A Family Affair

Lizy stood out on her small wooden porch waiting for her friend to arrive. She wasn't sure what time to expect her. Kent's schedule was so unpredictable. And Cathryn insisted on facing Kent and telling him in person. He deserved that she supposed. In her opinion she should have never married that man. Sam was always the one for Cathryn.

A sigh of relief escaped Lizy's lips as the silver Impala swung into her drive way. She leaned absently on the porch rail waiting for Cathryn to get out of the car. Cathryn did so slowly and walked cautiously in front of the car to the porch.

In the light from the car Lizy thought she could see something dark covering her friend's hands and shirt. As she moved closer Lizy's could smell the faint coppery aroma of blood. It was then that she noticed the large knife clutched in Cathryn's hand.

"Oh, God." Lizy's felt as if she screamed the words but in reality they were merely a horrified whisper. Cathryn heard the words however and looked up, one eye almost completely swollen shut. "Kitty Cat, what did he do to you?"

"He didn't want me to go." Cathryn said dully and looked down as realized that she was still carrying the knife. It dropped to the porch with a thud. Like a rock, Cathryn followed it.

Trying to catch her on the way down was useless but Lizy had to try. The force of Cathryn's body knocked her to the wooden planks, but at least she broke her fall, Lizy thought to herself. Wrestling her way out from under her friend, Lizy moved to wake Cathryn.

"Kitty Cat, wake up. Come on don't do this to me out here. I can't carry you inside." Cathryn slowly opened her good eye and focused on Lizy. "Good girl, now we just need to get you up."

"Why am I on the floor?"

"You had you a little swoon, that's all."

"Okay." Reaching out from the porch rail Cathryn pulled her self. "I need to call Sam. I need to tell him to stay away from Kent. He's...He's not stable right now."

"Okay, let's just go inside and you can call Sam, then we'll call the police. I'm assuming that he's still alive since you want to warn Sam."

"Yeah, he's alive. I just cut his arm. He tried to grab me again." Cathryn looked up at Lizy with glazed over eyes from shock. "I couldn't let that happen could I? He was going to hurt me again. I had to cut him with the knife. You understand that, right?"

"Yes sweetie, I understand. You just sit down here and I'll call Sam. You just sit a minute and I'll get you some ice."

"Okay." Cathryn dropped on the couch and closed her eyes.

Lizy walked to the kitchen and called Sam. She decided against filling him in on the state of his lover over the phone. Instead she asked him to stop by after work to check on her himself. By then she hoped Cathryn would be alert again. So she could talk to him herself.

With the ice wrapped in a dish towel Lizy came back in and laid it gently against the side of Cathryn's face. "Here sweetie, hold this here while I call the police."

"No!" Cathryn's hand shot out and held Lizy's wrist. "No police. I just want this behind me. No police. I don't want to have to go though all that unless I have to."

"Okay, I won't call them if that's what you want." Lizy brushed back Cathryn's hair like you would a child's. "Why don't you go take a shower? It will make you feel better."

"Yeah, I think I will." For the first time since she got there Cathryn's eyes cleared and focused on the blood on Lizy. "Oh God, you have blood all over your shirt. It's ruined."

"It's okay. You'll just have to buy me a new one." Lizy teased and pushed her toward the bathroom. "Now go on. I'll go get your clothes and bring them in to you."

Cathryn managed a small smile that tugged on the split in her lip. "You just want to see me naked and this is your excuse."

"You figured me out." Lizy held the smile until Cathryn closed the bathroom door. First thing she was going to do was get the knife off the porch and bring it in. Then she would get Cathryn's belongings out of the car.

In the car, blood covered the door, steering wheel, and gear shift. After Cathryn was asleep she would come back out and clean up the mess. She just wished Cathryn would let her call the cops. But she respected her friend's wishes.

She hoped that Sam didn't fly off the handle when he saw Cathryn. At least she wouldn't have the blood on her when he showed up. But Lizy doubted that would matter. Sam would be pissed with just cause. She was pretty pissed herself and would love to get her hands on the asshole. But she needed to stay with Cathryn now.

Disgusted Lizy stared at the blood smears on her couch and got to work in cleaning them up. By the time Cathryn emerged from the bathroom all traces had been wiped and scrubbed away. Lizy was busily unpacking clothes in the spare room for her temporary house guest.

Cathryn could smell the lingering trace of cleaner and felt guilty. It was her fault there were wet spots on Lizy's new blue sofa. She just hoped that the blood came all out. She glanced out the door, saw the knife was gone, and wondered absently were Lizy had put it.

Gingerly she sat down in a kitchen chair. Her whole body ached. Fresh bruises were on her hip, shoulder, ankle, and arm. The ones on her ankle and arm where the exact size and shape of Kent's hand. In an absent gesture she rubbed the bruise on her arm and gave an involuntary shutter.

With any luck she could keep some of these bruises from Sam. He was already going to be mad. The last thing she need was Kent and Sam killing each other over her.

*****

Sam knew something was going on that Lizy wasn't telling him. There was a tremor in her voice that said clearly everything was not fine. If Cathryn was just shaken up after her confrontation with Kent she would have called him herself. With a heavy foot on the accelerator the truck edged toward seventy as Sam sped up Route 10 to Cathryn.

