Leftovers: A Novel by Arthur Wooten Read Free Book Online Page B

through the spit and blood.
    She threatened him. “I’ll cut more than your tongue, you bastard!”
    “Bitch!” he slurred.
    “Oh, you think this is being a bitch?” Vivian ran to the fireplace mantel and grabbed a framed picture of the two of them. She spun around and threw it at him just missing his head. It smashed against the wall shattering glass everywhere. “How long? One week? Two weeks? A month?”
    “Five months,” he stated, almost proudly.
    Like a tornado, Vivian went ballistic ripping the room apart. Anything and everything that wasn’t bolted down she started hurling at him: a vase, an ashtray, a book, even a floor lamp.
    “Why?” she demanded as she picked up a glass paperweight from the desk.
    “Why what?”
    She threw the weight, which he tried to dodge but it got him right in the solar plexus. He doubled over trying to catch his breath.
    “Why did you just . . . make love to me?”
    “I thought it was the decent thing to do,” he admitted, sheepishly.
    This sent her over the edge. She started pummeling him with magazines, pillows, a waste paper basket and another lamp.
    Protecting his face from the flying objects Paul shouted out, “I love Eleanor!”
    “You don’t know how to love anybody but yourself!”
    He cowered as she threw more things at him forcing him towards the front door.
    “And Eleanor loves me!”
    Vivian ran into the dining room and picked up a candlestick. “She’s a whore,” she screamed as she threw it at him. It just missed his head, embedding itself into the wall.
    “Vivian?” Paul said as his picked up his suitcase. “This is really unattractive.”
    She looked at the table as he opened the front door. “Leftovers are never pretty!” she screamed as she lifted the casserole.
    Paul flew out of the house just as she heaved the leaden Pyrex dish at him like a shot put. It sailed out of the house and smashed onto the concrete walkway.
    Vivian ran to the front door as Paul made a getaway in his car. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “And the doctor said it’s your fault!”
    •  •  •
     
    Vivian stood in the shower for over half an hour aggressively scrubbing her skin with soap trying to get Paul off of her. She looked at her right hand and examined the reddened knuckles that were beginning to swell. Shaking, she turned off the water and grabbed a towel.
    Drying herself off, she walked into the bedroom. On the floor was Paul’s gift. She picked it up, looked at it for a moment and then surprised herself by caressing it gently. She looked over at the framed picture of Paul on her night table and picked that up too.
    She touched his face. The anger and strength that Vivian had felt was liberating and empowering but terrifying at the same time. As quickly as it surfaced, she tried desperately to push it down, feeling guilty about what she had just done. Vivian may not have needed a professional to help her realize why she so passionately wanted children, but she certainly could have used a therapist to help her deal with the sick and dysfunctional relationship she had, not only with Paul, but with her mother as well. But her generation frowned upon psychoanalysis and the townsfolk of Abbot already had plenty enough to talk about. She didn’t need to add mental illness to the list.
    As Vivian’s rage dissipated, utter sadness crept in and that’s when the floodgates opened up. She gathered Paul’s picture and gift into her arms and collapsed onto the bed sobbing uncontrollably.
    The phone started to ring again but she paid no attention.

FOUR
THANKS FOR GIVING
     
    As quickly as Vivian allowed her protective walls to come tumbling down, she rebuilt new ones that were twice as large and even more impenetrable. It was her survival technique.
    A few weeks after he left, Paul sent Vivian a letter from a lawyer explaining that he wanted the easiest and fastest divorce possible. Hence, he flew down to Juárez, Mexico for a “quickie”. Only one