Of Hope Lost and Found Ch. 01

I should have known better than to confront him about it, but I tried to believe the best and not accuse him. "James, somebody was telling me stories about something that happened at your last job."

"Well, you know better than to believe stories, girl," he said with a mouthful of food. It was evening, and I had just finished making dinner after working a little late that day.

"I know, but I just wonder why someone would make it up. I heard you touched someone and got in trouble for it."

"Like I said, don't believe everything you hear," he said dismissively.

I chewed my food in silence for a minute. Then, against my self-protective instinct, I asked softly, "Is it true?"

James dropped his fork and stared daggers at me. "What?"

I felt the tears starting. Angry tears, sad tears, desperate tears. "Is...it...true? Did you touch her? Did you get fired?"

"What's it matter to you what I do?" he said icily.

"It matters because I'm your wife. Because we're a family. Because I need to know that you love me and will be faithful to me and that I can trust you and believe you!"

"Bitch!" he roared, standing up. "That's just silly little girl talk, that's all it is. I'll keep you happy in the bedroom and I'll make sure we don't go hungry. Beyond that, you keep your nose outta my business."

Now it was my turn to stand up and start yelling. As soon as he called me 'bitch,' I had an empty plate in my hand. "We got married!" I yelled. "Everything you do is my business now!"

"Oh, grow up, Dottie! You don't know how good you have it."

I threw the plate. It wasn't my intention to hit him, and I had a good enough arm that I could send it exactly where I wanted it. The plate went sailing over his shoulder, shattering against the wall behind him. James ducked as the plate whizzed past his ear, then looked back at me disbelievingly. I was breathing hard through my nose, my jaw clenched shut, hoping he understood how serious and upset I was. Before I knew it, his half-full plate was sailing at my head. I got my arm up quick enough to get a nasty bruise on my forearm instead of on my face.

I yelled. He yelled. I cried. He yelled. A few cups and mugs went hurtling across the table. We both said things we'd been bottling up for a while. Be both yelled things I hoped we would feel sorry about later. Under the rage, I was thinking that maybe this big blow-up was what we needed to get everything on the table. James would see how much he was hurting me. He would understand what marriage is supposed to be. He would see that I was scared and lonely and confused and that I needed and wanted him to be close to me.

Someone started knocking on our door. The neighbors were probably upset about the noise- more than one mug had crashed against the wall we shared with them. We were in the living room, in front of the couch, pointing in each other's faces and letting accusations fly. At one point, I yelled that he couldn't just go after other women now because we were married- he had made a promise to me. I pointed to the framed picture of us dressed up in our Sunday best before we went to the courthouse. It was the closest thing we had to a wedding picture.

The knocking on the door got louder- someone was pounding and shouting. James grabbed the picture and smashed it on the end table. "That's what I think of that promise, Dottie," he said sharply and quietly. "I only married you so I could get you to spread your legs. God, don't you get it? Pussy, Dottie. It was all about a nice warm place to stick my willy. You're a hot piece of tail, but we had to go see a judge to get you to fuck me. It's nice getting some action every night, but God, I'm starting to think it's not worth it anymore."

Devastated. That was the only word that can describe how my stomach flipped inside out and then sank to my toes. I didn't know if he was serious or just being mean and spiteful, but it sure made a lot of sense. He had used me. I...I was just an object, a plaything to him. I staggered, my hand on my head. I reeled back and almost sank to the floor. Someone was fiddling with the lock, trying to open the door.

James actually laughed, "You're so...fucking...naïve, Dottie. That's all a guy wants, especially from a girl as hot as you. At least now you can lose your illusions and we can get on with real life."

I screamed in rage. I don't remember most of what happened next, but according to the police report, once they heard my scream, they broke open the door and found me bashing in James' head with a lamp. He suffered a concussion, needed 149 stitches on his head and arms, and the broken lamp sliced out one of his eyes.

*******

James pressed charges and quickly divorced me. Other than a bruise on my forearm (easily explained as being from James defending himself), there was no sign of abuse, and James denied any wrongdoing. Without any prior police report of him abusing me, there was no reason to believe my story. In every sense, James looked like the victim. He had been carried away in a stretcher while I was in handcuffs. It had taken two officers to pull me off him, but not before I'd shredded his face with the broken glass of the lamp before their very eyes.

Daddy came and tried to argue with the judge, but it really did come down to 'he said, she said.' One look at James' eye patch and Frankenstein face in the courtroom- all covered in stitches- and my fate was sealed. I spent the next few weeks in the county jail for battery. They said James suffered spousal abuse. The judge even made some remark about wives needing to be taught "to deal with their emotions in a more constructive way." I heard that and wished I had another lamp handy. That day in the courthouse was the last I ever saw of Jimmy. Good riddance.

Daddy or Mama visited me several times a week. The first time Daddy saw me after my arrest, I tried to apologize, but he held up his hand and said, "Now Dottie, the only thing you did wrong was not giving me the chance to take care of that business for you. I could've messed him up a lot worse without needing to get anyone in trouble with the law." I tried to laugh, but it just got me crying again.

After a week, I didn't feel much like talking. Part of me just withered up and died those few weeks. While I didn't make any friends, I did get to hear a lot of stories- stories that just made me angry. Story after story of women being used and abused. Desperate women who ended up there because they ran out of places that would take them in. Women so mistreated by the men in their lives, yet paying the price their abusers should pay. I became convinced that men like Daddy were freaks and that the world was full of men just like Jimmy. I resolved never to be fooled again.