\u201cIt was just the once,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were drinking,\u201d I say. \u201cStarted fighting again. Something just bent until, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pause. Gather my head, think: What now? Where to?<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, once is enough,\u201d the man next to me says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce is too much,\u201d the woman next to him says.<\/p>\n
She rises, punches into the sleeves of her coat, and abandons her drink. We watch her leave. I hide my face in my hands, elbows on the bar. The guy next to me supposes I\u2019m about to cry and knocks a paw against my back. I look up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a battle,\u201d he says. \u201cYou wrestle your way through, fella. I been there.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nod. Like: oh for sure, absolutely.<\/em> But I\u2019m somewhere else. Planning. Escape, reentrance, forgiveness. If she\u2019s put the chain on the door, I could steal around the house and try the window on the guest room and, if it gives, I might set a knee on the changing table topping the dresser, which would dampen the sound, not wake the kids. I could edge down the hall and into the bedroom and, no, not crawl in next to her but just curl up on the floor near her feet, head half under the bed. A dog that pissed the den. She\u2019d wake in the morning and see me and reach down and stop, and think, no, I\u2019m not ready yet<\/em>. But at least he came home, yes?<\/p>\n The movie house across the street is showing 24 hours of It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em>. I quit the bar, buy a ticket for three bucks, get a beer, and find a seat along the back. What else am I gonna do? Sixteen years we\u2019ve been together. I haven\u2019t been alone since fifth grade.<\/p>\n Onscreen, George Bailey is wandering the streets of Bedford Falls, pacing by the house of the girl he is meant to be with but doesn\u2019t know it yet. I cry when he shakes her like a rabbit and says he doesn\u2019t ever want to get married, before crushing her into him and they both kiss and sob and dissolve. I know that love. You think I don\u2019t know that love?<\/em><\/p>\n I grab change for a five. Leave the theatre. At a payphone outside, I call the house and leave messages, one after the other:<\/p>\n There aren\u2019t enough sorry\u2019s. A thousand, a million. All my life.<\/em><\/p>\n Have you slept with someone else yet? It\u2019s okay if you did\u2013I just wanna know where I stand.<\/em><\/p>\n What if we took the kids and moved, left this awful place.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not gonna give up on you, babe. I promise.<\/em><\/p>\n Do you still love me? Do you even like me now?<\/em><\/p>\n I exhaust the quarters and it feels like a sign. Back inside the wet heat of the theater, I buy another show ticket, another beer, another kiss, sob, and dissolve. Then leave again. Drive around. Will she take the kids, move closer to her mom? Would the neighbors think I just let them go? Fuck \u2018em. I walk down our street and breathe in the air, burning with cold. I throw snowballs at lamplights, breaking a bulb. Lights out, Helena. I draw hearts in the backyard snow. Two big ones, two babies. I heft the concrete cherub from our neighbor\u2019s porch and smash it in the gutter. Sit on the curb and hit myself in the face. I take a piece of the angel\u2019s wing and bust out a window on the garage, then another, because what else can I do?<\/p>\n What else am I gonna do?<\/p>\n What else am I gonna do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Onscreen, George Bailey is wandering the streets of Bedford Falls, pacing by the house of the girl he is meant to be with but doesn\u2019t know it yet. I cry when he shakes her like a rabbit. You think I don’t know that love?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[702,1405,851,719,2326,1218,105,12],"class_list":["post-16068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-alcohol","tag-domestic-violence","tag-father","tag-marriage","tag-montana","tag-parenthood","tag-relationships","tag-violence","writer-joel-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16085,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16068\/revisions\/16085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}