the life we just left back at his mother’s house, only there would soon be a new baby to take up some of mommy’s attention.

“Would you shut that thing up already!?!  Some of us have to work in the morning you know.”  According to him, what I was doing was nothing more than what was to be expected of any wife and mother.  He would not hold, feed, clothe, or bathe our baby, and he would surely get sick if he ever had to change her, so that was out. 

He was not to be disturbed.  Ever.  Unfortunately, there was no way around it.  Everyday there was something I did wrong, something I missed, or something I should have known to do.  His shirts were not hung up correctly.  He wanted his boxers rolled up, not folded, and placed exactly “here,” not there.  I was a fucking idiot.  The toilet paper was not facing the way he liked.  What kind of stupid bitch would put it the wrong way and leave it like that?  I forgot to bring a pot holder or a serving spoon to the table before I sat down.  I was a useless cunt.  He would not eat with me.  Every day I woke with the fear of displeasing him and an overwhelming urge to make everything perfect, because if it was not, I became the most detestable creature ever to crawl before him.  “I” slowly disappeared.

Just after our one year anniversary, Bill decided that he no longer wanted to live in Maine.  His intention to quit drugs, or at least keep them out of the house, had long since failed, and there was no point living in Maine to be near people who loved me.  He left for Illinois to secure a construction job his father had arranged for him, which left me and the baby alone for the first time.  Oh sweet heaven on earth.  I was free!  I stayed out past four pm.  I breastfed the baby in public without sweltering to death under a baby blanket.  Best of all, I got to visit with my mother again.

“Here, let me take over.  You look like you need a break,” my mother said reaching for her granddaughter.

“A what?  I’m not allowed to have any of those.”  I was trying to joke with her, but there was no humor in the delivery.  It just came out as the truth.  Oops.

“What do you mean?  Doesn’t Bill ever help you?”

“Why should he have to do that?  He works.”  Excusing Bill had become an automatic reaction.

“So do you.  Too hard from the looks of it.  What’s going on with you these days anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.  “Nothing I guess.”

“Uh-huh.  I can see that.” She always saw through me.  There was no hiding anything from her.  “You know, I haven’t seen my Sharon in months.  If something is happening to her, I hope she knows that I’m here to listen and to help if she needs anything.”

“I don’t know if I can tell you.”

“Is he hurting you?”

“No.  He’s never hit me mom.”

“There’s more than one kind of abuse.”

“I know.  I just… I mean I shouldn’t…” I was going to start crying if I kept this up.  Oh God, please don’t let me say something wrong!

“Oh honey, what’s he done to you?”

“I… I can’t.”

“What you can’t do is go on living like this anymore.  You’ve got to let it out to work through it.  Just let it go.”

That opened the floodgate.  Everything came pouring out of me, all the tears and pent up frustration, anxiety, and despair.  I told her about the name calling, the constant yelling about nothing, how he kept telling me that he hated me, and how he never really loved me from the beginning.  He was obligated to marry me, which was probably why he cheated on me just hours before our wedding.  And yet, I was still expected to sleep with him whenever he called for me.  It didn’t matter if I didn’t want it, or that I was too tired and sore.  I had to be obedient and do my duties.  But he didn’t really want me.  There was no more love.  I had long since let myself go numb. 

The only bright spot in my life was my daughter Faith.  My only joy.  But, I was always worried about her.  If I put her down, she’d scream for me.  She seemed terrified of Bill, especially when he yelled at me while I breastfed her.  I didn’t know what I could do, what I should do.  I didn’t know how I would take care of her by myself if our marriage ended.      

I saved the worst for last.  He was a drug addict, and he was getting high in the house.  When he was home, I could not leave the nursery because of the smoke.  I was like a prisoner aboard his sinking ship.  He refused to change course, and there was no escape. 

As my mother listened, waves of concern, sympathy, and finally anger fell over her face.  “What an idiot!  I’m sorry honey, but he is.  Look at you!  You are a beautiful, and smart, and caring woman, and he treats you like that?  He doesn’t know what a woman like you is worth.  And you are a worthy woman, the wife of Proverbs 31, and he’s a… a… (sigh) well, I’ll just stick with idiot.”

“I’m the idiot!” I sobbed.  “I got myself into this mess… and Faith.”

“No.  This is his doing, not yours.  But you have to know honey that if you raise a child in a house with drugs in it, she could be taken away from you.”

“But, where am I supposed to go?  He won’t let me go.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere.  You can stay right here with me for as long as you want.” 

I saw a life without Bill, and I wanted it.  He was already gone.  I could just stay there, go back to school, and finish my degree.  Faith and I could get our own little house somewhere in Portland near my mom once I found a job.  We could plant a rose garden, just Faith and me.  We could have tea parties, paint her room pink, and have visits from Grandma, and all her aunts and uncles.  I could start writing again.  It would be perfect.

But it could never be real.

I swore in front of God to be loyal to Bill forever, through the good times and the bad.  And so I would.  Only, I wasn’t afraid anymore now that I knew I had options if he refused to change.  If Bill did not provide Faith and me with a proper home, I would no longer live under his roof until he could.  I could not be little wife anymore.  I would not.  I was a worthy woman, and I had to stand my ground.  I had to.  Faith was all I had left.

  This time, I would be ready for the fight.  I would bail out this sinking ship bucket by bucket if I had to until we were above water again or he cast me off for good.  Of course, I would not consciously route for that last option.  But surely, I would not be damned if a small, almost non-existent voice deep within me began to chant “DOWN WITH THE SHIP!  DOWN WITH THE SHIP! DOWN WITH THE SHIP!”