Another MURDER in the family

Before I continue with the post "Finding husband number three", let's go back to my post "Starting over again" where I promised to come back and tell you about my prediction of my brother in law committing murder.


If you recall "S" was married to my younger sister and he was very abusive to her both physically and mentally. She had joined the army after taking all the abuse she could stand in an effort to get away from him. She made it through boot camp and had six weeks to live without him. After graduation she was stationed in Alabama. I became increasingly worried about her after that because I knew this would mean he would be joining her there. Maybe the separation had done them good. Maybe he had realized how awful he had been treating her and would change once they were back together again. However my fear was that he had not changed any and if he had, it would be short live. And because she was so far away from me there was no way I was going to be able to help her. With her in Alabama and me in North Carolina and neither of us having a phone we had to rely on the good old postal service to communicate. The time lapse for us to communicate was frightening. What if he lost it one Friday Night and hurt her real bad. It could be days or weeks before I would know that she needed me. And I was right. He was totally different for the first four or five weeks and then he started abusing her again. So, after six months in Alabama the Army offered her a tour in Korea and she accepted with no questions asked. Again she had found a way to safely get away from him where he wouldn't think she was leaving him, because men like him may not want you but they certainly don't want anyone else to have you either.


As bad as I hated it that she was going all the way to Korea and knowing there would be no way I could see her until she came home, I was grateful that she had managed to get away from him again even if it was just for six months. I wrote to her everyday. And she wrote back as often as she had time to. I sent care packages with goodies I knew she could only get here and did my best to let her know how much I loved and missed her. My hope was that by the time her tour in Korea was over she would be strong enough to stay away from him. As it turned out I wouldn't have to worry about her being strong enough to leave him, his behavior took care of that for me.


I was so excited the day I found out she was headed home. She would be flying into Norfolk and nothing was going to keep me from being there to pick her up. I don't think I slept for days prior to her return. It had been over a year since we had been able to be together and I was now in what appeared to be a good relationship with husband number three and I was ready to help her start her life over. The other half of me was coming home and with her back here in the States we could be together again and my life would be complete. Of course we both knew it would only be a few days after her return that she would be confronted by "S" about her coming home to him.


