NO FUEL - NO FIRE

foul language, emotional abuse

NO FUEL - NO FIRE.

“I’ve got a plan . . . There you go again – that look on your face. Why’d you marry me if you don’t believe in me?”

           “I wasn’t making a face. I’m in the middle of making dinner, changing a diaper, and helping with this stupid, illogical new-math homework. My face is tired.” It was a lie, well, it was true, but the not part about making a face in reaction to his new plan. That was a bold-faced lie. She had rolled her eyes and grimaced. His plans! What misadventure would he drag them into this time? She settled the baby in the Thrift Store swing, wound up the gear, gave the seat a gentle nudge, and sunk the wet diaper into the diaper pail letting out the stench of ammonia. I’ve got to get the laundry done, she reminded herself again, wishing she could buy disposables. She washed her hands and went back to cooking. “So, tell me about it.”

           “It’s going to take a bit of an investment, and it won’t be overnight . . .”

           She stopped listening. She smiled, nodded when it seemed appropriate, and filled her head with a hymn to remind herself that marriage was a life sentence for people who considered it a vow unto God. It didn’t really matter what her husband’s plan was; she was just along for the ride want to or not. He never seemed to care what she thought about his schemes, as long as she didn’t burst his newest bubble.

           Actually, her face was tired. All of her five foot-three body was tired. It ached with tired. Her brown eyes, once twinkling with life, were tired. Her dark hair hung limply in its scrunchy. The life had been washed out of her tee and sweatpants years ago. Even her cooking was tired – a fact he often remarked on. Carol put the ham and potato casserole on the table next to the bowl of green beans. She dished up her husband’s portion first, scooping out a generous portion of ham. Greig Jr. got the next most generous portion of meat and the four-year old most of the ham that still remained in with the potatoes. Her husband, usually with his mouthful, continued to expound the foolproof nature of his newest get-rich plan.

           Carol had made a peach cobbler for dessert, but the one can of peaches she had to use meant mostly cobbler and little fruit. She sat back in her chair, nursing the baby who always seemed to be hungry during mealtime, and enjoyed the one slice of fruit in her bowl.

           “Wasn’t much meat in that tonight; how do you expect a man to go out and make a living without a decent meal in his stomach?”

           “Meat has gotten really expensive.”

“And now, G. Jr., is when she’ll say: ‘You need to go shopping with me to see the prices.’ Her stock excuse.”

           She didn’t respond. The baby had fallen asleep at her breast; she gently pressed the tip of her forefinger near the corner of his mouth to break the suction and covered herself in one practiced motion. Her husband was waiting for that response, but as if afraid to wake the baby, she silently tip-toed him back to his swing, secretly using the corner of his blanket to blot her tears. Her children didn’t need to hear another argument, especially since it would change nothing. She let the criticism drop. No fuel - no fire.

           It only took two months for the small investment to make it impossible to pay the rent. There was no money for moving expenses, no savings for first and last month’s rent in a new place, so Carol waited until Greig Sr. went to work to pull her emergency money out of hiding. Combined with what they did have for rent, it was enough, but not for the second floor, two bed-room apartment they occupied. She begged the landlord, agreed to do all the cleaning of both apartments, and he grudgingly agreed to rent them the one bedroom on the third floor that was still empty because he had yet to make it fit enough to rent after the last tenants trashed it. 

           Her husband had his usual accusatory fit. “If you were smart enough to handle the money I give you for expenses, we wouldn’t need to move.” He stormed out each of the next five days after dinner leaving her to deep clean the mess upstairs alone, move everything she could move without his help, and leave the second-floor apartment new tenant ready. But when the next month’s rent was due, he declared, “With the money we’re saving on rent, I’ll be able to get our future on the road. This place is fine for as long as we’ll need it. We’ll be living easy soon enough.”

