The Battered Spouse

I was at my rope's end. I loved her. I wanted to make children with her, grow old with her. I tried getting her to talk, but she never listened. Every time I tried to get her to see what she was doing to me, she turned it around; if "I" was only this or that, or the other then there wouldn't be a problem. Her behavior was my fault! I read up on spousal abuse. I was in the middle of a classic case, and I soon realized that if I didn't do something I might get seriously injured. And then it happened.

I spent time in the woods. I was surrounded by nasty little vines and such; vines like the aforementioned poison ivy. I was pretty much Ok. If I kept myself clean and used the various sprays and wipes I never had a problem. Rebecca as I'd said wasn't so fortunate.

Well I guess sooner or later it had to be something. I got home one evening and she was waiting for me. Somehow some way she'd been exposed to the dreaded plant. For her there could be only one source. I got in, went downstairs, took off my uniform, boots, and socks, and jumped in the downstairs shower. I was out as quickly as I could because by then I was afraid to keep Rebecca waiting for anything. It was a lost cause; she showed me her hands and arms. Yes, it was poison ivy. And yes she beat the living shit out of me.

She was good though. She didn't leave any marks on my face, but she broke several ribs and cracked both my collar bones. The look in her eyes terrified me! She was going for my left elbow when I guess she finally realized what she was doing. She stopped and started crying. She half cried half yelled, "Oh Travis why do you make me do these things to you?"

I'd read up. It was the classic line of an abusive spouse. I had no idea what to say, but I knew I needed medical attention. I asked, "Will you take me to the hospital?"

Her response, "We don't need to go there. I'll take care of you."

I was too scared to disagree. She saw and understood the damage she'd done, but still wouldn't mention the hospital. I made it through the night, but can anyone tell me how they might move about and try to sleep with two severely damaged collar bones, not to mention broken ribs.

The next morning she insisted I call out sick. I was too afraid to argue. She left for the bank. I thought I had my chance, but discovered she'd taken the keys to my work truck and our family car. She'd taken my cell phone, and she'd taken the land line too.

I guess she figured I'd be stranded. I wasn't. I knew I had to get out of there. Our nearest neighbor was about a quarter of a mile away. I don't know how I got my shoes on, but I did, and I managed to make it to our neighbors. They were an older retired couple, and they acted like they were in total disbelief when I told them what happened. I didn't believe them, I knew they'd seen too many of the earlier signs. Just the same Gary Wheeler, he was the husband, agreed to take me to the hospital. Rebecca had taken my wallet, but I didn't care. If I had to sign some paper to agree to pay in cash I would. I noticed as Gary helped me to their car his wife was on the phone. I just knew who she was calling.

Gary seemed to want to drive inordinately slow to the hospital. I figured out why when we got there. Rebecca was waiting for us. She wanted to take me right back home. I knew better. I started hollering and crying right there on the emergency room parking lot. An orderly came out, saw me, and took charge. The entire time he got me in a wheelchair and pushed me in Rebecca kept exclaiming and explaining that I'd fallen down in the night before, and that she hadn't known how badly I was hurt.

I could see it; she was covering her ass. I knew if she got me home after this I would eventually end up, if not dead, permanently crippled. I couldn't let her do it. I loved her. I loved her with all my heart, but I had to tell the doctors and the police the truth. They looked me over, they took several X-Rays and discovered four broken ribs, one broken collar bone, one slightly fractured collar bone, plus an array of angry red welts they were sure would rise to be bruises.

Rebecca tried mightily to deny everything, but in the end, almost on cue, she broke down, started crying and admitted I'd been so rough with her the prior evening she had to defend herself. When they asked to see her injuries, she then finally told the whole truth about the prior night, but just the prior night, nothing about anything else. For her, she said it was just a "one time" aberration. I was incredulous, and afraid the doctors and police would believe what she said, the doctors and the police knew the truth. They let me call my parents who picked me up after I spent three nights at the hospital. Rebecca came to see me every day; she was so nice butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth. She was especially nice when one of the nurses or doctors was around.

I was afraid to go home so I stayed at my parents. I was too badly damaged to go to work. Rebecca came to my parent's house every night, and every night she insisted she take me home. The thought of going home and being alone with her petrified me.

