The Daughter in Law (10 page)

DAMIEN

Shit, a year
on the frontline was nothing compared to the shit storm I came home to. If this
weren’t my life the shit would be funny. But it is my life and my wife. I don’t
like one fuck about the situation because, as a fighting man, no one is allowed
to fuck with what’s mine. The fact that the other dogs in this fight are my
mother and one of my sisters
kinda
puts a wrench in my
shit, but still. No one and I mean no one is allowed to fuck with my girl.

Vanessa is a
little scrapper, she wants to come out fists flying and that’s that. Me, I want
this shit to have lasting affects. I’m not the most forgiving fucker on the
planet, and after the shit she told me and the rest my dad filled in, my head
was hot. Plus the fact that she’s pregnant! Hell no.

I can’t say
that I understand what the hell is going on. I was totally blindsided by this
shit. I trusted my mom, I believed her when she said she’d look out for my girl
while I was gone. It was hard enough for me to leave her here in our home in a
new town, away from her family and friends. But for some reason it was
important to me that she was in our home, in my bed while I was gone. Had I
known the shit that was going to go on behind my back I would’ve sent her home
to her mom ‘til I came
back.

The whole
thing has thrown me for a loop, and now instead of the homecoming I’d been
looking forward to, I find myself in the middle of another fucking war. Only
this one had more minefields than the last. It’s fucked when the friendlies are
the ones you have to watch out for. At least in Iraq I knew
who
the fuck the enemy was.

It isn’t easy
having to see my mother through different eyes. Vanessa’s right, in the
beginning I was trying to find a way to work things out so that we could have a
cease fire, and things could go back to normal, or at least the normal that I
was accustomed to. But that was before the hospital visit. I knew half way to
the hospital that something was up. Dad hadn’t said exactly what was going on
on
the phone, but my mind is always working and I started
thinking about the timing. Still, not to be a hard ass and to give this woman
whom I’ve known my whole life as a sane, loving mother, the benefit of the
doubt, I kept my thoughts to myself.

The shit she’d
said to me in that room wasn’t normal. I still have a hard time reconciling the
being that was lying in that bed with the woman I knew. The sad thing is
,
I couldn’t figure out what the fuck had gone wrong. When I
pressed for any kind of explanation for her behavior all I got was more venom
spewed at a girl that, as far as I can tell, hadn’t done anything wrong other
than marry her son.

Up to that
point I was still holding out hope. I had just learned about the baby and my
only thoughts were for the two of them, if or when I had to leave again. My
life wasn’t really my own, since Uncle Sam owns my ass for the next few years
at least. I thought I could smooth over whatever the hell had gone south, but
from that little convo I knew that shit was shot. If Vanessa knew the half of
what mom had said I’m pretty sure I’d have been bailing her ass out of jail for
Xmas. I still didn’t like the fact that she’d gotten into a physical
altercation with Barbara. I’d had to talk her out of pressing charges and the
only way to do that was to show part of my hand, which was to threaten to throw
her out the family home, which was mine by rights. I didn’t want anyone knowing
what my plans were, not yet. Not until I had all my ducks in a row.

I wouldn’t say
that I hated mom for the shit she’d done but I would say she was no longer one
of my favorite people in the world. I don’t think I’d ever understand what the
fuck she’s on but I knew she wouldn’t stop. I’m not even sure this was about
me, I mean I seem to be the catalyst, but it seemed more like some sort of
competition she had going on with my wife; at least in her head. I’ve never
heard of anything like what I was faced with, don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard a
few rumblings here and there over the years about a pain in the ass mother in
law. Somehow this seemed a little more extreme than that.

I’m supposed
to be enjoying this pregnancy and looking forward to my child’s birth. Instead
I have to consort with lawyers and shit to find out what our position is
concerning grandparents rights. Yes, that’s one of the things she threw at me
from her hospital bed. I wanted to choke the shit out of her for that one.
Instead I stood there wondering if she was even aware of what she was saying.

