I felt her husband would have been fine to hole up in this house, out in the middle of no where and be very content. He reminded me of my own brother. A bit anti-social. But I also felt some of Killer. Not wanting someone to invade his personal space such as the inside of his home. I didn't feel the warm fuzzy embrace of welcome emanating from his spirit and so I didn't stay long.
Tina Marie came into the office after the holidays with several bruises. She brushed it off to bruising easily and being some what of a tomboy. I didn't buy it and I said something to her, but she denied any thing happening except just being clumsy. This was her business and if she wanted some one to help, she'd reach out. From my own experience, I sensed things were different behind closed doors for her as well.
After we returned from our vacation, we had formed a bond that no one would ever break. We were very much alike, but complete opposites at the same time. The evening we returned from Florida, she dropped me at the house and headed home. Her husband and son were not there to greet her and did not show for some time. She probably knew what this meant and it wasn't good.
That evening shortly after we returned in January, she called me at home. I could tell from her voice that she was afraid. She told me she and her husband had gotten into an argument over her trip to Florida. He implied to her that he could have dealt with her cheating on him better than her going to Florida with me. I didn't understand how some one could be so jealous that his wife went to Florida with a friend verses cheating on him, but he was.
He could be aggressive but this particular night he was very calm and collected. Tina Marie feared him and what he was capable of doing so she left. She took their pistol, for she was afraid he'd come after her and shoot her. She drove to the corner store and called me from a pay phone. All she wanted to know was if she could come back to my house.
Tina Marie was terrified when she walked in the door. This young woman who would do anything for anyone, was shaking in her boots. I don't think either of us slept that night. She stayed a few days, I guess hoping things would calm down, but I suggested we go out to her home to get her stuff and collect her son. Whatever she feared was not going to go away or get better.
No child should be with out their Mom. He was going to be four in a month. We packed her up and drove her in to town. We set her up in the basement bedroom and put her son in the bedroom next to mine upstairs. She was right next to the laundry room where I swear she spent most of her life.
Life went on, just the three of us. Her husband was furious that she had left and accused us of being lesbians. He called one night late, well after eleven o'clock. He was coming into town and he wanted his son. Tina Marie was beside herself. She didn't want to let her son go, but she feared this man.
I stressed to her, to not give her son to him. We just wouldn't answer the door. She told me he'd beat the door down, break windows, he'd do whatever he had to to get his son. "Let him. I'll call the police." She wouldn't have it.
"How can you let him come in here and take your son, who is sleeping? You don't think he'll remember this for the rest of his life?"
"You don't know him like I do. I'm just going to let him have him."
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| Tina Marie |
He showed up and he was an ass. Tina Marie went to get her son, who had been sleeping in the basement with her. I asked her one more time if she thought this was the right thing to do and she did.
Her son woke up crying, his parents arguing as his Dad put him in the truck and drove off. Tina Marie was heart broken. I assured her we'd get him back. I just couldn't understand how she allowed this monster to come in and take her son, but she knew him better than I did.
Her son came back after a few days. He adjusted to living there. He was a bit of a pistol as he would challenge his mom often like any four year old, but he came to realize Cindy Marie, was not Tina Marie.
She inforned him that he had to listen to me and do what I said. He challenged me and he found that their were consequences. He knew his mom was a pushover. He had the biggest brown eyes that could melt your heart and already had perfected "the charmer."
One day his mom asked him to do something and he blew her off. She wanted to know why he did what I asked him to do but not her. His response was one I'll never forget, "When Cindy says some thing, she means it!"
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| First Day of School |
I could have fun just like everyone else, but he knew when I spoke he had better listen.
After a while, Tina Marie's husband came over to the house to talk. I'm not sure if her son and I were there or if we left, but he had apologized for his behavior and shared with her every thing he had done at the house. He had finished so many projects that had been neglected. Like Killer, he thought that was all it took to win her heart back. She never returned to that house out in the middle of no where. She and her son lived with me and my home was there home.
I look back at that time in my life and I wonder who saved who that day. I was ready to give up on mankind as they always disappointed me or treated me poorly, but I met someone who knew my pain all too well and together I think we saved each other.
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