Survival

Randi E Brewer

Blog Post #20

The beating had been worse than normal.  He had come home in a rage, belligerent from the start.  He had lost yet another job in an incredibly difficult market.  This depression was hitting everyone, hard.  He took that out on her. 

Bursting through the door he grabbed the ever-present whiskey bottle and tossed down a quick three fingers.  The boys knew this mood and were smart enough to go outside to play, away from his temper, his outbursts.  Rose didn’t have the same option.  He would be expecting dinner, not that there was much food in the house, but she made due.  Her cooking skills were not up to his mother’s greatness, but he knew that going into the marriage.  She was a city girl, but after the crash he dragged her and the boys out to his family’s farm.  She did her best with what she had.  She held her head high and made it work.

His second glass did nothing to ease his anger, it only made things worse.  “Dinner should have been ready an hour ago”, he bellowed.  “Can’t you do anything right?”  He sloshed more whiskey into the chipped highball glass.  “Those fucking idiots at the plant have nothing on you,” he sneered. 

He got mean when he drank.  The more of the golden fluid he poured into his glass the fiercer he became.  Rose shrunk back, and kept quiet.  It sometimes worked…  anything to keep from being hit. “I’m sorry”, she whispered, “I didn’t know when you’d be home and I didn’t want your dinner to get cold.”  She ran around the small kitchen, fixing the meager ingredients into something semi edible.

“Where are the boys?” he demanded.

“They went outside to play before dinner”, she tried to be soothing.  “Tommy got an A in math today and Phin got a B on his spelling test.  I thought it would be nice to let them play outside until dinner.”

“You thought?!” he spat between his teeth.  “I don’t give two shits if they got A’s and B’s.  We have this farm to take care of and they need to be doing their chores.  It’s not like I see you doing them.”

“They’re just boys.” It slipped from Rose’s lips before she could stop the sentence from forming. 
The slap blindsided her. 
She fell back against the cabinets, the back of her head bouncing with a dull thud.  He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up to standing.  

“You are babying them.  You're soft and stupid and haven’t done a damn thing right around here since we moved in.” 

She knew that wasn’t true.  She did everything around the dilapidated farm house.  He left for work before the cock crowed and came home in time for drinks and dinner.  He was the one who didn’t help.  He couldn’t keep a job cause he was rattlesnake nasty and no boss wanted to put up with that when so many men were looking for work.  Every time he got fired, he blamed it on her.  Today was no different.

“If it weren’t for you I’d still be at work.” He shoved her into the living room.  Rose knew he was just winding up.  “Because of you I didn’t wake up in time.  Didn’t get no breakfast and was late, thanks to your lazy ass.”  He pushed her again and she nearly tripped against the small side chair in the living room.  She didn’t want to get pinned against the stone hearth again.

“I did wake you up, don’t you remember?  You told me to go away!” she knew it was best not to argue, she was damned either way.

Another slap rocked her cheek and she fell again to the floor.  A kick came next, then another.  He cussed her out with each hit, screaming that he would have been better off without her.  She lifted her head, attempting to crawl away.  If she could only reach the door, she could outrun him.  She could hide till he passed out.  Instead, he grabbed her ankle and twisted her around.  The punch stunned her and rattled her teeth.  The beautiful turquoise and blue wool rug she had brought from the city was now splattered with her blood.  But he didn’t stop and she could only endure.

He had passed out on the rocking chair not long ago, the whiskey finally taking hold.  The boys had come in after it was over.  She plastered on a smile and sent them to bed.  They knew, but didn’t say a word.  They’d already witnessed too much horror in their short years.  She sheltered them when she could.   She had survived, as she had so many times in the past.   She survived, but she knew the life growing inside of her did not.  The steady blood trickling down her leg and the intense pain in her abdomen told her what a doctor would later confirm.  Rose had been sure this had been the little girl she had dreamed of.  The dream that was now a nightmare.  “You’ll never touch me again.” She made an oath.  “I will kill you if you ever lay a hand on me or my boys ever again.”

 Passed out and snoring loudly in his sleep, he missed her oath.  Rose's threat was not an empty one.