Phil came in from work about 5:10 pm, showered and changed into casual clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed and drank a little Scotch. We don’t talk about our spouses much, but it’s obvious that she has a rules like “Don’t kiss me when you’ve just had a Scotch.” So he carries gum. I could give a rat’s ass about such stuff. So when I went to kiss him, he held back, said, “I’m going to taste like scotch…” and I said, “I don’t care” and grabbed him. That got quite a response. *cough* It was so great to feel him relax into the kiss and understand that I am different and accept him as he is. It took us quite a few minutes to stop kissing. Mmmmm…
I called my mother while he went outside to call his dad for his birthday. I think I am going to get away with this trip without her knowing!
We got ready to go out and I was putting on my shoes. He leaned against the wall by the TV as I sat on the couch, and told me about his plans for the weekend:
Thursday night – drive home to the beach to get his family
Friday – drive to our old hometown, birthday dinner with his parents and lots of drinks.
Saturday – Oktoberfest. Lots of beer.
Monday – drive to NYC, dinner in Little Italy and go to the football game. More beer.
He said his partying with his family drives his wife crazy. She calls them “a bunch of drunks.” She is planning to go off to look at foliage while they do Oktoberfest. (I have to say I had the same reaction, and that I so could not be around when drinking is all that is going on. Another lesson for me that I cannot be part of his “normal life”). But I kept that to myself.
He said they’re not drunks. He has been around drunks and that is different. He told me about his aunt. And then about his father. The abuse. Shoving his mother out in the snow, throwing her shoes after her but not her coat. She had to walk half way to the next town before someone picked her up and brought her home. His father hitting his aunt until his uncle came with a loaded shotgun and put it in his face and said, “Touch her again and I will shoot you.” I rubbed his arm and listened intently. Yelling. Beatings. His brother and his dad beating each other. Phil intervening. Getting away to the military at the first chance. Never spending the night at home again. Too many ghosts. Suddenly his moodiness as a teenager made much more sense to me. I marvel that he is as stable and healthy as he is. I asked him if he ever talked to anyone about it and he said no, what could they do. I told him people had come to my dad and he had made a difference, sometimes. He said he had no way of knowing that. I asked him if he ever beat his wife or his children, since that is often the pattern, and he said never, that he walks away, goes off to the gym when he gets angry. He shooed us out of room to run errands. I felt awful for this sweet man whose father beat him, mother didn’t protect him and wife is mean to him. I rubbed on his back as we walked to the car, and thanked him for telling me now.
We stopped at the base convenience store to get liquor for his parents. It is very cheap there. He chatted with the clerk and I caught the tail end of her telling him about a serious medical condition and him telling her a funny story to cheer her up. I asked if he knew her and he said he’d never seen her before. I thought back over our time together and realized that he had charmed everyone we ran into. People have a way of trusting him, talking to him and he puts them at ease. I mentioned it and he said he thought we were the same. Probably so.
He did the whole “Southern gentleman” thing of opening car doors for me, so he would escort me to the passenger side of the car, open the door and I would grab him and kiss him! He would blush and start to walk away, then come back and kiss me again, pressing me against the side of the car so I could feel my effect on him. Heh. As we were leaving the store, he was in a hurry to get somewhere, so when he came around the car to open the door, and I said, “You know what is going to happen if you come over here” (it would cause a delay). He smiled, winked and said, “Why do you think I come over here?”