He wanted to be with her when she broke the news to Kent. No, she had said, he needed to hear it from her, without Sam there to rub salt in the wounds. Kent wouldn't be a problem, she could handle him, she insisted.

God if something happened to her...don't think that way, Sam told himself. He eased off the gas petal as the rear end of the little maroon truck skidded around a curve. The truck slowed to a more reasonable sixty as Sam approached the town of Brooksville, the county seat of Bracken County.

As small towns go, it was minuscule and not one of the ones with the cute charm that some places strive for. Many of the buildings were run down and no one seemed to care. Yes, here and there every now and then someone would come along and revamp a building but in never seemed to catch on to the rest of the town.

On the outskirts on town was Lizy house trailer. She had lived there with her brother until he had moved eight months before. Sam came down on his brakes when he came to the drive way. He had to maneuver to squeeze his truck in with the two cars.

He didn't bother with knocking when he got to the door. He could see Lizy sitting in her recliner through the front door. "Where is she? Is she alright?"

Lizy looked up rather startled. "Sam, my God you scared me."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where is she? Did he hurt her?"

Lizy glanced down at her hands. She had just finished cleaning the blood out of the car. "Sam...you need to stay calm. You're not going to help her by flying off the handle just remember that."

"What did he do?" His hands dug into the flesh of Lizy's upper arms as he hauled her up off the love seat.

"Let go of me Sam." Lizy waited until Sam set her back down before continuing. "First of all, she's got a few bruises. She's asleep now, but she'll want to see you. Second, you need to stay calm. If you get upset, she'll get upset."

"Okay, I'm calm. Where is she?" Sam took a few calming breaths and waited for Lizy to show him where Cathryn was.

The room was dark. The light from the hallway was the only light in the room. With that light as his guide he moved across the room to the form breathing steadily in the bed. Slowly her reached out and shook her shoulder.

"NO!" Cathryn shouted and swung out to strike her attacker. The blow merely glanced off Sam's arm.

Sam took hold of Cathryn by the arms to calm her. In the darkness he could see her flinch in pain. "Honey it's me. It's Sam."

"Sam?" Confusion set in Cathryn's voice. There was a second where she stared at him not believing he was really there and letting her eyes adjust to the dark to set him. Finally she focused and relief coursed through her. Her arms went around him as she hugged him tight.

"Here honey, let go a second. I'll turn on the light." Sam gently untangled her arms from his waist and flipped on the lamp by the bed.

Instinctively his jaw clenched when he saw the kaleidoscope of colors across her right cheek. Soothingly, Sam stroked his finger over her bruised skin. "Did he do this to you baby?"

"He was angry. He lost it." Cathryn shuttered at the memory all too fresh in her mind. "I stabbed him, in the arm I think. I had to get away."

"Of course you had to get away. Where else hurts?" Sam took inventory of her face and saw nothing but the battered cheek. Before she could protest he raised her night shirt over her head.

Anger didn't even come close to describing the emotion that was flowing through him when he saw the hand print of her soft upper arm and the black and blue starting at her collar bone over to her shoulder. One contusion was caused entirely by Kent's hand the other was started by him and finished by her impact with the floor.

Sam forced himself to relax his jaw and push back the harshness that wanted to creep into his voice. "What else?"

"Sam, please it's nothing. It's over."

"No, it's something. He hurt you. He had no right to do that. I figured he would yell at you and beat on me. I was ready for it." In a quick movement Sam whipped back the blankets and looked over the rest of her body. The hand print on her ankle and blue color of her hip and upper thigh didn't improve his mood. "You best tell me what happened. Exactly. Don't leave anything out because you think you are sparing me."

For the first time Cathryn told the story of what happened when she told Kent she was leaving him. She hadn't even told Lizy the whole story but simply skimmed over the facts.

Lizy was waiting outside the bedroom door. She had seen the injuries that Kent had inflicted on Cathryn's body as Sam stripped away her clothes. Angry tears glittered in her eyes as the story unfolded. She wished she could beat the hell out of Kent herself. Or that Cathryn had aimed for something more vital than his arm when she welded the knife.

Sam was thinking along the same sediments. Sitting on the pink bed sheets of the twin bed he held the women he loved while her body quaked from crying. Over top her head his eyes met Lizy's. Hers where soaked with tears, his were dry but they both held venom that lashed out for one person.

Cathryn had cried herself to sleep in Sam's arms. Carefully he laid her back in the bed and flipped off the lamp. He closed the door behind him and faced Lizy.

"I didn't want to tell you over the phone. You understand that don't you." Lizy said.

"I know." Sam patted Lizy on the hand before walking past her and collapsing on the sofa. "I can't believe it went that far. I should have been with her. She wouldn't let me though. She said it would be easier without me there."

"You know how she is. So now what?"

"I'm going after him." Sam opened his eyes and stared at Lizy. "What did you think I was going to do?"

"Kill him." Lizy stated simply.

"No, I won't kill him. Make him suffer, yes. I'm not going to go to prison when I finally have a chance with her, but he went too far." Sam stood up. "Don't tell her where I went if she wakes up."

"Be careful Sam. He's not stable. I think he's already proved that." Lizy stood back and watched Sam walk out the door to his truck.