Okay, now let me tell you what he had been doing while she was in Korea. He had been living in Fayetteville North Carolina with his brother "K" and his new wife "A". Again I am using their initials only. "K" and his new wife had been living with "S" ever since my sister had left for Korea. They were splitting the costs of the household bills in an effort to lighten the load on both families. Within 2 days of my sister being back in the states, knowing she was going to have to contact him, she got word that he was missing. Not because someone had hurt him but because he was being looked for by the police for suspicion of murder. So on day three of her being home we drove to Fayetteville North Carolina to talk to the police there to find out what in the heck was going on. Everything happened so fast once we got there its hard to remember the fine details of that day. We drove to the police department first, to speak to the detective that had contacted my sister upon her arrival home. Once we met him he took us to his office to explain to us what had happened. The first thing he told us was we could not go to the house they had rented because it was a crime scene. He told us there were really no personal belongings left in there. We never did find out where they went, who got them or when the house had been cleaned out. He told us that "S" was gone. That he had not been seen since the night of the double murder. "Double murder?" we thought. "What in the world had happened?" He began to tell us that "S" had murdered his brother and his brother's wife. He said they had been drinking and probably getting high and an argument had ensued over their wives. It appeared that his brother's wife had been having an affair with him for several months and then decided to get back together with his brother. The detective thought they were fighting over her when "S" got really mad and pulled a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and just started stabbing his brother and his wife. He told us that she had been stabbed 27 times and his brother had been stabbed twice, one of which was in his groin and that was where they found the knife. "S" was nowhere to be found. We knew he had to be on the run or my sister would have heard from him by now. He was just that possessive of her. We found her car abandoned in a used car lot. The stereo equipment had been stripped out and the speakers were gone. It looked as if maybe "S" had done it in an effort to have something to pawn so he could get some money to run with. I have got to say I was petrified. I was afraid while we were there and I was afraid after we got back to my house the following day. So as more and more days went by and never a word from him we had more and more reason to believe he had committed these horrible murders. There was never a question in my mind from day one. And my fear would be now that he had killed once what reason would he have not to do it again. He would have nothing to loose at this point. My sister was able to get an extended leave from the army in order to have time to try to take care of things before she would report to her next duty station. When her orders came in they were for her to go to California. Lord knows, how much farther can you move away from me and still be in the states. As bad as I hated her being that far away at least I knew where she was and I could get there to see her. And besides, the farther away she was from Virginia and North Carolina the better. It would just make it harder for him to find her if he was looking for her. Several months went by and we heard no word from anyone about the murders. Then one day there was a knock on my door. Two men in suits standing out there waiting for someone to answer the door. As I approached the door I noticed they were holding badges in their hands for identification. I invited them in and they informed me that they were with the FBI and they were looking for "S". They wanted to know if I had heard from him or knew anyone that had. Or if I had any idea where he might be. No to both questions I told them. I wish I knew where he was too. I would have certainly have felt much safer. There was definitely no love loss between the two of us. He knew that I knew what he had been doing all along. I was not someone he would have wanted the police to be talking to because I would have nothing nice to say about him. I had seen the likes of him before and thinking of him and what he had done just gave me nightmares and also brought up a whole string of memories for me. I wish I could tell you more about him. I wish I knew where he was today, or where he had been all these years. Rumor has it that he was picked up and questioned about the murders but never formally charged. I remember hearing that he had confessed to someone off the record that he was responsible for what happened to his brother and his wife. But it doesn't count if you haven't been read your rights and you don't have an attorney present to represent you. And if a prosecutor doesn't believe there is a way to win a case they are not likely to formally charge you due to the double jeopardy laws. So they just sit back and wait for some new evidence. You know what? He could be living right here in the same town I live in now and I wouldn't even know it. Or he could be dead and the days I have spent worrying and wondering could be in vain. The only thing I AM sure of is I saw it in his face the night I looked at him through my front door. He was so angry and if looks could kill I would have been dead that very moment. Our family NEVER talks about him or what might have happened that dreadful night. Out of sight out of mind I guess is how they deal with it. But every now and then, every once in a blue moon I wonder how long people like him actually do hold on to a grudge.



Lesson better left unlearned? If your instinct tells you something, listen to it. What you an think may happen may not happen to you today but sometimes they happen when you least expect it to. Or if someone warns you that they fear for you give them the benefit of the doubt. They could have an instinct about something that could save your life or the life of someone you love.

Starting over . . . again!

I have spent most of my life with the best of intentions. But like the song says "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I wanted to be happily married to a nice man. One who would love us and take care of us like my dad had done. I wanted to go to church and profess my faith and live a good christian life. I wanted to be a good daughter and a good mother, a good sister and a good friend to someone. But I was failing miserably at all of the above. How could my life that had been so good turn out so bad. I hated myself for what I had become. Every time I made a mess of my life I would just pick up and move in an effort to start over again differently. And each time I would fail and I would fall deeper and deeper into this hole of bad choices and poor excuses. And the drugs and drinking? Well they just made all the bad things in my life easier to deal with because I didn't have to face the reality of what I had done to myself. I know...out of sight out of mind. But it really doesn't work that way. Believe me. One of these days it all comes back to bite you in the butt.


So here I was, once again at another crossroad. I can keep digging myself in deeper or I can work hard to change things for me and Lisa. We moved in with my mom, her husband and my younger sister. I got a job driving an auto parts truck for a local auto parts store. My step dad actually let me borrow a car from him to get back and forth to work until I could save $500.00 to pay him for it. I enrolled Lisa in child care at one of the churches in town and we were off to a new start. I was now living back in the same town that I had lived in when my mom and dad had divorced; so if I could locate them, I would have friends here that I knew. If you recall this was a very very small town. It seemed like everyone knew everyone else in one way or another. All I would have to do is go out somewhere and before too long my old friends would know I was back in town. This also meant that if Lisa's dad were still here he would also know before too long that I was back and Lisa would be with me. It had been a couple of years since I had heard anything about him. I had no idea where he was or what he was doing. It was the risk I took coming back to this area. How would I feel if I saw him again? Well......do you want to know the truth? The same way I felt the very first time I ever laid eyes on him. Head over heals in love with him. Everyone that knew me were very aware of this too and I think that is why everyone in my family was praying he was nowhere around.

