Taking Faith (7 page)

Chapter 6

The ride home was slow, believe it or not. There was a tractor in the road
making a short ride a long one
. A
tractor.
Amy sighed and pressed her head to the window.
Roger
glanced over at her and seemed for the first time to see that she was once again sullen. "Hey," he said, his voice smooth and deep. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," she sighed.

He sighed, too. "Amy…I thought we were making some progress."

"Are you letting me go?" she asked with her face still pressed to the cold glass.

He paused so long she wondered if he was actually contemplating it.
"I can't."

"Then we're not making progress."

He gripped the steering wheel tighter, Amy could hear the leather twisting under his fingers
, and his smooth face was once again lined with concern and anger.

Once the truck stopped at his house, she was out and making her way inside. It was pretty chilly at night there and the first thing he did after bringing everything inside was start a fire in the fireplace.

The bags stayed right there on the table. She wasn't about to put anything up. In her mind, it was back to square one. Was Roger only pulling the nice guy act so he could trick her into doing what he wanted and fool the community into thinking that he had her under control?

If that was the case, then why not go
on
and beat her?

He went straight into the kitchen and started banging things around. She inched herself into one of the wooden table chairs, lifting one leg to press to her chest and tried not to flinch. She knew he was angry and she knew why. He thought th
ey
could at least cohabitate for a while in peace, but the scene today
had shaken Amy. She couldn't do this. She couldn't just have kids and live here forever.

He was still a monster and she needed to remember that.

She heard the front knob jingle. She looked over at
it
and hadn't thought anything of
warn
ing Roger until it was too late. Suddenly someone burst through the door and she knew what a grave mistake had been made. She was sitting at the table, Roger was banging around in the kitchen, she assumed making something to eat for dinner, and his father was at the door.

"What
in
the hell is going on here?" he roared and came at Amy. She scrambled from her chair and backed into the wall. Roger emerged from the kitchen and
bolted
across the room
for him. He didn't reach him before his father reached her though.

His g
rip was full of hate as he grabb
ed her arm and then let his palm
shock her cheek with a slap.
She smelled alcohol and knew why the situation had escalated so quickly.
When Roger gripped his arm to stop another hit, she was slammed into the wall in the struggle. The back of he
r head hit so hard she saw spots
, but didn't pass out. No, she saw everything.

Every horrible detail in vivid color.

She was sprawled
behind the table against the wall and could see them struggling on the other side through the table legs. It was like a bad movie seeing their shifty and uncoordinated movements. But one thing was for sure, Roger had no intentions of hitting his father back or defending himself. He let his father kick him in the stomach repeatedly as he yelled things over and over to him. Finally he turned back her way. She heard him say, "It's time your woman learned her place, even if I have to be the one to teach her."

Roger grabbed his leg to trip him and crawled to hold him down. Roger looked at her with blazing eyes and yelled, "Amy, go lock yourself in the bedroom."

She shook her head. It was the first time Amy was defiant
for
him instead of against him. If she left, his father could kill him for all she knew! She wouldn't leave him after he had saved her from him.

He growled, clearly frustrated as he struggled with his father. "Go, Amy."
His father gripped him by the throat and started to strangle him. "Father, you're drunk, stop!" he wheezed.
"Dad?"
When his father wouldn't stop, Roger began to
try to pry his hands away, but he wasn't letting go. His father
rolled over to be over him and
grunted and strained as if to squeeze the life out of Roger forever.

Amy just reacted.

She scrambled up from the floor and ran to him
with purpose
. She searched for something - anything - to use on him. A vase on the fireplace mantel looked like the best bet so she grabbed it. In a move so bold and risky that Amy had never pulled anything l
ike it before, she let the blue
porcelain vase fall from her hands to Roger's father's head.

It broke apart against his scalp and his father lay still. Roger pushed his father off onto the carpet and retched and coughed as he got his breath. She knelt down to pat his back, but he was too busy checking on his father. "Dad?"

His father
groaned and moaned into Roger's shirt sleeve. Roger sighed and slumped as he realized his father was all right. "I'm going to go put him back in his truck. Hopefully he'll wake up there and not remember any of this because he's too drunk."

Amy nodded and
watched as Roger picked his father up and carried him out the door that had been left open. She left everything where it was, all a mess and broken, and went to the bedroom. She opened the closet door and sat down in the floor of it. It was beginning to feel like her own little confessional.

She stretched her legs out. They almost touched the other side of the closet, but not quite.
She stared at the opposite blank wall and tried not to break down. There had been enough of that and she had no idea what to expect when Roger returned. She felt a different kind of numb. The kind that was hard to awake from. The kind that made her wonder if she
would
ever be the same again.

She heard the front door close and braced herself. She heard his bare feet pad down the hall and disappear onto the carpeted bedroom. His shadow came into sight and then he was filling the frame of the closet doorway. He watched her for just a second before bending down to sit opposite her in the closet.

"How's the cheek?" he asked and leaned forward a little to see it better.

