Friday, March 22, 2013

Chapter 22

One night Gary confronted me holding my diary.  I had written in a diary since I was 12 years old.  But once I got married I had always kept it hidden.  I knew that in order to have found it he would have had to do some digging around in my things.  He had read the whole thing and was livid about it.  What he read was the truth, but not in his eyes.  It was the only way I had an outlet for everything, but I knew as I watched him shred it that night I was not to have that luxury anymore.

It seemed after that night that anything he knew I valued became a threat to him.  I arrived home from a doctor's appointment one day to find my collection of stuffed animals destroyed and in garbage bags!  Most of them I had kept from childhood, never having played with them.  I even had a couple that had been given to me from my dad...but they had been lost to me because I loved them.  I found new hiding places for my music that I loved, I couldn't lose that too.  Another hard lesson learned. 

It was around this time that Gary developed a friendship with a Pastor down in Yarmouth.  Every once in a while he would take a few days and go down for a visit.  I loved it!  To see him drive out of the driveway and know that for 2 or 3 days I would have some peace and freedom, well it was something I encouraged wholeheartedly!

However the results of these trips were not to my liking.  We started getting return visits.

The first was from a couple, Bruce and Anne.  They had come up to Halifax for his work and wanted to take us out for supper.  I'm very shy meeting new people and didn't enjoy myself very much.  The next time they came to the city they came to the house.  All I had to offer them were egg sandwiches.  I felt so humiliated especially after the beautiful meal they had bought us on their previous trip.  Anne told me years later that when they left that night she told Bruce that my "eyes were dazed and dull with no sparkle and that something was wrong and I was going to need them"!

The next visitors nearly sent me into a full blown panic.  Pastor Paul, his wife Cathy and the assistant Pastor and his wife were coming.  I was very apprehensive about this visit.  Gary warned me again and again not to embarrass him, not to dare say anything stupid while they were here.  He even picked out what I should wear.  Pastor's had always made me nervous, now two of them were coming to my house and I knew I wasn't going to be found "good enough" in their eyes.  I was a wreck.

I don't remember a lot about that visit except this very uptight feeling.  I was so relieved when Josiah showed up after school, it gave me a chance to leave the room for a few minutes and try to collect my thoughts.

After this visit Gary's attention was pulled even more towards Yarmouth.  It started to make me uneasy and I started actually trying to persuade him not to go as much.  I was getting very afraid that he was going to want to move and I didn't want to leave Jessie!  What would I do without her?

So I decided the next time Gary went I would go with him to see what all the fuss was about.  I didn't have long to wait.  We went on a weekend because the kids wouldn't miss any school.  Of all the places to stay we ended up at the Pastor house!  I was so tense and uneasy all weekend.  They had four boys at the time and they all took to Josiah right away.  That evening when it was late enough that I could make an excuse to go to bed without embarrassment, I did.

The next morning since the church was right across the street I made an excuse not to go to Sunday School.  I was dreading church, I hated meeting new people and knowing they were judging me.  Gary got baptized that morning and became a member of that church.  The thought terrified me, I knew he was going to want to move.  I hated this Pastor and church, they were ruining my life.

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