           Soon was very slow in coming. In fact, soon didn’t come at all. Greig was more and more often out late, often not coming home after work to attend his ‘important meetings’. But Carol didn’t mind; dinner was as frugal as she could manage, but without his presence, there was peace. There was no fuel and no fire. She felt quite guilty when she caught herself smiling in her quiet evenings after the children were asleep. She questioned in her prayers whether she was a good or even an acceptable wife. She didn’t allow herself to question God as to whether Greig Sr. was a good or even acceptable husband.

           All clouds have silver linings. The peace in her miniscule home was one of them; the quiet of not having anyone living up over them made the stairs worth the climb, and the almost total absence of Greig Sr.’s temper was a relief. The baby slept better. Her daughter slept better and woke with a four-year old’s optimism. Greig Jr. looked rested and did better in school.

           Even in poverty one can count their blessings, and she did. Even as the poverty steadily got worse. His missed shifts at work, showing up late, no call – no shows, her husband, she knew it was coming, had been fired. He stormed in one morning while she was cleaning the kitchen/living room/adult bedroom after he had left for work. “It would help if you got off your lazy butt and got a job!”

           “We tried that. It cost as much for a babysitter for two children and a third after school as I earned. And my transportation actually put us several dollars behind. I’d get a job and not complain if we had family to help instead of hiring a sitter or daycare.”

           “Oh, here we go. Criticize my family because they don’t want to raise your children for you. If you were more careful not to get pregnant, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

           She ran the refrain for a hymn through her mind several times before she spoke. “What mess, Greig? What’s happened?” she said as nonchalantly as possible.

           “What mess; what happened?” he mimicked in a whinny voice. “I can’t put together this business and work for someone else at the same time – that’s what happened you useless . . .” the baby’s cries echoed his shouting. “And there goes that thing again. You and those kids have ruined my life.” The door slammed behind him.

           “Thank you, Lord, that he left. He’ll probably come in stinking of beer late tonight, but until then we’ll have some peace.” She went first to the four-year old. “It’s OK, sweety, Daddy’s just having a bad day. He didn’t mean it,” she lied. She let the baby cry until her daughter was comforted. “Let’s get Bobby. How about if we read a story while I feed him? You go get some books while I change his diaper.” She said another prayer of thanks that her other son was in school and did not hear his father’s rejection.

           It always made her husband angry to come home and have to use a key to get in. He agreed that locking the door was a necessity but expected Carol to know just when he’d arrive and open it to him. Eleven o’clock, midnight, one AM, Carol knew he’d be sloshing more than a few beers inside his belly when he finally came home and didn’t want to upset him. Almost anything she said would be fuel for the fire when he was really drunk, and his middle of the night rants would get them evicted, but she had lots of practice at this. She had asked a neighbor to run to the store for a bottle of his favorite beer. She would open the door with the cold bottle in her hand and a “Hi, honey”.

Carol fed the baby again, tucked him into his crib, and curled up on the bed that now also served as the sofa. She sipped at her tea and waited; while she waited, her mind wandered to that 1960 movie, ‘The Sundowners’. Robert Mitchum played the lead male role, Paddy Carmody, and Deborah Kerr played his wife Ida. Greig wasn’t as handsome as Robert Mitchum, but then no one was, but the character Paddy wasn’t much easier to live with than Greig. Well, there was Greig’s drinking, but that had developed gradually over the past eleven years. In the movie, Paddy dragged his family around, never keeping promises, squandering their savings, crushing their dreams. Life was hard for them. But they were family. Ida always found the patience and the strength to forgive and support her husband. I could do that, Carol told herself, if only the drinking and the temper it percolated would stop. It isn’t the poverty or the unrealistic dreams and schemes, it’s the drink and the temper that’s damaging our family.

           Carol wanted to believe she could be Ida to Paddy. Maybe the drink and the temper are the result of so many failures. His pride must be so broken. He’s not a bad man. Behind all of this there’s still the man I married. Those were the thoughts she fell asleep to.

The knocking on the door woke her in the still dark hours of the morning. She grabbed the bottle, smoothed her hair, practiced a pleased smile and unlocked the door.

           Two uniformed officers stood there, looking back and forth to her face and the bottle.

