Spring, 1986 Kansas City, MO

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon. Demi was about 18 months old, and napping soundly in her room. I was trying to find some space in our bedroom closet for extra storage. I ignored the top of the closet, where Dell kept his revolver. I never saw the need for such a thing and was just thankful he kept it out of Demi’s reach. The floor of the closet was a different story. Surely some of those boxes could be emptied or thrown out. Most were filled with books that I’ve had forever, but one of the boxes was filled with paper, kind of like a filing cabinet. I rummaged through it and discovered that it was our financial records, beginning from when we were married in March ’84.

Curious, I pulled out the tax return that Dell had just finished a month ago. He took care of all the bills, the checkbook, and such. I had never done a tax return before, but the form didn’t seem all that complicated. I had no trouble understanding what was on each line, but I was certainly troubled by what I read there.

My husband’s salary was nearly twice mine.

I sat back on my sneakered heels, staring at the paper as if it were a claim that unicorns were real. It couldn’t be true. We were broke. We got our clothes from the Salvation Army. He only gave me $20 a week to spend at the grocery store. We didn’t go to the movies, we didn’t exchange birthday presents with friends or family, our last Christmas was just one present each, and we certainly didn’t go out as a family on a vacation or really anywhere that wasn’t free.

I let my hand fall in my lap, still holding the tax return. It said we would be receiving a $300 refund. My shoulders dropped, and I tilted my head, thinking about new towels. Fluffy, big bath towels to wrap my little curly-top girl in. And clothes. Demi was growing so fast. How great it would be to get her a couple cute summer dresses. I pushed aside the thought that Dell should have told me about his raise, because I was young and optimistic and more than willing to believe in unicorns.

Smiling, I stood up to go look for Dell. He was coming out of the garage, covered in dirt and grease, just as I got to the kitchen.

“Whatcha got there?” he asked, wiping his hands on an old rag.

“The tax return. Dell, I’m so glad we’re getting a refund! Demi needs some clothes, and can we get some new towels?”

He went still, and I sensed he was upset. His eyes narrowed, and he said warily, “We can think about it.”

This was not the reaction I was expecting. That niggling feeling that he should have told me the truth came back in full force. His shuttered face was watching me in the brightness of that small kitchen. There was no sound except for the light pink-pinks of drizzling rain at the windows, but there could have been a tornado roaring outside and I wouldn’t have heard it. I stood there, struggling to get past the idea that he’d never intended I should ever know how much money was coming in the house. He never lied to me, but he purposely led me to believe that he was making about $15,000 a year just like me. He’d even apologized to me for not being able to take me out for my 21st birthday last month because we were so broke. He had brought home a bottle of whiskey and a pack of Coca-Colas for us to share. I didn’t like it much, but with enough Coke in the glass, it wasn’t bad. I had thanked him for trying to be thoughtful. My fingers curled tightly around the tax return. I had actually thanked him for remembering my birthday with his favorite drink.

Still unmoving, he waited, watching the realization growing in my face. I thought about his beat-up old MG on the side of the house. He drove a silver Toyota minivan, and dropped me off at work every day. That was our car, but the unpainted shell of an MG was his alone. Every weekend, he kept rummaging in junkyards for parts, sure that he could rebuild it. He was a bill collector, sitting on a phone behind a desk all day, not an auto mechanic, but that MG was his baby. In that moment, I was sure all our money was being poured into that old thing, with nothing left to take his wife out for her 21st birthday. With nothing to make sure his wife and child could eat something that didn’t come out of a can. Except for hamburger, even our meat came out of a can. Tuna. Spam. Once, our church pastor had invited us to his home for dinner one Friday night, and I remembered asking his wife if she’d cut the corn fresh from the cob to serve. I had never tasted anything so fresh and delicious since the corn-on-the-cob my mom always made. She looked at me funny and said no, that it just came out of a bag of frozen corn. We never bought frozen foods because canned was cheaper.

I could feel my own eyes narrowing as I looked at Dell, wondering how he could prefer car parts over frozen corn. “When did you start making $30,000 a year?”

