Writers Tag- The War Between Bonnie & Billy

The War Between Bonnie & Billy

“Do I love him or do I hate him?” she asks herself everyday as her feet hit the floor.

Bonnie is alone in the dining room as the sun breaks through the window. She is sitting at the kitchen table staring into her almost empty cup of coffee wondering if life has to continue the way it has been for over twenty years. Her kids are grown finally and have families of their own. She wonders why should she continue to stay.

The silence in the house is deafening, as she looks around at all the work she put into making the home a wonderful place for her children and a clean place for her husband. The shit she has tolerated all these years. Years before tears would have fallen from her eyes, as she would have thought over these things. It is different now. She is detached and numb to what once was there in her heart and in her home.

Billy stumbles down the stairs for his daily shower before he has to head to work. Bonnie doesn’t bother fixing breakfast anymore and Billy doesn’t bother asking. It is as if she isn’t even sitting in the chair he passes by. They speak no words.

Her cup is empty now and as she refills her coffee he heads out the door. As he closes the door she walks by and latches the lock. She stands there watching him get into the black Ford pickup truck he’s had for over ten years. That would be obvious to a stranger from the rust stains and worn black interior. She sips from her steaming cup as he backs out of the driveway. Things have not always been this way. No. It use to be much more chaotic.

Before silence took over the home it was filled with violence. The man loves his drink. The drink made him feel robust in his younger days. He could take on the world like a macho man could when he was drunk. These were things he was taught from his dad.

Bonnie married Billy young to escape an unhappy home. She left the unhappiness in her childhood home only to enter into her own unhappy home. Within a few years it would become a war zone between two married people.

The woman had to be a perfect wife and mother, especially when he drank, and that was every day. His home had to be perfectly clean and his dinner had to be ready when he came home. The four children had to be well behaved or she would be the one to answer for the screw-ups. She didn’t mind doing these things. She loved her house clean, she loved cooking and doing what a wife would do, and she certainly loved her children very much. She did mind however that he felt the need to beat her up when it wasn’t good enough for him. Sometimes he would beat her up simply because he was pissed off. As years passed the reasons the beatings came became more indistinct.

to be continued…