Hunger and Pain

I remember always being hungry during the four years I was with him.

He worked his way up the ladder of verbal abuse from the b word to the c word with the word fat added before each vulgar word.

He never would let me eat a whole lot when I was with him.  I remember he would always skimp on a order at Taco Bell ~ which we seemed to visit a lot in Scotts Valley ~ and I always was wanting at least three tacos instead of two.  I would scrounge around his pantry when he was out on the driveway fixing the bikes searching for something to eat.  I remember eating a lot of sliced apples and cheese but even that was not enough.  I would crave sweets and return to my childhood adventure of eating a spoonful of brown sugar just to ease the craving.  I remember looking out the window a lot making sure he would not catch me eating extra food.

He never ate breakfast or lunch ~ only coffee ~ and expected me to do the same whenever I was with him.

I made up for lost calories at work, thank goodness, or I really would have lost a considerable amount of weight during that time.  My money had not yet run out then, and I would buy a box of donuts for my work colleagues just to be able to enjoy a treat without his watchful eye.

In the early years, we would go out to restaurants a lot ~ and he never complained that I never liked to cook.  But the last year was hell as that was one of the main topics of his yelling ~ and one of the main defenses of his telling me it was perfectly fine for him to be with other women because they cooked.

Our last year was spent living together part-time as he had already bought another house up north and expected me to run the Felton house with a revolving door of housemates.  During that time, he would charge me $20 for each dinner he cooked for me when I visited him at his new country home.  Bizarre as it may seem, I actually paid him the money just so I could eat.  I was no longer the strong person I had been in my teens and twenties ~ the effects of the abuse in my late thirties had stripped me of my identity and my ability to even reason at times ~ to even begin to wonder what all this might look like to the outside world if they even knew.  But they did not know.  It was all my deep dark secret at that time.

I remember his green house.  I remember those kitchen windows.  And a hunger pain that transcended body and soul.