The Daughter In Law

“I’ll give you point for now but I reserve the right to twat punch that hag if she comes within spitting distance of me and that’s non-negotiable.”

Chapter 16

DAMIEN

Shit, a year on the frontline was nothing compared to the shit storm I came home to. If this weren’t my life the shit would be funny. But it is my life and my wife. I don’t like one fuck about the situation because, as a fighting man, no one is allowed to fuck with what’s mine. The fact that the other dogs in this fight are my mother and one of my sisters kinda puts a wrench in my shit, but still. No one and I mean no one is allowed to fuck with my girl.

Vanessa is a little scrapper, she wants to come out fists flying and that’s that. Me, I want this shit to have lasting affects. I’m not the most forgiving fucker on the planet, and after the shit she told me and the rest my dad filled in, my head was hot. Plus the fact that she’s pregnant! Hell no.

I can’t say that I understand what the hell is going on. I was totally blindsided by this shit. I trusted my mom, I believed her when she said she’d look out for my girl while I was gone. It was hard enough for me to leave her here in our home in a new town, away from her family and friends. But for some reason it was important to me that she was in our home, in my bed while I was gone. Had I known the shit that was going to go on behind my back I would’ve sent her home to her mom ‘til I came back.

The whole thing has thrown me for a loop, and now instead of the homecoming I’d been looking forward to, I find myself in the middle of another fucking war. Only this one had more minefields than the last. It’s fucked when the friendlies are the ones you have to watch out for. At least in Iraq I knew who the fuck the enemy was.

It isn’t easy having to see my mother through different eyes. Vanessa’s right, in the beginning I was trying to find a way to work things out so that we could have a cease fire, and things could go back to normal, or at least the normal that I was accustomed to. But that was before the hospital visit. I knew half way to the hospital that something was up. Dad hadn’t said exactly what was going on on the phone, but my mind is always working and I started thinking about the timing. Still, not to be a hard ass and to give this woman whom I’ve known my whole life as a sane, loving mother, the benefit of the doubt, I kept my thoughts to myself.

The shit she’d said to me in that room wasn’t normal. I still have a hard time reconciling the being that was lying in that bed with the woman I knew. The sad thing is, I couldn’t figure out what the fuck had gone wrong. When I pressed for any kind of explanation for her behavior all I got was more venom spewed at a girl that, as far as I can tell, hadn’t done anything wrong other than marry her son.

Up to that point I was still holding out hope. I had just learned about the baby and my only thoughts were for the two of them, if or when I had to leave again. My life wasn’t really my own, since Uncle Sam owns my ass for the next few years at least. I thought I could smooth over whatever the hell had gone south, but from that little convo I knew that shit was shot. If Vanessa knew the half of what mom had said I’m pretty sure I’d have been bailing her ass out of jail for Xmas. I still didn’t like the fact that she’d gotten into a physical altercation with Barbara. I’d had to talk her out of pressing charges and the only way to do that was to show part of my hand, which was to threaten to throw her out the family home, which was mine by rights. I didn’t want anyone knowing what my plans were, not yet. Not until I had all my ducks in a row.

I wouldn’t say that I hated mom for the shit she’d done but I would say she was no longer one of my favorite people in the world. I don’t think I’d ever understand what the fuck she’s on but I knew she wouldn’t stop. I’m not even sure this was about me, I mean I seem to be the catalyst, but it seemed more like some sort of competition she had going on with my wife; at least in her head. I’ve never heard of anything like what I was faced with, don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard a few rumblings here and there over the years about a pain in the ass mother in law. Somehow this seemed a little more extreme than that.