He also had swords, kept with the gun on a homemade rack hanging from the wall, well out of our five year old daughter’s reach. One night, in pain, he went to the hospital, had a cortisone shot, and came home, and then started drinking. This drug reacted with the alcohol to cause a bizarre reaction as he got drunk. Early in our relationship, he’d told me of his background as a Navy SEAL, in combat missions in places like Honduras and Panama during the early eighties. He began to have what can only be called a flashback, though how he managed to fake it, I don’t know. I found out years later, or rather accepted years later, that it was all a big lie.

He pointed that loaded rifle at me so I ducked behind a heavy piece of wood furniture, the bar. Aiming at me through the wood, he said, “You can’t hide from me.” I shook so hard my teeth chattered and my heart raced out of control. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I stared down the barrel of that gun and froze, body and mind. He only looked at me, saying nothing more, for a few minutes before he finally ordered me to call Frank, a friend of ours. Frank worked in Public Works, actually he ran it. He came over and he gun was put away. After checking on our daughter, sleeping soundly, I stayed in the bedroom.

The first one awake the next morning, I stayed in the kitchen/living room, drinking coffee while the entire thing rolled through my head over and over like a bad film loop. I started shaking again wondering how bizarre a mood he would be in when he did wake up. He called out to me and I went to the bedroom doorway, crossing my arms over my chest, protecting myself it seems. He held his arms out and, unable to resist that silent plea, I went to him and believed the profound apologies he poured out. I told him how much he scared me, how terrified I had been, and he apologized even more, swearing nothing like that would ever happen again. I believed him. Two uneventful years later, we got married and life was as I wanted it, or so I thought.

But I’d believed him and fooled myself that things would only get better, but that was only the beginning of a nightmare. It went from good to bad to hell over the next ten years, complacence is shattered and the fire rages out of control in article three, The Inferno.