I guess I was back in town a week or ten days when I started running into old friends. We started hanging out together and each week I would run into someone else I hadn't seen for several years. I was visiting with an old girlfriend one evening when an old boyfriend of mine stopped by to see her and her husband. His name was Tony and we had "gone steady" for a short time when I was in the 7th grade and he was in the 9th. We had a lot in common so we started hanging out together and before long we were "dating" again.


Tony worked at a car dealership and we both worked Monday through Friday. We would just hang out during the week but when the weekends would roll around we loved to go to the clubs in nearby cities to have a few drinks and dance the night away. We were not the "party animals" that Glen and I had been but we did drink when we were out and we would smoke an occasional joint from time to time. My mom liked him because she had known him for a long time and knew that for the most part he was a responsible young man. I was now 19 and pleased that life had seemed to mellow out for me a little. A break from all the drama was just what I needed. I just wanted to have peaceful life with a little dose of fun thrown in for good measure which was something that Tony and I managed to do quite well. We both loved to sing and dance and we spent most of our free time doing just that. It was the days of disco and we knew every dance known to the disco world. And I dare say we were pretty darn good at it too. We worked together for the common good and before too long I had saved enough money for Lisa and I to rent a small upstairs apartment and get out on our own. Tony was still living at home so he would come and stay with me at the apartment most weekends. Mom would usually let Lisa spend the weekends with her so she could have time with her while Tony and I danced the nights away. As I said before we would have a few drinks and from time to time we would smoke a good joint but it was all in good fun for us. No heavy drugs and no daily drinking. We were just out to have a good time and enjoy some of our youth. My younger sister, the one that was with me the day I was shot, had become one of my closest friends. We had not been as close growing up but ever since she spent that dreadful night with me we appeared to be joined at the hip. She was 15 and still living at home going to school like most kids her age. The only difference about her was, just like me and my first marriage she had become involved in a relationship with a guy that I knew from the get go was bad news. I was not the only one who felt that way. After she had been seeing him for a while mom figured out what he was all about and she didn't want my sister to have anything to do with him. But that went over just about as well as mom telling me I couldn't marry Lisa's dad. For my sister's privacy we'll just call him "S". He was 17 or 18 I'm not exactly sure. He was however the same drinking, drugging and abusive type of guy that Lisa's dad had been. I could see it in his eyes and I could see certain behaviors in him that were so similar to what I had lived with before that I was always waiting for all hell to break loose when I was around him. But she claimed to be in love with him and far be it from me to stand in the way of love. I hated it when it was done to me and I wasn't going to do it to her. I just tried to make sure when we were all together that she was safe and happy.


