Confessing to the Cowboy - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,37
I was raised by an alcoholic mother who didn’t teach me anything but how to clean her up after a bad night.”
She raised a hand to twirl the strands of her hair. “And if I wasn’t blaming myself, then I was the one making excuses for Jason. He was a wealthy, powerful man with lots of stress and who sometimes drank too much. Besides, I felt powerless. I didn’t have any friends, I had no money of my own. I was isolated and alone in my misery. I didn’t know how to get out...and then I got pregnant.”
“And you hoped, you prayed that somehow that would change things,” Cameron said, as if he’d heard the story a hundred times before.
“Exactly.” God, she’d been such a fool, believing Jason’s excuses and promises, afraid to leave yet equally afraid to stay. “The pregnancy went without incident and for the first time since he first hurt me, I had real hope. He’d cut down on his drinking and we seemed to be in a honeymoon stage.”
She knew the term was appropriate since the good times occurred between abusive incidents in a domestic violence situation. It was flowers and jewelry, intimate dinners and romance...and then the tension began to build to an explosion once again.
“The honeymoon period lasted through my entire pregnancy and with each day that passed I began to believe that Jason was truly a transformed man.
“But something happened that changed all that.” Cameron’s features were taut with tension, his eyes holding little spark of life as he stared at her. He seemed to go to a dark place inside himself in order to prepare for the rest of her bleak tale.
“It started up again when Mike...Matt...was three months old. Jason didn’t like Mike crying. He didn’t like the time that I spent with him. He didn’t bond with Mike at all, in fact I think he hated his own son. Jason started to drink more and I could feel his rage escalating. Each day I waited for the explosion that I was sure would come.”
She paused, her body and mind remembering the simmering terror of those days and nights. As perverse as it seemed, she’d almost wished for a beating that would relieve the stress of the anxiety of waiting for it to happen.
She splayed her hands on the top of the table, palms down to assure that the trembling would halt. “The explosion came when Mike was almost two years old.” Her mind filled with the memory of Jason’s face, his dark eyes flat and cold as a snake and his mouth compressed together in a tight line that always portended imminent danger.
“We were all in the den supposedly enjoying quality family time. Jason had been knocking back drinks while I chased Mike around to keep him entertained. The backhand across my face came out of nowhere and the force of it threw me to the floor. I instantly curled up into a fetal ball as Jason began to kick me over and over again. And with each kick a rage began to form inside me. I knew before morning came, I’d take Mike and leave...if I lived through the beating.”
Cameron’s hands on the top of the table had curled into fists, as if he wished Jason were here in the room with them and he could mete out a bit of macho justice of his own.
“He finally stopped kicking me, but he wasn’t finished yet. He walked over to where Mike stood crying and viciously shoved him down. He pulled back his arm with his hand fisted and I knew he intended to punch Mike. That’s when I got the fire poker.”
Her heart raced inside her chest, threatening to erupt from her skin just as it had on that fateful night. She was grateful that Cameron said nothing to stop the story from spilling out of her.
She had to finish it. She would be destroyed, but she might save lives. She had to do the right thing and that meant telling Cameron what she’d done so many years ago.
She unclasped her hands and sat up straighter in her chair, holding Cameron’s gaze intently, expecting that with her next words the softness in his eyes would transform into something much different. She got up from the table, unable to sit as she finished her tale.
She took several steps away from the table and then turned back to look at Cameron. “He was just about to hit Mike when I slammed