           “I thought you were my husband finally coming home; it seems to prevent the argument he’s got prepared if I greet him with it.” She put the bottle on the small table near the door. “What’s happened? Has something happened to my husband?”

           “Yes and no,” the shorter of the officers said. “He’s been arrested. He won’t be coming home.”

           It would take Carol years of praying to forgive herself for the relief she felt at hearing those words.

           “We’re sorry to come at this hour, but we have a search warrant for your home.”

           “My children are sleeping, if you can’t avoid waking them, please, let me reassure them before they see you and become frightened.”

           “Yes, Ma’am, that’ll be fine. Might as well go wake them yourself because we won’t be able to be quiet.”

           “We only have these two rooms . . .”

           “You can sit with them in the bedroom until we’re ready to go in there.”

           Greig Sr. never did come home. He couldn’t make bail. Carol had no way to pay bail for him, and he blamed her for his being stuck there in that ‘shit-hole jail’. There was no more income coming in. So, Carol went to welfare; praise to God, they came through for her. Barely, but the four of them could get by while the justice system arranged a blessedly less than speedy trial.

           Greig, still blaming her for failing to procure bail, made a deal with the prosecutor. He wasn’t the one with the gun; he only provided the transportation. “He’s as guilty as the rest. They’ll get a longer sentence, but Greig won’t see less than twenty years,” the prosecutor told Carol.

           Twenty years of peace. The children would grow up without enduring his presence. No, she wouldn’t divorce him; there was no provision for that in her understanding of what marriage is. But she moved her family to a three-bedroom apartment in a government subsidized building. She stretched her food stamps. The welfare people arranged for her to have a cell phone with reasonable minutes. She didn’t give Greig Sr. the number. He’d tried to pile on the emotionally charged verbal fuel during the calls he made to their other phone, and she was grateful that she wasn’t able to afford it any longer.

           Thankfully, he was incarcerated much too far away to visit with her limited funds. Almost every letter he sent demanded money saying the prison didn’t provide enough of anything. Welfare didn’t provide enough to share, but when she could, she sent ten or twenty dollars. His letters were terse, cold, lacking concern for his family. But still she wrote every two or three weeks, short letters updating him on the children. She sent photos of them twice a year and insisted that they send at least a short note several times a year.

Greig Jr. begged to have his name changed before he started high school. Legal Aide helped with it, reversing his first and middle names, making him Edward Greig and eliminating the Junior. The attorney also convinced Carol to apply for a legal separation from her husband to prevent him from sinking her into any of his future debts or tapping into her income. She complied. Greig never forgave her.

           Welfare offered an educational program that she jumped at as soon as Bobby was a toddler and ready for the daycare that was provided. Her two-year program certified her and netted her a job as a lab tech. The day she held her first paycheck in her hand, she cried as one does when a heavy burden has been lifted.

#         

           Twenty-three years passed. Greig was up for parole. He wanted her to write a letter saying how much she missed him and wanted him back. He claimed to have found God and the faith that he had professed when they first met. Had he? Was this another scheme? They had become strangers. His infrequent letters held no sign of love or desire for her.

           The children were grown; her nest was empty; her life was comfortable, not rich, she didn’t even want rich. Her life was comfortable; she possessed the greatest of earthly treasures other than God’s grace: contentment. Would Greig knock on her door and take that from her?

           She wrote a letter saying nice enough things but stopping short of saying she wanted him back in her home. She wrote that she wished him well and knew he’d get his life in order with a second chance. She wondered if that were true.

Carol didn’t know what she’d do if he showed up at her door; she prayed he wouldn’t. He would always be technically her husband, they could have a friendship, they could occasionally have dinner together and go to family functions together, but, no, he would never be her really husband again she admitted to herself. That man she married long years ago – did he still exist? If he did, he would only ever be a friendly face at family functions.

Was that wrong? Would her faith allow her that? Would she be forced back into those fuel and fire arguments? Carol looked through her window to the sky above. No, it wasn’t wrong for her to move along without Greig. God had already demonstrated that He had other plans for her life.