I had to use up most of my accumulated sick days. The collar bones healed quickly, but the ribs took much longer.

Rebecca was around day and night. She cried, she pleaded, she promised things would be different. She promised me I'd get the old Rebecca back. While I slowly healed I began to believe her. I decided to go home, that was my last mistake. I'd read people who start down the road of abuse never changed, but I still had my hopes. I just loved her so much, and besides, it could have been my fault, a little bit anyway.

Once back home Rebecca did seem to revert to her "old self", and I was mightily pleased. I was still afraid, but I started to believe things might get better. I should've known where things were headed when she told me she'd still be going to the gym. It was four weeks after I'd gone home. I'd been out of work nearly ten, and my supervisors, though polite and considerate were making the occasional call.

Then one night it happened. I'd fixed dinner. I was going to have some homemade spaghetti. I'd fixed Rebecca a nice garden salad, and a three bean casserole, all Vegan like she liked. Due to the number of broken ribs I was still slightly incapacitated. When I brought the casserole around to the table the bowl slipped out of my hands, and fell on the floor and broke.

Rebecca went ballistic! The bowl had been a wedding gift! I'd broken her Aunt Harriet's wedding present! She jumped from her chair and pushed me against the counter. I knew better than to try to fight back. I started to say something. I needed to soothe her down. She never gave me a chance; with her left holding me she thrust the thumb and fingers of her right as hard as she could into my Adam's apple. That was a new one, and it hurt like crazy. She let go of me with her left just long enough for me to drop to the floor. I'd read up; the only thing to do in a situation like that was to drop and curl up into a fetal ball, cover my head, and pray for the best.

It worked! She saw what she'd done. Crying and shaking she fled into the living room. This was it and I knew it. While she was crying and consoling herself I quickly and quietly got the keys to my work truck, and left by the back door. Into the truck I climbed and began to drive away. The last I saw that evening was Rebecca standing on the lawn watching me as I left.

And so on...

Of course I filed for divorce. I used irreconcilable differences. Rebecca never contested my complaint. My guess was she didn't dare. If I'd gone full guns on spousal abuse she might've lost her job. I doubted she'd get fired, but it might've slowed her advancement.

However, she did challenge the idea of divorce. She wanted to find a way to reconcile so we did end up in court. The judge, an older man heard my arguments, which were puny without the real cause, and he heard Rebecca's which sounded just as hollow. He deferred his decision pending the intervention of a court appointed mediator. The mediator turned out to be a woman, a middle aged lawyer. I figured I was screwed.

Rebecca would get a chance to make her appeal to both the mediator and to me. I'd get a chance for my say too.

So we arrived, both of us with our over-priced lawyers and in Rebecca's case a long list of reasons detailing why we should stay married. Rebecca's arguments could've been summed up in a few words; she wanted to stay married because she loved me, she wanted to have my children, she believed that from the start, as far back as elementary school we were made for each other, and she asserted that through our short marriage she'd remained faithful and true. I listened and thought I was done for, and for a few frightening seconds I was even almost ready to throw in the towel and go back to her, but my more rational half interceded. I presented my case.

What I had to say wasn't nearly as forceful as Rebecca's, but I thought I was true on. I tried to explain that we were basically just incompatible, that she was a natural athlete, I mentioned her Karate classes, I described her long history of athleticism, her obsession, I called it an obsession, with her physical appearance, and last I did infer her close association with the jocks at her health club, something she said she'd abandon but I explained she could easily return to when she felt the time was propitious.

It looked like I was going to lose, but then the mediator asked me the million dollar question. She asked, "Do you think there's any possibility you might consider reconciliation?"

I said, "No."

She asked, "Even if there was counseling?"

"No," I replied.

She asked, "What if it were ordered by the court?"

I told her, "Then I'd have to go to jail."

The she turned to Rebecca, "I have some additional information here. I have these medical reports. Tell me Rebecca, is there any substantiation to the statements made by police and medical personnel that you may have used your very extensive martial arts skills in ways that might have been counter-productive to the health and well-being of Travis here?"

I realized then our mediator had decided her verdict long before we entered the room. In a way it hurt. I guess I was still hoping for some miracle. Maybe everything would go away, and maybe it would just be me and Rebecca again, just her and me, like before the gym and before the Karate.