"He didn't get a very good swing," Amy said nonchalantly. "My head hurts though." She rubbed it with her fingers, feeling the little knot forming. He touched her cheek with his fingers gently, making her still, before sitting back and closing his eyes.

"I'm so sorry. I'm not sure I can ever get you to understand how sorry I am."

Amy wasn't able to help her next words. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," was his gruff response.

"I think you're lying," she countered and pulled her knees in to rise up on them. "Lift your shirt."

"Nah, I'm fine," he said tiredly.

She felt bad and knew he was tired, but so was she. She was also still in her numb mood and wasn't taking no for an answer. "Roger. Lift. Your. Shirt."

He sighed in a way men did to a stubborn woman. She could have grinned, but didn't.
He lifted his shirt. As suspected, his midsection was already red and
beginning to swell in spots. She leaned in close to inspect an
d smelled his cologne. It was a scent
she'd never smelled before she met him.

She had known a girl who used to get beaten when she was in grade school. The girl told her how her father never hit her in the face because he didn't want people to see her bruises. He always hit her under her clothes. Roger's stomach had plenty of scars on it and she knew that bastard of a man that he called a father had been doing what he'd done to Roger in the dining room for many years before this. She shook her head and touched one of his ribs to see if it might be broken. She couldn't tell, but he still winced and grabbed her hand.

"It's fine, Amy. I've dealt with worse."

"I'm sure you have," she said. "He always hit you under your clothes, didn't he?" Roger just looked at her. "But why? I'm sure the community doesn't care if the people b
eat their kids here or not.
"

Again no answer so she just sat back against the wall and sighed. She closed her eyes for just a moment before he spoke. "I've never fought back before." He shook his head slowly. "
I've always been told that honoring your mother and father was first and foremost."

Amy stiffened. She had never been so grateful for the wonderful parents she had
,
and felt Roger's misery and…shame. How could he feel that way after what his father had done to him? "He tried to choke you," she reasoned.

"Doesn't matter. He's my father."

"He hurt you and it's all right? You're telling me that God would want him to do that to you?"

"Honor thy father and thy mother," he repeated bitterly.

"The B
ible says to honor them, not take all of their bullcrap!" she shrieked. He s
tared stunned at her, t
hen cracked a smile. Before she realized it, they were both laughing.

When they quieted, he took her hand in his
and rested them on his knee intertwined
. "Thank you. I'm not sure I could have… If you hadn't knocked him out I’m not sure what would have happened."

She looked at their skin touching and wondered why she felt no anger toward him
anymore. It was like it all dissipated into nothing once he
went after his father for her, o
nce he did something he'd never done
before
. Once he pushed passed something that had been blocking him for years.

She let her fingers move across the top of his hand. She felt the rough scars and the calluses on his fingers from hard work and dedication. She looked up at his face and saw something there she hadn't felt
herself
in weeks.

Hope.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head to the side to rest in the corner. She felt him move, his hand pulling away, and then her head was lifted. She look
ed up to see him stuffing a big, soft, black
coat under her head. Then he resumed his spot and took her hand in his again. She closed her eyes, accepting his gift with silent thanks.

She slept peacefully that night. Whether it was the
closet, or the company, or the mini-breakthrough they'd had that day she didn't know. But she'd take it nonetheless.

* * *

It was stupid to sleep in that closet, Roger thought, but that closet was allowing him to touch her right now. Her guard was down and he was thankful, but he could also tell that she was struggling with what she'd seen and with what she'd done. H
e knew she was asleep by now so
he let his fingers caress hers lightly just because…he had to.

This girl - this woman - had saved his life whether she knew it or believed it or not. He'd seen his dad angry plenty of times. He'd seen his dad drunk more times
than he could recall, but his mother was always there to pull him off. He'd never been drunk at Roger's house before because he never cared about Roger's house until Amy showed up. Roger would have just let his father kill him, because he couldn't have faced the consequences of the alternative. That's what fighting back would have been; to disobey, to betray them, to spit in the face of everything they'd taught him.

He rubbed his face in the dark.
Everyone he knew, even his friend Alex, was following the rules and lifestyle laid out for them. So why was he having such a hard time with it? He thought maybe he should ask Alex…but that thought made him gulp. Alex had been his friend his whole life, but something like this would be grounds for them to brand him a traitor. They'd kill him and give Amy to someone else. His father would probably be the one to pull the trigger.

His father…God, please let him wake up and not remember, Roger begged.

Please, God, if nothing else, don't let him remember that Amy was the one who did it.

Chapter 7

Th
e kitchen was exactly as she
thought
it would be
. There were
pots on the stove and blue plates on the counter. She peered inside and saw green beans in one and flank steak in the other.

He had been making dinner for them last night.

She sighed and
leaned back on the counter to think. She'd woken before Roger. They had been exactly as she remembered following asleep in the floor of that closet, but he must not have slept at all during the night. When she woke, he was out like someone who needed the sleep. She gently pried her fingers from his so as not to wake him and crept out of the closet.
She started to just leave, but he was so asleep she figured she could move him to the bed and he'd fall right back asleep. He'd been sleeping on the floor every night since she'd been there.