for several weeks. To the point I was sleeping in the living room most nights and Rob found excuses to hide when his father was home.
That year, though, it came about during the winter, when the homes were normally buttoned up tight. We’d had a warm spell with Chinook winds, however, and I had a few of the windows cracked to blow fresh air through before the next cold snap settled in.
After the game, Quint had come home to grill dinner. He came into the house with a platter full of ice cold, charcoal-black burgers. He was also pretty buzzed. A case of beer over the course of a day was an easy guess. The guys thought he was hilarious with his stumbling jokes. I knew he’d probably pee all over the bathroom, leaving a wet spot on the front of his jeans in the process, then later demand a blow job. Like hell. He hadn’t been able to get it up in over a year. I thought about going to bed, but seven o’clock was far too early. Hiding in my office and leaving Rob to fend for himself wouldn’t work either. Quint wouldn’t tolerate us abandoning him after he’d cooked dinner.
Yeah. That was his take. I prepared the meat, toasted the buns, sliced the cheese, onions and tomatoes, made the potato salad and set the table, all in an effort to make it seem like summer in the middle of a long dark winter, then finished up by doing the dishes. According to Quint, he’d given me a night off from cooking. Some treat.
I’d been biting my tongue for a long time because of Rob. Were I on my own, I would have walked a lot sooner. But in order to leave, I had to be able to provide a home for my son. I’d crunched the numbers. I could make it month to month on my salary, but I needed several thousand dollars of seed money. First, last and deposit on an apartment, money to buy furniture, plus a nest egg for a retainer and the unexpected. And I needed a place near Rob’s school. With him moving on to middle school in the fall, our options had widened considerably. However, I was about fifteen hundred dollars short of my minimum goal. It would mean having only one bed–Rob’s–and we’d be sitting on the floor for awhile, but I’d have my grandfather’s desk, my uncle’s lawyer’s bookcase, the desk set and dresser we’d bought for Rob, my laptop and a few dishes. If I could just hang on a few months longer, five ideally, we could pack up and leave. I had just the place in mind, a building with a secure entrance.
Would a secure entrance stop Quint? No, but it would slow him down. I couldn’t afford a place with a security guard, but the complex I had in mind had security cameras in the lobbies and the underground parking garage. Not much, but it was something. It also required a hefty chunk of cash to get in the door, provided there was an available apartment. So I kept my mouth shut, socked away every penny I could and quietly sold a few things online. Things small enough I could carry out in my purse, tote bag or lunch bag. Things I could quietly send off from the office. Picking just the right items that would bring in at least twenty dollars was tough. But I managed and was adding about two hundred fifty dollars a month to my kitty.
I took one look at the burned burgers and knew I couldn’t last much longer.
Quint slapped me on the butt and told me to serve it up. That was my first bruise.
Everything else was on the plates. I pushed the platter back at Quint. “Eat ’em if you want, I’ll pass.”
“What? A little black not good enough for you, princess?” The words slurred through his sneer as he swayed in the kitchen. Beer fumes enclosed him like a fog. That and sweat. “Give me a blow job first and the burgers will taste better. I deserve one for cookin’ dinner for you. Hell, you should like ’em, you seasoned them.”
“Think about a shower and an early night, Quint.” I said it quietly, fury digging deep into my soul. So deep, a wave of resigned weariness immediately followed. This dance had been choreographed before, but he’d never gone so far as to use the words blow job in front of Rob. Too embarrassed, I couldn’t look over to see my son’s reaction. I slapped one of the patties on Quint’s bun and handed him the plate. “Dinner first.” Maybe ignoring his statement and getting some food in him would help.
Mollified for the moment, he took the plate and leered at me. “Gonna need my strength for later. I’m feeling a need for sweet dessert tonight. Nothing like poking some Candy in the ass, eh, babe? Gotta break in the new mattress.”
Determined not to rise to the bait, I reached into the fridge for some lunchmeat. Rob and I would just have sliced turkey on our buns. No big deal. If only I’d had roast beef, it would have looked more like the burgers.
Quint noticed. “What? You not eating the meat I cooked for you? You bitch about standing over a hot stove and expect me to eat the slop you produce. What about me standing over a hot grill?”
“You had plenty of beer to keep you company.” Balancing Rob’s plate and mine on one arm, I grabbed a bowl of cucumber salad to carry to the table and pushed past Quint. Rob was at the table and cast a wary glance at his father as he reached for his plate.
Quint pulled his chair up to the end of the table and sneered at the food. “What’s the matter, Bobby-boy? You not man enough to eat a real char-broiled burger? Have to eat the candyass pussy food your mama feeds you?”
Rob kept his eyes on his plate and tucked his paper towel napkin into his lap without a reminder.
I glared at Quint. Abusing me was one thing; turning on our son was another. “Your stomach is made of cast iron. We haven’t built up such a tolerance.” I sat down and placed my napkin in my lap.
“Hell, woman, he’s my son. Take that back and slap a patty on it. That expensive deli meat is pussy food.” Quint grabbed Rob’s plate and slapped it, upturned, on my chest. “Now make him a man’s plate.”
Rob, the boy who’d held his tongue his entire life, chose that moment to talk back. “Why can’t you leave her alone? That plate was just fine with me.” He pushed back his chair, preparing to stand. Probably to help me clean up the food now dropping to the carpet in large wet plops. Great. Ketchup, mustard, potato salad… I’d have to dig out the carpet cleaner I’d bought a few months earlier when Quint had peed on the bedroom carpet in a drunken stupor.
I was just standing when Quint’s right hand drew back in preparation of backhanding Rob. For once, his drunkenness played to my advantage. He moved slowly enough I was able to grab his arm and keep it from swinging to make contact with my son. Drunk as he was, Quint still had the strength to drag me part-way across the table. Swearing a blue streak and calling him every vile name I could think of, I ended up wearing food from all three plates and the vinegary cucumbers I’d set down. Quint planted his fist in my face and used it to push me away and down to the floor at the same time a left backhand crushed into my stomach.
Rob raced around his dad to get to the phone base sitting at the end of the kitchen counter, all the while screaming for Quint to back off and get the hell out. That’s probably what the neighbors had heard, those who’d also opened their windows for a rare chance at fresh air in winter. Rob’s voice hadn’t changed yet, and on the phone he’d been mistaken for me more than once, to his great disgust.
Trying to catch my breath, I yelled at Rob to get away from his dad. Quint ripped the phone from Rob’s hand and threw the entire base unit across the dining area, where it hit a wall. Six inches to the left and he would have broken one of the windows over the stairwell. Rob already had his hand on my cellphone, which had been charging on the counter. Quint quickly demolished that and turned on Rob in fury, his voice never rising above a normal volume. He was good at that. Let me do the screaming, or in this case, Rob.
I threw myself at Quint’s legs and knocked him off balance so Rob could escape from the confines of the kitchen. Rob was heading for the door when Quint kicked me. I screamed loud enough for the whole street to hear, hoping, for once, just one of them would come to the door to see what the hell was going on.
My scream brought Rob back, but Quint pushed past him, down the stairs and out the door. As consciousness wavered in and out, I heard Quint rev his truck and the tires squealed as he tore out of the driveway. The snow just beginning to fall muffled the sounds of his truck as he drove away.
Except for Rob’s cries, not a sound followed.