Dealing with Jessie

She wasn't listening. She started crying again. She climbed out of her side of the car yelling, "You little man! You worthless little weasel! You limp dicked son-of-a-whore! You don't know! You don't know anything! You're nothing! You're nobody! A mouse! A squirrelly little arithmetic teacher at a middle school, a public school!" She slammed the door and rushed for the house.

He sat there, stunned. What he just heard told the tale. Everything had changed, and he hadn't seen it. It felt like he was drowning. Was this what it was like at that final moment, the moment of death when everything ends? What had he done wrong? He wanted her to come clean, tell him what happened and how it happened. Yes, he wanted her to cry. He wanted her to say she was sorry, to say she made a mistake, to ask him to forgive her. Yeah, he wanted her to beg. OK, he wasn't at his best, he was bewildered, confused, maybe a little drunk, but she just didn't get it. Or did she?

Gary loved his wife, they'd been through a lot together, they had three great kids, and he wanted to help her. He wanted to do a lot things; he wanted to take her in his arms, forgive her, tell her they could work things out. He wanted to be the man who she'd always relied on, the man she'd married. He wanted to kill her too. He remembered a line from a poem.

"There is a time, we know not when, a point we know not where, that marks the destiny of men to glory or despair. There is a line by us unseen, that crosses every path; the hidden boundary between God's patience and his wrath. To pass that limit is to die--..."

Tonight Jessie had crossed that hidden line.

This is the end of part one...