It seems she
thought that she and I were in this together. Somehow she’d got it into her
head that she had to save me from my wife whom she now sees as public enemy
number one. I couldn’t tell my pregnant wife any of this shit I’m just not made
that way. And no matter what she says I’m not letting her anywhere near this
shit. All I can hope for is that at the end of the day after I’ve done what
I’ve set out to do, that it will be enough. Vanessa, as bad as she thinks she
is, has no idea what she’s dealing with. I didn’t either until I saw that shit
up close and personal.

The road
Vanessa wants to take will just lead to more heartache for her, which is
something that I will avoid at all cause. Tommy can’t handle this shit, unless
she shoots to kill, and she doesn’t have the ammunition needed to win this war.
I do, and when I aim I don’t intend to miss. So for now, the guards will be my
eyes and ears when I couldn’t be there. In the end I’ll give her what she wants
and hope to fuck it’s enough. But knowing her hardheaded ass she’ll still want
to have her say.

She is cute
though with her threats, and half the time I have to fight not to laugh when
she gets all riled up, because I don’t fancy dodging any more of her damn tuna
cans. She’s a little volatile too these days, which I put down to hormones,
because the girl who met me at the altar was a sweet fun loving beauty, who’d
never said a bad word about anyone as far as I could tell. Now I have to listen
to her ranting and raving about gutting my mother or
haggie
as she’s grown fond of calling her these days.
Like I said, if this wasn’t my life the shit would be funny.

I leafed
through the reports Tony had slipped me earlier in the day when I left the base.
I felt like a C.I.A. operative with all these clandestine meetings and shit but
it was the only way to stay one step ahead of the game. My wife is a loose
canon and my mother is fucking nuts, and I’m playing monkey in the middle.

“
Dami
come eat.”

“I’m coming sweetheart.” Mom had sent me another one of her
passive aggressive bullshit emails. I played along as I have been for the past
couple weeks. ‘No mom I’m not still mad at you but I need some time to work
things out in my head’.

I noticed most of her notes were always a fishing
expedition, asking about Vanessa and if she was showing and shit like that.
Once before I would’ve seen that as a nice, sweet, gesture. Now it makes my
nuts crawl into my gut because I know she was up to some shit. I have the daily
reports to prove it.

Mom wants a
meet but I’m pretty sure Vanessa would have my balls if that happened. That,
plus the fact that I wasn’t too sure I could be alone in the same room with my
own mother without choking her out. I’d stopped trying to reason with her since
Xmas. It was the middle of February and I was running out of plausible excuses
to give her at this point. I just needed a little more time to do what I needed
to, to safeguard my little family, and then she would be out of my hair.

It was by no
means an easy decision to cut all ties with my family. I knew from talks with
dad that if I took the road I was on that that would be the end result. Unless
he and Denise, who seemed to be the only two with any working brain cells left
decided to stand up to mom and her shit. That wasn’t my problem though, she was
his wife and like he’d said, after almost thirty-four years together he
couldn’t just up and start over. It was probably horrible of me as a son, but I
don’t see why not and I’d told him as much. It was a testament to how pissed
she’d made me that I’d even thought such a thing let alone said it out loud.
But after thinking this thing through day in and day out for the last few
months I came to one conclusion. My mother was willing to sacrifice my
happiness to fulfill her own twisted needs, whatever the fuck they were. Fuck
that.

Vanessa is
almost five months along and starting to show. I’ve never been so scared in my
fucking life. We’d decided in the end to forgo the identity thing and just let
pin surprise us on D-day. I’m pretty sure I’ll shit a brick if
he,
turns out to be a she, but I’ll deal. Right now I’m ass
deep in nursery constructing. Vanessa has a list of wants a mile long and I’m
trying to give her everything she wants. She hasn’t been riding my ass about
the
shituation
with mom as she calls it, and had I
not had eyes on her I’d be worried that she was up to something. So far she
seems to be satisfied with the status quo, but with hormones and shit you never
know.

