“After a couple years of tests and treatments, Livia went into remission. And Dad found another job. A guy we met, whose kid was going through the same treatment as Livia, offered him a job. It lasted as long as her remission did.”
And the second time around, life had been pure hell. For all of them. Ending with Livia’s death. His mother’s unbearable grief. Her anger. His father a drunk who eventually ended up in jail.
An imploded family.
* * *
ELLA COULDN’T SPEAK. Her throat was choked up with an effort not to cry, even as her eyes filled with tears.
“Without help, boys who witness domestic violence in their homes growing up are far more likely to become abusers.” Brett’s quote was uttered without inflection of any kind.
That’s when she found her voice. “You had help.”
She wasn’t ready for his fountain of words to dry up. Not by a long shot. He owed her a good ten years’ worth of them. At the very least, another ten minutes.
“So what you’re saying, then, is that every boy who grows up in an abusive home is destined to live life alone, or become an abuser?”
“Of course not.” She heard the disdain that time.
“So why are you putting that on yourself?”
He didn’t respond. Typical. But disappointment filled her anyway.
Along with a load of compassion she couldn’t afford to carry.
If Brett had talked to her about this even a little bit years ago, so many things would have been different.
Not everything, but maybe the process of splitting up wouldn’t have been as hard.
Maybe she’d still be married, or married again, instead of on her way to spinsterhood.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to live with the fact that your husband didn’t trust you enough to be completely open with you?”
The pain that filled the darkness scared her. She hadn’t known there was so much of it left.
“Do you think I wanted to hurt you? That I felt good about it?” Brett sat forward. Lifted his beer and set it back down again without drinking.
She wanted to drink. Seemed to be the way of dealing with the darkness. Which was why she put her bottle in a cup holder on the next chair.
“I saw what I was doing to you, and the sadness in your eyes ate away at me until I couldn’t stand to live with myself anymore. I had to do something...”
His hands were inches from her knees. She stared at them. With very little effort, even a rocking of the boat, she could be touching him.
“You could at least have told me before you talked to a divorce attorney.”
“You’re right, of course.” Not the answer she’d been expecting.
“So why didn’t you?” Not a question she should have asked.
“Because you would have understood and loved me anyway,” he said, his voice raw with honesty. “I couldn’t trust myself not to be as selfish as my old man and let you talk me into staying.”
She’d asked. Maybe forgetting that nothing with him had been easy.
“You knew I loved you enough to do that, and then turned your back anyway. Why throw it all away when there was as much chance that it would be good as that it could go bad?”
“Because it was already bad, El. I had a knot in my stomach every single morning. I couldn’t be the man you wanted me to be and the more I tried, the more tense I got. And with the baby coming... It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time an abusive situation started when a pregnancy was thrown into the mix.”
She’d read about triggers. Some men with control issues—and out-of-control jealousy issues—sometimes felt threatened by the introduction of a child into the relationship. This could trigger the start of a domestic-violence situation. And didn’t describe Brett or their relationship at all.