Knowing how to fight

I just wrote a very emotional scene that actually will come near the end of “Dream Reunion”.  I pretty much know the ending, and how it’s going to work.  I feel for Sara – she isn’t going to like this at all.  But there’s a lesson she needs to learn, whether she likes it or not.

The scene I wrote today leads up to that ending.  It’s Sara and Brian’s first “real” fight.  And because they’ve never had a no-holds-barred fight like this before, neither of them know how to deal with it.  It gets out of hand almost immediately…

I’ve never heard this from him before.  What’s going on with him?  After all this time – almost twelve years – and everything we’ve been through, he doesn’t trust my judgment anymore?  Where does he get off thinking that?  How dare he?  “Charity?”  I feel my stomach twist as I hear how ugly my tone is.  I keep going.  “I thought you knew better than that.  We’ve talked about it often enough.  You know I have to do something about the dreams.  You’ve always known it.”  Is he tired of it?  I offered him the chance to back out the morning of our wedding.  That’s on the tip of my tongue, but I catch myself before it slips out.

“Yes,” he says.  He’s trying to calm down; I can see it in his eyes.  But he’s failing.  “You’re going to take all our savings, aren’t you?  You’re going to take it all, the money we were going to use to replace the Beetle, and finally for God’s sake take the kids to Disney World, and whatever’s left over goes towards the college fund.  Or did you just forget all that?  Your real family is more important than someone you haven’t talked to in ten years who got himself in trouble.”

I feel numb for a moment at those words.  I have to hang onto the bed to support myself.  But then feeling returns – a painful, scorching fire starting in the back of my head and running through my whole body.  “God damn you!”  I’ve never cursed at him.  Never even thought about it.  “How can you stand there after everything – after I almost fucking died for you a few months ago – and say that?”  Somewhere in a far corner of my mind, I hear myself protesting, begging myself to stop.  To remember that he almost died for me, too.  And that he’s done more for me than any wife could ever in a million years hope for a husband to do.

But the pounding in my head drowns that voice out.  Another voice – much louder – makes itself heard.  It doesn’t sound like my own voice…

Not nice at all.  I hate putting them through this, but it’s where they have to go at that point in the story.

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