Taking Faith by Shelly Crane Page B

shifty and uncoordinated movements. But one thing was for sure, Roger had no intentions of hitting his father back or defending himself. He let his father kick him in the stomach repeatedly as he yelled things over and over to him. Finally he turned back her way. She heard him say, "It's time your woman learned her place, even if I have to be the one to teach her."
                  Roger grabbed his leg to trip him and crawled to hold him down. Roger looked at her with blazing eyes and yelled, "Amy, go lock yourself in the bedroom."
                  She shook her head. It was the first time Amy was defiant for him instead of against him. If she left, his father could kill him for all she knew! She wouldn't leave him after he had saved her from him.
                  He growled, clearly frustrated as he struggled with his father. "Go, Amy." His father gripped him by the throat and started to strangle him. "Father, you're drunk, stop!" he wheezed. "Dad?" When his father wouldn't stop, Roger began to try to pry his hands away, but he wasn't letting go. His father rolled over to be over him and grunted and strained as if to squeeze the life out of Roger forever.
                  Amy just reacted.
                  She scrambled up from the floor and ran to him with purpose. She searched for something - anything - to use on him. A vase on the fireplace mantel looked like the best bet so she grabbed it. In a move so bold and risky that Amy had never pulled anything like it before, she let the blue porcelain vase fall from her hands to Roger's father's head.
                  It broke apart against his scalp and his father lay still. Roger pushed his father off onto the carpet and retched and coughed as he got his breath. She knelt down to pat his back, but he was too busy checking on his father. "Dad?"
                  His father groaned and moaned into Roger's shirt sleeve. Roger sighed and slumped as he realized his father was all right. "I'm going to go put him back in his truck. Hopefully he'll wake up there and not remember any of this because he's too drunk."
                  Amy nodded and watched as Roger picked his father up and carried him out the door that had been left open. She left everything where it was, all a mess and broken, and went to the bedroom. She opened the closet door and sat down in the floor of it. It was beginning to feel like her own little confessional.
                  She stretched her legs out. They almost touched the other side of the closet, but not quite. She stared at the opposite blank wall and tried not to break down. There had been enough of that and she had no idea what to expect when Roger returned. She felt a different kind of numb. The kind that was hard to awake from. The kind that made her wonder if she would ever be the same again.
                  She heard the front door close and braced herself. She heard his bare feet pad down the hall and disappear onto the carpeted bedroom. His shadow came into sight and then he was filling the frame of the closet doorway. He watched her for just a second before bending down to sit opposite her in the closet.
                  "How's the cheek?" he asked and leaned forward a little to see it better.
                  "He didn't get a very good swing," Amy said nonchalantly. "My head hurts though." She rubbed it with her fingers, feeling the little knot forming. He touched her cheek with his fingers gently, making her still, before sitting back and closing his eyes.
                  "I'm so sorry. I'm not sure I can ever get you to understand how sorry I am."
                  Amy wasn't able to help her next words. "Are you all right?"
                  "I'm fine," was his gruff response.
                  "I think you're lying," she countered and pulled her knees in to rise up on