Month: January 2018

Posted in anxiety, Fiction

Justice – #JusJoJan 2018

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Sitting in her home, wondering if she could find the inspiration to write again, she pondered whether or not she would ever recover from the farce of the marriage she was trying to end. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit she didn’t only want the marriage to end, she wanted justice. She wanted to be treated fairly and she felt that she had been treated terribly by him.

Who did what he did? Did people really just decide to end their marriages by walking off? By telling their wives they would never be home again over the telephone? By changing their phone number and stopping all communication? She had been humiliated and embarrassed. She felt used and exploited. Violated. Could she ever trust anyone again? Not only did she want a divorce, she wanted justice. She knew she was unlikely to ever get it and that was distressing.

After all, what could you do to exact justice on a person who clearly didn’t care? Nothing, that’s what. He would just laugh. Nothing would be enough for her to feel the situation was resolved in a just manner. She wanted him to suffer like she had suffered in the last weeks. He wouldn’t because if he had ever felt any emotion that was positive toward her, it was long gone. So she would have to settle for a divorce and probably a contentious one at that.

She refused to think back trying to figure him out. How do you figure out an accomplished liar? She had to begin moving forward. To take her own life in her hands and start rebuilding it. He wasn’t worth her thoughts, tears, tribulations.

She hoped karma would catch up with him someday. She wouldn’t spit on him if he were on fire.

 

This post is brought to you by Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Ultimatum – #JusJoJan 2018

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She didn’t believe in ultimatums. She thought they were too confrontational and just brought out the bad qualities in people. Before she took the next step, she felt that she had to try to have a conversation with him. She realized she was probably being foolish. Being too nice. She wasn’t at all hopeful. She felt she was being fair even though he had not been fair to her. She was trying to take the high road. What she had to say would amount to an ultimatum, but he had left her with no choice.

There was only one way to try to reach him since he had changed his telephone number. Before that, he wouldn’t answer her calls. She didn’t know why. All she knew is that he had said he would never be home again. She could call his sister-in-law, his only remaining family who still talked to him. She made the call and only got her voice mail. She left her message. A message that simply said she had something important to talk to him about and would she give him the message.

Two days passed before her appointment with the attorney. No call. No contact. For her, that made her final decision. He must know that without any contact, this is the decision she would make. The next step on their road. She drove to town, parked at the attorney’s office, and met her new divorce lawyer. As she left the office an hour later, she knew she liked her very much.

She had a sense of finality. She had started down the road to the end. It was time and past time.

 

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge. The prompt is brought to you by Itinerary Planner. Take a look at their site!

Posted in Fiction

Humiliate – #JusJoJan 2018

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She was sitting at the dining room table, trying to make progress on her novel. She was in the middle of it, the hardest part. It was difficult to muster up any creativity  this year at her beautiful island. The tension between she and her husband was oppressive and it sucked at her soul. She was lost in thought about her marriage and her manuscript when she realized she heard voices out on the patio where he was working.

She stopped for a moment and listened. She realized it was a woman’s voice answering him when he spoke. She stood up, assuming it was either one of her friends or a neighbor who had come to visit. She went to the door and opened it to let them in. She was taken aback. There was a woman on the patio who she had never seen before. That, by itself, wasn’t so unusual where they lived. People stopped by a lot. That was one thing she liked about the island.

This woman was different and it only took her a moment to realize she was drunk. He was smiling at the woman and smirking at her. The woman saw her and said, “He told me you had curly hair too. Could you please help me with mine?”

She was stunned, but she walked out on the patio and introduced herself to the woman. She didn’t reciprocate.

“Could you help me fix my hair?” the woman said again, as her husband laughed in the background.

”I’m sorry, but I’m not a hairdresser,” she replied. The woman seemed to have already forgotten what she had asked and jabbered about why and how she came to the island. All the while, the woman kept reaching up, trying to touch her hair. She was conscious of neighbors walking by, walking their dogs, taking their daily walks. She felt the woman and her husband, who obviously knew each other, were trying to humiliate her.

She was repulsed and, suddenly, angry.

“Would you please leave?” she asked the woman. “You’re drunk.”

”Sure, honey,” she said, and walked over and hugged her husband.

She turned and walked into the house, feeling degraded and demeaned. She and her husband never spoke of it again. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

 

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge. Prompt by Jim Adams

 

Posted in Fiction

Coffee – #JusJoJan 2018

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She had spent some of the best times of her life in Jamaica. When she was sitting at her desk in their home on her beautiful island, trying to write, she found herself thinking of Jamaica. Not really about the times she spent there, but about the climate. The climate was always the same. Hot and humid around the coast no matter the time of year and cool as you went into the interior of the island. The Blue Mountains made up the interior, where the coffee plantations were located. Those mountains reminded her of her home in the Appalachian Mountains.