She was my best friend and if "S" made her happy I would be happy for her. I knew what if felt like to love someone and have the whole world working against you. When mom told her she didn't want her to see him anymore I would just let her come to my house and spend the night with me and they would meet at my place. There was this silent code of trust and loyalty between her and I that could not be broken. I remember one night in particular. The four of us had planned to just hang out at the apartment and play cards. Tony had come over right after work so we could have dinner together before my sister and "S" came over. Mom would probably bring her over and pick up Lisa around 7 pm and God be willing "S" would not show up until after my mom had left. By 8pm that evening we were sitting around the table having a few beers and we probably had a joint or two to smoke also. We seemed to be having a good time when all of a sudden "S" got really mad at my sister about something. He started yelling and getting pushy and before long everyone was involved in this argument. I told him I wanted him to leave or I was going to call the law. Things kept getting worse and worse until Tony finally convinced him I really was going to call the law if he didn't leave. It wasn't long before I did call the cops because I really was afraid someone was going to get hurt. And even though "S" had gone outside I knew he had not left the property. He kept picking up small rocks and throwing them at my windows to let me know he was still there. It was getting to a point where I was thinking he was more angry with me now than with her because I wouldn't let him back in to see her. The county sheriff showed up about 15 minutes later, came to the door and asked what the problem was. We explained the situation to him but told him we felt like "S" had finally gone home and everything should be okay. They sat in the yard for 5 minutes or so and then left to go take care of some other domestic abuse call. Abusing your spouse seemed to be what most men did to their wives on the weekends. Because it happened so often to such a variety of people I think the people who lived there began to turn a deaf ear when it came to mental and physical abuse. It was one of the household secrets that until someone was killed it was never mentioned. Besides, what were you to do? Counseling? Never heard of it. Go to a shelter? Never heard of it. Tell someone? Who? Most of the men were doing it and most of the women were taking it. For some weird reason it was the norm in that county. People would drink, do drugs, fight and get over it in the morning. But years and years of this type of torture can take a toll on you. It can change the very essence of who you are inside and out.

Anyway, there we sat, the three of us taking a moment try to figure out what had just happened and why. Then I heard it. A loud, really loud knock at the front door. You guess it. It was "S". Banging on the door almost breaking the glass INSISTING that I let him see my sister or he was going to break in and get her anyway. My front door was wood on the bottom half but one solid sheet of glass on the top half so it was easy to see him standing there yelling at us. She said to me "It's okay, just let me talk to him. I'll calm him down and then he will be okay and he'll go home." Not only had I heard these famous last words of a fool before, but I had said them myself on more than one occasion. I finally agreed to let her go talk to him through the glass of the front door and we headed down the stairs to the front door together. I'll never forget the look he had on his face as he stood on the other side of that door. His eyes glassed over as if possessed by Satan and evil, just pure evil all over his face. I turned to her and told her "oh my God sis, this is the same look Lisa's dad had on his face the night he shot me." I can't let you go out there. This young man is capable of killing someone and trust me he would feel no remorse in doing so. I can see it in his eyes. Trust me on this one. Please don't go out there with him, please don't. He just continued screaming and banging on the glass of the front door until she finally opened it and walked outside. Tony and I could see he was starting to push her and he wouldn't quit yelling at her. After she had fallen a couple of times and I knew he had hit her Tony and I went out to get her. It seemed as if we were playing a game of tug of war with him. I was pulling her towards the house and "S" was doing just the opposite. Tony in the meantime was trying to talk him into letting her go, going home and dealing with it tomorrow. "S" let her go for one moment and we girls ran back into my apartment. Soon after Tony came in saying that "S" had agreed to go home and calm down but he wanted to see my sister the following day at my house. We were grateful for the temporary reprieve but none of us were looking forward to tomorrow. I knew exactly what would happen tomorrow. No question in my mind about it. He would come over, apologize, maybe even shed a tear of remorse just to get her to let him back in her life and then it wouldn't be long before it would happen all over again. Now I want you to take a minute and bookmark this blog because later on I am going to prove to you that I was right when I made the prediction that "S" had the capability to "MURDER" someone and feel no remorse. But there are many other things to share with you before we get to that time in my life. The next major event in my life would happen that winter. Somehow, someway at 16 my sister had managed to convince my mom to let her and "S" get married. I'll never understand why mom allowed this to take place. She had just watched me go through this exact same scenario a few years prior and she saw first hand the outcome of that. This marriage was not going to be any different. But like me, there was no talking her out of it. My sister and "S" were married and set up housekeeping not far from where Tony and I were living.