She does seem
a little less tense than she had been, which is what I’d been after all along.
Whether she’d been pregnant or not, I didn’t want that for her. When I put my
ring on her finger I made some pretty serious promises, promises I aim to keep.
It could be because I’d decided to talk things through with her that she was
less stressed. I still haven’t told her what I planned to do, but I got from
some of her rumblings and the asshole jerk comments that she kept lobbing my
way, that
she had shit on her chest that she needed to get
off.

Basically she
needed her man to be a sounding board and to back her. She seemed to need
justification for her feelings, which I assured her straight off that she
didn’t. If I’d thought for one second that she was at fault for any of this I
would’ve been in her ass, but far as I can tell this was a one sided attack.
That hurt most of all, that she’d been doing all the things I would’ve expected
her to do
vis
a
vis
,
respecting my mom, and family and trying to fit in; while they’d tried to
destroy her.

I don’t see how the fuck she could
believe that I loved her and yet would be okay with that shit, but she’s a
female, they think differently or some shit.

I felt some guilt for having
left her here undefended; she didn’t seem to understand that, until I spelt it
out for her. That was one of the reasons why I needed to take care of it now.

When I finally
sat her down and we had a talk, she got where I was coming from. Even though
she was still of a mind that she should be allowed to have a part in what she
calls ‘the destruction of Elizabeth
Bathory
’. I had
to look that shit up because half the time I don’t know
who
the fuck she’s talking about. All I can say is that my woman has a very
prolific imagination and her arsenal of names for mom is limitless.

Now I have a
better understanding of her point, but I still can’t let her get involved. All
I could do was reassure her that I was always in her corner no matter what and
that I would never choose my mother over her, especially when she’s wrong. That
seemed to feed whatever beast was in her for now, and so peace have reigned for
the last little while. I’m not expecting it to last too long though because she
gets antsy very easily these days and any little thing can set her off. Her belief
that my mother or dumb ass sister will come out the woodwork and try some shit
isn’t unfounded, but it’s my job to keep them away from her. All I want her to
do is enjoy the life we’ve made together. I’ve seen enough destruction to last
me a lifetime, I don’t need that shit in my everyday life too. If people knew
the shit that was going on in the world around them they’d hang up all this
petty shit and get their acts together, but I guess that’s too much to hope
for.

“Get out of here Nessa you can’t be
around paint.”

“I just wanna see.”

“You can see later when the paint dries, as it is I’m not
even sure we should stay in the house tonight.” She rolled her eyes and backed
out of the room.

“Your cray-cray is showing again.”

“Whatever, go read a book or something ‘til I’m done here. I
only have that last wall and then I’ll be done for the day. You want to go out
for dinner?”

“Sounds good, where’re we going?”

“I don’t know you pick.” She
blew me a kiss and disappeared.

Thirty minutes
later I was attacking her in the shower. Now I’ve always loved my wife’s body,
let’s face it, it’s what made me make a beeline for her the first time I saw
her at a friend’s party. She was visiting my city for a convention and had been
letting her hair down so to speak, after all the hobnobbing.

I stood across
the room and watched her for ten minutes, just taking her in. She was brown on
black, for those who don’t know that means brown eyes, black hair. And what a
head of hair it was. A wild abundance of curls that seemed too perfect to be
real. Now I know it’s the Mediterranean blood in her that gives her that kick
ass hair, not to mention the all year tan that just brings out everything about
her and makes it all seem ‘more’.

She had an ass
that I could rest my beer on, and the rest of her body was compact. How she
carried that ass and those tits was a scientific mystery, since she barely
topped off at five two in heels. It was when she threw her head back and
laughed from her gut, and my dick jumped to attention, that I said ‘yep, that’s
the one’.

From that
night to this I’ve done everything in my power to keep her with me. I didn’t
pull any punches, I told her flat out how it was
gonna
be. Of course she thought I was drunk off the one beer I’d had, but nothing she
said would sway me. That night we sat in the bar of her hotel until closing.
Then we moved to the lounge, because I didn’t want to let her out of my sight
and I was very impressed when she didn’t invite me up to her room, even though
by then I could tell the attraction was mutual.