It was a hot November on her beautiful island. The daily temperature published in the media was always ten or more degrees lower than what it really was. The temperature hit 90F degrees every day. The air conditioning in the house had been damaged by Hurricane Irma and wasn’t cooling very well. It was hard to stay inside because it was so hot, but she felt the need to write. Creativity wasn’t coming easily in that environment, particularly since she felt she had a jailer lurking right outside the door.

He wouldn’t go anywhere with her and if she tried to leave for the day, taking one of the day trips she loved, she would see the look in his eyes when she left and when she returned. Barely concealed rage and anger. It just wasn’t worth it. For the first time ever, when she is on her island, she is missing her home in the Appalachian Mountains.

Thinking about the last two years, she slowly starts to realize the state of her marriage. She has tried valiantly to save it, but she is gradually realizing there is nothing to save.

The realization dawns on her that it is time to try to save herself. Is it too late?

 

This post is part of Linda G Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge. Prompt by Barbara. Drop by and visit her site!

 

Posted in Fiction

Pants – #JusJoJan 2018

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Soon after a major event in her marriage took place in the South and she returned home, she spent a lot of time at her kitchen table. A cup of tea and her computer in front of her, she would write, then cry, then write some more. She smiled when she thought of her tea. He had always laughed at her health obsession although it helped him too. Her tea was tumeric/ginger/lemon and was a detox agent though a delicious one. It helped her focus, but it seemed nothing could stop her crying. Talking to friends and family helped.

She thought back about him and their marriage this morning. She knew, intellectually, that he had committed fraud when he married her, only interested in money. Deep in her heart that was hard to accept, so she found herself examining their marriage.

Not long before their scheduled trip south, more than two months ago now, she noticed some real behavioral changes in him. Their relationship had not been good for a while, certainly two years or more. Suddenly, he began making remarks to her, acting in peculiar ways. She asked him to talk to her. She was met with stony silence.

One afternoon, a few months before the trip, she was washing dishes. The dishwasher was beside the kitchen sink and he started to unload it, even though she had not asked him to do so. He looked up at her and said, “I’d rather be living on the streets than with you.” She was so shocked that she just stood there for a moment. Then, she turned and walked toward the bathroom, her heart pounding in her chest.

She grabbed the edge of the bathroom sink, feeling as if she would faint. She looked up at herself in the mirror, her breath coming hard, in pants.

“What am I doing with this man?” she thought. She had no idea why he had just said what he did.

She had a gut feeling.

”Someday, he’s going to hurt me.”

 

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge. Here is the challenge and the rules

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Uncategorized

Indelible – #JusJoJan 2018

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She was awakened this morning by one of her recurring nightmares. He was trying to steal her dogs again. She sat up quickly on the side of the bed. So many things that had happened in her first divorce from him had made an indelible mark on her psyche. Harper, her small dog, who was lying on top of her bed had been nudging her. Maybe that had triggered the dream from events that took place 25 years ago.

That divorce and the involvement of the dogs she had at that time hit her like a battering ram. He had tried to use anything she loved, or anything or anyone that loved her, against her. To hurt her. To ruin her reputation. She knew that, this time, this ending of the second marriage, he would do it again. The thought made her lose her breath and feel nauseous.

She let Harper outside and her mind drifted back to the custody fight he had started over her three dogs all those years ago. He had warned her that he was going to take them from her. He didn’t succeed, but he cost her a lot of money and worry in order to keep them. During their first divorce hearing, the judge ruled that she would have custody of the dogs, her precious corgis, even though they were legally considered property. But, he gave him visitation rights. Since he had two pit bull mixes at his house, she let him come to her house to see them. It was a nightmare and everyone knew he was there to see her. She was disgusted.

Over a year passed. She finally received a letter from his attorney. Extortion, she called it. He wanted money in exchange for the cessation of visitation rights. One of the dogs was her mother’s dog. Her mother was terminally ill and lived with her. The middle dog was crippled from birth and a rescue from a breeder. Then there was her precious Kelly. Her dog. There was no choice but to pay the ransom. $25,000. She paid it and kept her dogs. As she watched Harper in the backyard, running and playing, she felt, deep in her gut, that it was about to happen again.

She would not let it. She would take matters into her own hands.

 

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan 2018 Challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Recover – #SoCS – 01/06/2017 and #JusJoJan 2018

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She sits and wonders if she can ever financially recover from the devastation he has caused due to this fraud of a second marriage. That’s what it had been. A fraud. A marriage for financial gain under false pretenses. She was so stupid. She had fallen for all the old, “I’ve changed,” clichés. She’s not even thinking about the emotional damage he’s inflicted. That’s a given. The financial impact is huge and will be worse.

