You Can't Break Her

Twenty-five| Cafe

October 1996

Patty's husband, Paul, was an uninvolved foster parent. He worked long hours at a plant, and sometimes we drove him to work for six am. I never spoke to him directly; it was a forced parenting situation from my point of view.

He had come home from work an hour ago. Now, he was standing on the other side of the dining room, close to the front door. Patty paced the kitchen. "So, what? You're just leaving?"

I was lying on my stomach before the yelling started. At the sound of a raised voice, I got up, sitting cross-legged. I was facing her with my back to a wall, but I wasn't watching her, I was watching the doorway, his only access point to my location. I didn't move or think or speak, I may have even held my breath the whole time. I was petrified.

"I have to. I can't handle all of this along with your incessant nagging!" Paul screamed.

"It's not just this. Is it?" Crossing her arms, she tapped her foot.

"No, it's not!"

"Who is she, Paul?"

He slammed the door shut a few seconds later, without answering.

She ran out of the kitchen and then I heard her bedroom door shut.

I watched from the picture window in the living room as he entered his car, leaving fast enough for his wheels to spit rocks into the air. Sitting on the couch in a deja vu-type fog, I went over my necessities. He was not one of them. Patty was the cook, so she took priority over him.

I had seen them argue before, but this time it felt different. There was more finality in this engagement. I sensed a change was coming.

Sobbing coming from her room drew my attention. I moved closer to her door. "Are you okay?" I knocked once.

Her door flew open. Exiting her room, she sniffled. She was wiping her handkerchief over her eyes, squeezing her nosy with it.

Following her into the kitchen, I sat upon a barstool at the counter.

"What's wrong?" I asked, expecting her husband to barrel through the door any minute.

Praying that it wouldn't happen was all I could do, but that didn't take away my anxiety. Having seen so many fights turned to spar matches, I couldn't separate my past from my present. The abuse was the only thing I ever saw - it was all I could ever anticipate.

"Nothing is wrong. We are going to the cafe for supper." She grabbed her purse. "Hurry and put on your shoes." She slid hers on while I tied my laces.

We drove a few minutes in silence.

She parked the car in front of the truck stop and cafe, also known as the only restaurant in town.

She took a deep breath, sniffling between words. "Paul is leaving me. He found someone else. He's just pissing all over twenty years of marriage." She took a breath. "That bastard. I know who the other woman is, or I have a pretty good idea, anyway," she continued, slamming her open palms against the steering wheel. "Her name is Sandy. She lives across the street from here," she added, speaking as if I wasn't six years old and unaware of the magnitude of the situation.

"He's not coming back?" I asked, hoping to squelch the anxiety that thought brought me.

Shaking her head, she undid her seatbelt. "No, he's not coming back."

The cafe was a truck stop that had two seating choices, and when we walked in, we sat in a booth on the dining side.

"Here, sit on this side." She motioned to the bench facing the window.

"Do you see his car?" she whispered when she sat down across from me.

I glanced over the row of vehicles. There it was, Patty's husbands' blue sedan, parked crooked in front of the pale grey apartment complex.

"Yes."

"I knew it!" she shouted, returning her eyes to the menu in her hands to avoid the eyes of her neighbours.

"Tell me if you see him leaving," she said, lowering herself a bit in her seat.

The waitress took our orders. We were there for two hours, but there wasn't any movement across the street. Not a single trace of evidence that he was there, except his vehicle.

We did this for a week, but she wouldn't speak to him, and he refused to reach out to her. Patty and Paul seemed well aware of the situation, but it could have been handled better.

I always complained to Lana and my mother that I didn't feel safe with Patty. With her marriage on the rocks, the last thing she was equipped to deal with was a traumatized child.