Rebecca had no choice. If she wanted me back she's have to come clean, she almost did. She replied with the same lie she handed out at the hospital. She said, "It's true I did use my martial skills on Travis," then she turned to me. She was almost begging, "But you need to tell Ms. Armacost, that was our mediator's name, that you provoked me. I felt I was acting in self-defense."

Ms. Armacost interjected, "It says here several broken ribs, a broken left collar bone, a partially broken

right collar bone, and numerous contusions. Tell me is that accurate Rebecca?"

I was getting my say through the mediator, and I hated it.

Rebecca replied, "Yes, that's all true, but it was all a mistake, a big mistake. I'm sure..."

Ms. Armacost interrupted, "Mr. Stannard missed several weeks of work. He had to undergo lengthy periods of therapy, both physical and emotional. You know that Rebecca."

'Yes," she said, "and I'm sorry. I only want a chance now to make it all up to him," she looked at me pleadingly, "I love my husband. I want him back. I need him. He's all I ever wanted."

Ms. Armacost looked at me, "Mr. Stannard?"

I looked down at my hands. I looked at Rebecca and said, "I love you too Rebecca, but I'm afraid of you. You might kill me the next time. I hate myself for saying it; I know I'll be miserable without you, but I'm afraid I couldn't live with you. You'd get mad again and then you'd kill me."

Rebecca started to cry.

I asked her, "Tell me what happened. What made you change? We were so happy."

She looked at Ms. Armacost, then at me, "I don't know. I just don't know. The men at the gym, the men in the club were all so confident, so strong, so masculine, and you were just... well you were just you."

I could see her regaining her poise.

She went on, "Travis, you were my, oh I don't know, my little friend from third grade who cried when his dog died, you were the boy in middle school who got bullied by Dennis Kimmelhoff and his little gang. You remember them?"

I did, but I didn't say anything.

She finally added, "You were the boy who never made the team, not any team in high school. I guess I wished just once you could've won at something. Maybe got a medal for something. Beat somebody at something. But you never did. You were just Travis, my secret Travis."

At last I got it. She loved me all along, but to her and her friends I was never good enough.

She burst into tears and flamed out, "Travis please. You've got to take me back. I'll never hurt you again. I promise. I'll be the best wife. Just please. Oh..."

Ms. Armacost looked at me, "You won't consider any kind of counseling?"

I looked from Rebecca to our mediator, "Can she unlearn how to break every bone in my body?" I turned to Rebecca, "You said that once. You said you would break every bone in my body."

It was over. We split everything right down the middle, fifty-fifty.

-----

So I won, but I didn't feel like it. I would have liked to have said I was happy, but I was far from it. I'd lost my one true love. I'd like to have said I got lucky and connected with Janice, but she'd found someone else and had gotten married. I stayed with my parents throughout the final days of the divorce proceedings. The bureaucracy turns very slowly in our state so that took a long time, a long time with my mother asking me to reconsider, and a long time with my sister and her, 'I told you. I warned you.'

Then, at last, I did move out. I found an apartment, really a small one bedroom efficiency. I still had my job and my career, but I knew, due to my long absence, promotions would be few and far between. I wondered, 'Maybe someday there'd be someone else. I doubted it. I still was so desperately in love with Rebecca.'

As for Rebecca, she stayed on at the bank. She continued to get promotions and more money. She did quit the gym. I changed banks.

It was one afternoon a little over a year later when I happened to be waiting for a seat at a local diner when I saw her come in. I was alone. She looked good, as good as I'd ever seen her, and it tore my heart in two for I knew I could never ever be with her again. She was with another man. I'd never seen him before, and to be honest, he looked a lot like me. She saw me, got what I believed was a very sad look on her face, turned to her date, said something, and they left. From what I've heard she's yet to remarry; like me her job had become her life.

I still miss her, I really do. Late in the day sometimes when I'm all alone out in the forest, listening to the birds, watching the squirrels dash about I think of her, and me, and the children we could've had. It's so sad, just so sad. Nothing matters, not now, maybe not anymore, but then I think, maybe someday, some time, something, someone will turn up. When that happens, I'll know.

The end.