“That’s none of your business.” I felt his words like a slap.

“I give you my paycheck every month, and I don’t see hardly any of it being spent on this family. If your money is your business, then my money is my business. Where’s my money going, Dell?”

He snorted and folded his arms across his chest. “Your money is my money. That’s how marriage works, babe. Everything here is mine. Your clothes, that dining room table, that highchair, this whole house and everything in it. Mine.” He gave me that familiar blue wink and grin. “As long as you keep it clean, you’re welcome to stay.”

I was speechless, torn between wanting to wipe that smirk off his face and wanting to stomp out of the room. This was not the man I married. This was not the vulnerable, nobody-understands-me guy who winked at me when I ironed his jeans just the way he liked them. Who ate my bad cooking without complaining, and had no problem leaving the dishes to me.

This man stood there exuding confidence and control as if he’d had it all along. I felt manipulated. Betrayed. And very angry. “Well,” I spluttered, my hands now on my hips and the tax return fluttering to the floor, “well, if I leave, I’m taking my paycheck with me. And for that matter, you’re the one who’ll have to leave, because my name is on the mortgage, and you can’t sell this house without me. So, you are the one who’s welcome to stay, if you can learn to start spending money on your family and not those stupid car parts.”

I had succeeded in wiping the smirk off his face, but I immediately wished it was back. I had never seen a look like that on anyone before, not even my mother at her worst. His face was like marble, a menacing stone gargoyle that only had to take a very slight step toward me to make me stumble and back into the fridge. He stared me down for a moment, then turned purposefully toward the garage.

Frightened, I followed him, unsure of what he was going to do, but very sure that I had to stop him, whatever it was. I stood in the kitchen doorway leading to the garage as he silently reached for something hanging on the wall above the worktable. “Dell, I’m sorry,” I whispered. I cleared my throat and spoke louder. “Dell. Dell, I’m sorry.”

He took the sledgehammer down and cradled it for a minute, looking at me. I backed up.

“Dell, Demi is in the house. Let me just get Demi and we’ll go. Okay?”

He took a step toward me. I took another step back. He stepped, and I stepped, a slow, torturous dance that I knew was not going to end well. I couldn’t read his face – it was completely frozen in that cold stare. I didn’t know who this man was, but I was terrified right down to my bones. I turned and ran across the kitchen, could hear his footsteps pounding behind me, and made it across the house into Demi’s bedroom. I quickly shut the door and leaned my body against it, my eyes running hurriedly over Demi’s room, looking for a way to grab her out of the crib and escape, but there was no time and nowhere to go.

His footsteps stopped on the other side of the door. I could feel the pressure under the wood of his body leaning on the other side of it. My heart was in my throat. I didn’t have the strength to keep him from opening that door. “This is my house,” he growled through the thin wood. The pressure was suddenly gone and I suddenly remembered the gun. What if he was going to get his gun?! The panic tasted like rust in my mouth, and I strained to hear his movements. It sounded like he was in the dining room.

“Don’t believe me?” he called loudly from there. “I’ll prove it.”

The next thing I heard was a loud crack followed by a crash of splintering wood. He had taken the sledgehammer to one of the walls. There was a squeak of metal dragging on wood, as if he had to pull the thing back out of the wall, and the crash repeated. It repeated three more times before he was  back, panting at the door.

“Talk back again, and next time it’ll be you.” Then he walked away.

My body was trembling against that door. I looked at Demi, still asleep on her belly, her little back softly rising up and down with each baby’s breath. What kind of father had I given her? My knees couldn’t support me anymore, and I slid to the floor, keeping my back against the door just in case. My fingernails dug into the hardwood floor, and I took in great gulps of air. My face was burning hot, and my eyes felt heavy and wet. That stupid box. I should have just left that stupid box alone.

I could hear the Toyota fire up. I held my breath. Yes, the tires were crunching in the wet gravel. He was leaving. I glanced around the room again. We were going to leave now, too.