The following Mothers Day I would receive a dreadful message from my mother. Tony and I had no phone so when someone needed us they would call his mom and she would come give us the message to return the call. There was a knock on the door that Sunday evening. It was his mother with a message for me that I needed to call my mom as soon as I could get to a phone. Not wanting his family to hear what she wanted to tell me I elected to get in the car and go to the nearest pay phone to call her. The phone rang once, then twice and then for a third time. Pick up the phone mom! Pick it up! What's wrong? Please pick up the phone! On the fourth or fifth ring I heard my moms voice softly and tearfully say "hello".

"Mom! What's wrong? I got the message that you called and you needed to talk to me right away!"

She told me she had terrible news and the first thing that ran through my mind was something had happened to my dad. She told me it was about her younger sister, Linda. She was 33 years old and a single mom to a 6 year old boy and was living in the Raleigh Durham area of North Carolina. She told me that her sister had been in a small coffee shop in the wee hours of the morning just before leaving to get home to see grandma for mothers day. There had been a man and a woman there that she knew and she had spoken to them briefly before moving to a table alone to finish her coffee. It was raining outside and her car was parked almost directly in front of the door to the coffee shop. The front of the coffee shop was made of glass but due to the rain you could barely see her car parked there. The police had told mom that when my aunt had finished her coffee it appeared that she had gone out to her car to head home. But just as she put her foot on the gas and turned the ignition on someone in the backseat of her car sat up, put a gun to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. The police say the person must have run away immediately after the shooting her but it wasn't until the sound of her car racing in its parking place did anyone go out to see what was going on. Is she ok mom? Are you there with her? Silence.........DEAD SILENCE.........It was one of those times in my life when I could hear the teardops hitting the floor. Oh my God mom. Don't tell me she is dead! She was my favorite relative. I loved her so much. Our middle names were the same. Why is she dead? I didn't die and I was shot. Why is she dead? And what about her little boy who had no father. A million questions ran through my head at that moment but all I could hear were those dreaded teardrops hitting the floor.

"Mom.....what do you want me to do?"

"Nothing she said. Call me again tomorrow and I will give you more information about what we are going to do."

This was Mothers Day. How could anyone murder a single mother of a young boy, the daughter of a wonderful mother and the sister to six other siblings ON MOTHERS DAY!!! As we hung up the phone I just stood there. Paralyzed with fear. There had been someone waiting for her in the back of her car. Just laying there waiting for her. Lord knows I will forever get in my car and look in the backseat before I get in. What is happening to this crazy world? My aunt Linda was a good person. Why do all these bad things keep happening to good people. What in the world had we done to deserve this?

In June Tony and I married as planned. I didn't love him the way I loved Lisa's dad but I was okay with it. We got along good, mom liked him and she thought it was time I found someone to be a father figure for Lisa. But things seemed to change for us the minute we said our "I DO's". Tony and I made the best of friends but we were terrible when it came to being married to each other. I had become bitter and feisty and not willing to put up with a whole lot of crap and he was used to being around married women who were quiet and submissive. The biggest example of this was his mother. Tony was a mama's boy and it proved to be unfortunate that the house we found to rent after we were married was directly across the street from her. It wasn't long after we were married that we too began fighting like cats and dogs just like everyone else we knew, but this time I wasn't willing to take anymore than I was able to dish out myself. So when we would fight, it would be push for push and punch for punch. It didn't take but a month or two of this and I found myself sinking into a state of depression that I had no clue how to get out of. I didn't even know there was such a thing as depression at the time I just knew that I was miserable. So on the weekends of course we would start out drinking a few beers smoking a joint or two and having a good time but somehow it would always turn into some sort of boxing match between us. My sister and "S" were usually at the house playing cards with us Friday and Saturday nights and you would think that the guys had it all preplanned."S" would get mad at my sister on Friday nights and attempt to beat her to a pulp and then Tony would take a turn with me on Saturday nights or vice verse. Because getting the crap beat out of me wasn't new to me, the actual physical pain of it all was almost non existent. This behavior went on for months. My life became so miserable that I got to a point during the week that I would meet with a girlfriend of mine that lived just a few blocks up the road and we would hang out and drink a few beers together during the day. Lisa was in kindergarden so I wasn't afraid of her seeing what I was doing to myself on a daily basis.

