The Wedding That Liberated Me
Freedom can sound like an angry man shutting you out of his life.
He glared at me and my thoughts bubbled and popped. A shiver of fear slithered into my midsection. This face, a face I’d loved for decades, now inspired resignation at best, and debilitating dread most of the time.
I’d grown into a shadow of my former self, squeezing into the quietest, least assertive version of myself I could muster.
“If you go to your son’s wedding, we are done,” he growled.
The wedding would have an open bar, and since he could not be trusted to drink without starting a fight, he was not invited. In any case, I refused to make any more excuses for him, to quake when, after a few drinks, he inevitably lost his boisterous charm and morphed into a cantankerous, bellicose monster.
“I’m going,” I whispered.
“What’s that?” He yelled, spittle hitting my face, his breath sickeningly sweet and smoky from the whiskey.
I cleared my throat, the words sticking to the back of my mouth, “I cannot miss my son’s wedding.”
His eyes, once soft, wide and brown and now small and red-rimmed, narrowed into slits as he regarded me. “I’m going to bed,” he declared. “You figure out where you’re going to sleep, because it sure as hell won’t be with me.”
I stiffened against the relief I felt at his words, lest he notice and find another way to hurt me. “Why?” I cried. “Why are you the injured party when your drinking…”
“I can stop any time I want,” he bellowed, the smell of the salmon and dill he’d eaten for dinner washing over me. “Do you hear me?” He demanded. “I can stop drinking any time.”
He stumbled toward the stairs, grabbing the banister just in time.
I watched, salty tears running down my cheeks as he slowly ascended.
When he slammed the master bedroom door shut with more force than necessary, our son poked his head of his bedroom. “Is he gone?” He mouthed.
I nodded.
Silently, my son came and stood next to me, letting the weight of his presence settle me and we listened to stomps as my husband got ready for bed.