He was a gambler but he had quit before they reunited. He had also quit drinking. She knew both had been hard for him. She had watched him struggle. Now she knew why he had done it. He was looking for a bigger payoff. Except he couldn’t wait. He’d thought that her illness was so severe when he had learned about it before they remarried that she surely would not survive very long. It only goes to show you that he didn’t know her very well. After all the years he had known her, he knew so little about her.

He didn’t know that she was already in the process, before they got together again, of grabbing that illness and wrestling it to the ground, getting it under control. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was still under control and she would keep it under control. He knew it. He grew tired of waiting for her to slip up, for her to let it get the best of her, for her to die.

He decided to give that illness a little nudge. He was still nudging it, even from afar. Still hoping for that ultimate financial payoff. But, this time, she would win.

 

This post is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness challenges.

Posted in Fiction

Room with a View – #writephoto

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The vines were growing up around her window. They were beautiful in their own, wild way. They were threatening to obstruct her view. She would send word to the gardener to trim them back, but only just a little. Not only were they pretty, but they gave her a modicum of protection.

The house was set back from the country lane, but her window looked out onto the lane. She had a good view. She could see her neighbors driving their cars, walking their dogs, walking with their children. They couldn’t see her because of the appearance of frosted glass. She liked it that way.

Her reclusiveness had started a long time ago and had worsened as she aged. Her house was wired so she could communicate with the outside world and do her work. She could order most of what she needed. She only had to get out occasionally. She enjoyed three friends she allowed to visit and she didn’t allow any family.

She became a recluse after she retired from her career. Back then, she still came and went, but only some. Then she stepped out of her comfort zone and allowed her husband back into her life. The worse things got between them, the more she cloistered herself. When he finally left her, her solitude was complete. Her embarrassment total. Her room with a view became her home forever.

Thanks to Sue Vincent for the #writephoto challenge.

Posted in Fiction

Memories – #JusJoJan

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She remembers the first time they met. What’s it been? Oh yes, 43 years ago. A lifetime of memories. They were very young. The first thing she noticed about him is that he was very kind. They started dating. No boy that she’d ever dated had been this kind to her. After several months passed, they moved in together. Living together was popular in those days. They decided to eventually marry.

They married and those were the halcyon days. Theirs was such a calm household. She’d never lived in a tranquil household. She’d grown up in a household filled with hysteria, yelling, upheaval. When she looks back, she thinks that’s the reason she married him the first time. Her search for love and peace. Her parents weren’t brave. They didn’t discourage her. His mother was brave. She took both of them aside individually and advised them against marriage. She knew they loved each other, but they came from such different backgrounds. His mother knew it would never work out in the long run. They didn’t listen to her and she was right. She died a year later.

It’s been a long time and memories of that early time, those early years, have faded now especially since there are so many bad memories. But, she remembers the early years as good, fun, romantic. Something she only recently learned wiped away some of it. He told her he had an affair for the last ten years of their first 18 year marriage. She’d had no idea. She had been crushed and nothing had been the same since. He had persecuted her so badly during their first divorce for the things she had done.

Their second marriage to each other was a mistake. She had to walk away now from the good memories and the bad ones. The good ones broke her heart. The bad ones would make her old and bitter. She didn’t quite know how to walk away from the boy she grew up with and the very different man he had turned out to be. It had all gone so terribly wrong.

She hung her head and cried all night as the telephone remained silent.

 

This post is a part of Linda Hill’s #JusJoJan writing challenge for 2018.

 

Posted in Fiction

Passionate – #JusJoJan

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She couldn’t remember the last time she felt passionate about him. She was capable of such passion about so many things. Sex and love in her marriage used to be two of them. Her husband only cared about sex in their marriage and when she was ill and sex was not possible for a time, he became resentful. Without sex, he withheld love. Without love, the desire for sex with him died within her. She knew they were at a stalemate.

The longer the stalemate went on, the more resentful about sex he became and the more embittered about love she became.

Resentfulness turned into aggression and combativeness on his part. He became deceitful. Without love, she became contrary and morose. Feeling passionate toward him didn’t seem  possible any longer. They were estranged while living in the same house. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t communicate about their situation.

She tried to do things that would make him happy. It was late in life to divorce, but she couldn’t see how they could stay together. It was so uncomfortable. It took a shocking turn of events for her to remember the mental illness that plagued his family and the symptoms that he was exhibiting.

She was afraid and she ran.

 

This story is part of Linda Hill’s JusJoJan 18 challenge.