My friends' marriage was no different than mine so we would clean our houses first thing in the morning and would spend the rest of the day drinking beer and "taking prescription medications". Yes I know prescription or otherwise drugs are drugs no matter where you get them from. We would start our days with diet pills, a medical form of SPEED and we would clean and prepare dinner for that particular evening. Once we were finished with that we would start with the beer and the pain killers and depression medications such as valium or something similar. We had the process of getting these meds from different doctors down to a science. And the trick was to never let one doctor know what the other was prescribing. If you were as good at it as we were you could get prescription drugs from each of them once a week or more. As the afternoons would roll around we would have everything taken care of for that evening and the pill popping would start. By dinner time we were as mellow as a couple of lazy fat cats. Nothing going to rattle us and even if someone tried to it would do them no good. This will be another one of those times in my life when I should have died on more than one occasion but only God knows why I didn't. I do remember vaguely an afternoon when I had just had enough of what life was dishing out and she had too. We started eating the pills we had like candy. At that time I could have cared less if I lived or died. Life was stinking and I was sick of it. Everyday of my life for the past 4 years had been filled with nothing more than drinking, drugs and getting the crap beat out of me. I had been chased down with cars. Punched, smacked, pushed, knocked down, drug around, you name it and it had happened. One day Tony was so mad he had me by the hair and was slamming my head down on the hood of the car over and over again. Everything in a kitchen had been thrown at me besides the stove and refrigerator. If they could pick it up and swing it, odds were good that you were going to be hit with it. So I made the decision to take every pill in my possession and drink as many beers as I had money to buy. Needless to say I couldn't even do that right. Next thing I knew, if I remember correctly, I was in the hospital having my stomach pumped. It is a sad day when you feel like life has beat you up so bad that you just want out but that was exactly what I wanted, OUT!

Now, as this was going on at my house the same things were going on at my sisters house. What was it with these guys. It got to a point where every weekend and sometimes during the week you would find yourself fighting for your life. One day my sister came to me and told me she had a plan. A way to get away from all the abuse at least temporarily. She was going to join the Army. Oh no.....you have got to be kidding! You can't leave me here like this! I can't live without you. Have you lost your blooming mind? But there was no talking her out of it. Within days she had made it to Richmond to join the Army. I knew I wouldn't be able to live like this any longer especially if I didn't have her there with me. Now what was I going to do. Whew.............looks like I will be leaving here again too, filing for divorce and moving back to Virginia ONE MORE TIME!

If you feel like you are in an abusive relationship, you probably are. And mental abuse is just as harmful as physical abuse. Get help early! Call someone or go somewhere before it is too late. Another lesson better left unlearned

Before you get in your car look inside, in the back seat and be sure to notice who is close by. It could save your life! Yet another lesson better left unlearned

The first 4 of a long nine months

The day I found out I was pregnant I knew it would be a changing day in my life. I had never been around anyone that was pregnant before. I was only 4 yrs old when my mom was pregnant with my little sister and I was too busy playing in my own world to even notice or care. One day there were four of us in my family and the next day there were 5. That's about all I remember about it. Oh yes, I remember the day mom came home with her. An "ugly" little thing I thought. Lots of hair sticking up in every direction. Wasn't mom going to make her brush that crazy stuff. And kind of pink in color too. Didn't matter to me. It was the first week of August and all I could think about was only having about four weeks of summer left and I had a lot of playing to get done. So out the door it was for me. "See you guys on Sunday" I thought. "I'm outta here".

