MPS-Part 11 The After Church Beatdown

The sun shone brightly as we made our way home from church. I was filled with a sense of hopefulness. The day was sunny and bright, Josh was in a good mood and smiling, the trees were beginning to bloom, new shrubs were sprouting little green tips just waiting to burst open with the promise of spring and the air smelled fresh and clean.

We arrived at the house and I proceeded to the bedroom to change my clothes. This was going to be a jeans and sweatshirt day - a day for relaxing, being happy and comfortable. I began to build a fire in the woodstove to take the slight chill out of the air. I was waiting for Josh to make suggestions as to what we could do with the rest of our day while I made a nice, cozy fire and orchestrated a small feast for lunch.

I finished starting the woodstove and sat down on the hearth for a moment to enjoy the scents of the burning newspaper and crackling wood. The heat felt wonderful as it touched my face and warmed my body. I closed the doors to the woodstove, turned the blower fan on medium and walked into the kitchen to see what Josh wanted for our little lunch feast.

He looked at me with a strange look in his eyes and told me he was going fishing with Gerald. His mood had just done a complete 180. A few minutes ago he was suggesting we spend the rest of the day together and suddenly he wanted to go fishing with Gerald. Oddly enough, it was a little too chilly to be fishing and getting wet. My inner antennae went up and I had the typical sense of foreboding that came with his sudden mood changes.

A trickle of defiance flowed through me and I stood up and told Josh I wanted to go fishing too. I wanted to call his bluff to see if he really was going to go someplace with Gerald or if he was lying to me yet again and was going to a clandestine meeting. Josh told me I could not go with him - he wanted to be alone, yet he wanted to go fishing with Gerald. His story was quickly falling apart and he knew by the look on my face that I had busted his ass wide open and seen through his bullshit. He was pissed.

Josh grabbed the phone with the pretense of calling Gerald. I reached up at the same time and snatched the phone out of his hand and said "...the fuck you ARE going without me! I don't think so. Why is it such a problem that I want to go fishing too? What are you really doing?" He screamed back at me "...it's none of your fucking business where I'm going or what I'm doing. I don't have to answer to you and I'll do whatever I want and come home when the fuck I want to..." and the fight was on.

He got closer to me, inching forward every time I scooted backward. He got in my face yelling, screaming, breathing irregularly, waving his hands and his face turned very red, angry and hideously ugly. My defiance immediately turned to intense fear as I realized he was over the edge and I was quite possibly going to die today because I dared stand up to him. My whole body was trembling as my brain raced to try and find an escape away from him before he grabbed me. My only hope was to get outside and scream at the top of my lungs for help. Lord knows, my screams inside the house were never heard by anyone outside before. I desperately tried to think of ways to get out of the house. My house...the house that I had made into a home may very well end up being my coffin.

To be continued...