Mom brought me home from the Drs. office, kissed me, said goodbye and off she drove. I couldn't wait for my hubby to get home so I could tell him this wonderful news. I just knew he would be thrilled. I was right! He hugged me and put his hand on my tummy and we just stood there in a moment of "Awe". I was so excited and it appeared he was too. And even though my mom felt the way she did about "him" the fact was, she was going to be a grandma. This news didn't seem to impress her much in the beginning but she did seem to drop by a little more often during her lunch hours from work to check on me. Maybe the idea was going to grow on her. Needless to say this pregnancy was going to be a real "eye opener" for me. I had morning sickness for the first three months. Lord, if this is what being pregnant is like I'm not finding it very pleasurable. Our money was running short because construction was slow and we were finding it harder and harder to be able to pay the rent. Shortly after the first of the year we were forced to go live with his parents. We certainly weren't welcome at mine. By this time my mother had remarried and her new hubby wasn't fond of mine either. "Who cares" I thought. They didn't have to love him or even like him for that matter. I did and that was all that really mattered to me.

We packed our few belongings and moved in with his parents. His younger sister was still living at home and within a week of us moving in she informed us that she was pregnant too. Boy oh boy! talk about a house full of hormones! A menopausal mother-in-law, two pregnant "teenagers" and two males who had only two things on their minds, "beer and naked women". His mother did some part time private nursing, I didn't work outside the home and neither did his sister. She never did confess who the father of her baby was so she had no financial help from him at the time either. I would dare say that between the 5 of us and the lack of work the way it was for the men folk we probably had the income of one person working a full time job. It was at this time that I had my first experience with pinto beans and mashed potatoes made with potatoes and water mashed together. Oh it was awful! I thought I was going to starve to death. I do remember once or twice my father-in-law bringing home a squirrel or two to fry up for dinner. HOLY COW I thought. Who in the world eats varmints you find in the trees of your front yard? What happened to COWS and PIGS? Isn't that what normal people eat? When did we start eating wildlife for supper? There was one thing for sure. I didn't have to worry about gaining too much weight with this pregnancy. The days were long and the nights were longer and all I had on my mind was praying that my baby would be born healthy.

In late February my father's mother passed away and his father was in a state of despair. Dad decided to move in with him for an undetermined amount of time. He offered his home in Virginia to us while he was living with his dad. He contacted a friend of his that had a construction company and talked him into giving my husband a job. Maybe this will be the break we needed. Oh well, that dream didn't last long. It only took about a week for him to make friends with one of the guys at work. He too had recently married a girl who would soon become my only friend in the world. We spent our days watching out for each other since our husbands spent all their spare time partying. For the most part we never knew where they were much less when they might be home. Sometimes they were gone for 5 or 6 hours, other times it could be 5 or 6 days. You never knew. You would just sit and wait. And wait and wait and wait. God be willing he will have sobered up by the time he would return or you knew what was going to happen.

I don't know what I ever did to make it happen. The abuse that is. It wasn't as if I had done anything wrong. I had no transportation and only one friend in the world. It wasn't like I could go anywhere or do anything. About once a week my dad would stop in on his way home from work. He worked the night shift for the railroad which made it possible for him to stop and check on me after my husband had left to go to work. There were many Sunday and Monday mornings that I prayed he would not stop. It was getting harder and harder to explain away the bruises. And the further along I got in my pregnancy the angrier my dad would become when he would find me with bruises all over me. There is one day in particular that I will never forget. My husband didn't go into work because he was still hung over from the night before. Dad stopped by and even though it appeared as if I had run face first into a train he knew that wasn't the case. He got fired up mad and the two of them started arguing. They got louder and louder and I became more and more afraid of what the outcome was going to be. "Oh dad" I thought. "Just leave". You are just going make this harder for me when you leave. I talked him into leaving and they argued all the way out to his car. Dad opened the door and got in leaving the door open so they could continue to yell at each other. Then I saw dad reach under the seat of his car and I knew BIG trouble was coming. I knew dad had his gun under his front seat, he never drove without it. Next thing I knew I was standing between them. Four months pregnant and here I am standing between my father and my husband with my dad pointing a gun at him.

"DAD" I cried. "PLEASE DON'T. Please leave, just leave. I don't want him dead and you in prison. Please dad, for me, just go. I'll call you tomorrow and let you know that I'm okay." Standing between two men when one has a gun is a very dangerous place to be! Another lesson better left unlearned.