Chapter 59 – Domestic Violence
Saturday morning June 14, 2008 – 7:30 AM
As fate would have it, this blazingly bright mid-June New England morning found Marianne Plante dabbed away at the tears that were trickling down her cheeks like a leaking faucet, while at the same time she gazed out of the picture window in her designer kitchen as her two young daughters, Terry and Debbie, frolicked on their backyard swing-set.
“Ah to be young again,” sighed Plante as she mulled over what to do about her husband Tom Willis, who was once again missing in action.
For the sake of her children, if for no other reason, Plante was reluctant to file for divorce. But lately she was beginning to feel as if her husband was leaving her with no other choice in the matter. He was hardly ever at home anymore; always out and about, tramping around town with his harem of bimbos. And when he did check in, more often than not these days, they would end up in an epic argument.
Plante was no fool. She knew perfectly well what was going on, right behind her back no less, but she just didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore. In fact, she had come to enjoy the peace and tranquility, which warmed her soul like a ray of sunshine, whenever her husband pulled one of his many disappearing acts. However, despite her growing disinterest in him, she couldn’t stomach the thought of her husband thinking that he was getting away with something sneaky when his attempts at subterfuge were so transparent.
But regardless of who was winning the battle, the euphonic harmony of Plante’s morning was about to come to a sudden end. Regardless of who was losing the war, the mellowing stillness of her dawn was about be shattered in a monstrous way, because Tom Willis had just pulled up in front of their stately home in his shiny new 2008 Infiniti G37 coupe…and he proceeded to stagger in through the front door, itching for a fight.
Willis ignored the muffled cries of his wife emanating from the kitchen, and he darted straight up the stairs towards their bedroom. And when Plante caught wind of her husband’s bold entrance, she followed him in hot pursuit, ranting and raving like a lunatic every step of the way.
Rather than counterattacking with an immediate tantrum of his own, Willis’s veiled response to his wife’s bitchy outburst was to totally ignore her as he headed directly for the closet and pulled out a suitcase.
Plante promptly launched into round two of her extended tirade as soon as her husband’s luggage made its appearance. But no matter how much she railed, he continued to spurn her, and he calmly went about his business of packing up some clothing, which infuriated her all the more.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing mister?” roared Plante.
“Business trip babe, I’ll be back on Monday, Tuesday at the latest,” coolly replied Willis…and just like that, Plante finally snapped. Just like that, at long last, she had finally reached her boiling point. By this stage in their yearlong fray, she had finally had just about enough of her husband’s foolish games, and so she blocked the path between him and his suitcase as she attempted to shout him down.
“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere. Do you think I was born yesterday? You come home smelling like booze and cheap perfume, and now you’re gonna go waltzing out the door again…and you think I’m gonna just sit here and take it?” angrily protested Plante.
“You got no choice in the matter babe. You knew what you signed up for when you married me, now stop acting like a child and get out of the way,” ordered Willis as he pushed his wife aside. And apparently this half-hearted effort at ensuring that she obeyed his request was all that it took for her to wave the white flag, because once again, just like that, her precarious resolve had been broken; shattered into a million pieces.
Poor Marianne Plante, all she could think to do was to sink down to the floor by the side of their bed and cry like an infant. All she could think to do was to rest her head on her knees and wail like there was no tomorrow. All she could think to do was to beg like a pauper in search of a meal.
“No Tommy, please no. I need you. The kids need you. Please, for once, can’t you behave like a man and be there for your family,” pleaded Plante.
Unfortunately for Plante however, nothing annoyed Willis more than his wife challenging his manhood, and so in retaliation to her jibes, he planted the heel of his size 11 shoe into the side of her ribcage and pushed as hard as he could until she lost her balance and fell over in a heap onto the floor.
“You need me do you? You’ve got everything you could ever ask for you ungrateful cunt,” mocked Willis. But his sobbing wife begged to differ.
“Everything except a real man,” chafed Plante in a valiant foray at getting under her husband’s skin, like a deer tick in search of blood.
“Well you should have thought about that before you started flirting around with every guy in sight, you fuckin’ whore,” roared a now incensed Willis.
“No, it’s not true Tommy. I swear on my mother’s soul, I’ve been faithful to you. I swear to God, I’d never cheat on you,” insisted Plante…but her defense fell on deaf ears. And although it didn’t take long for her to regain her composure, Willis had already packed his bags and was heading for the door by then.
Notwithstanding her slim chances for success, Plante nonetheless followed her husband back down the staircase as she made one last ditch violent attempt at garnering his failing attention.
Plante grabbed a valuable imported Japanese vase off of a shelf in their living room and in one swift motion she heaved it at him. And with the aim of the former high school softball pitcher that she was, the urn smashed high against the front door, just above Willis’s head, sending shards of shattered glass crashing down on him, and as an added bonus, cutting his face just above the bridge of his nose.
This unprecedented eruption of rage was so unlike Plante that it momentarily startled Tom Willis. However, once he got past the initial shock of his wife’s sudden explosion, he was so furious with her that he was seeing red, literally and figuratively.
Willis was in fact so hot under the collar that in one swift motion of his own, he clutched his wife by the throat, and then he proceeded to pick her up and throw her back down onto the dining room table as if she were a rag doll, knocking over an expensive crystal centerpiece in the process.
With his hand still wrapped tightly around his wife’s throat, Willis then pressed his bloody face against hers as he threateningly whispered, “I’m the man of this fuckin’ house…do you understand me? And if you ever pull a stunt like this again, I swear to God, I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I’ll kill us all.”
Clearly the damage was already too deeply carved to ever fully be undone, but to make matters worse, Willis spat in Plante’s face. And then without hesitation, he stormed out the front door and peeled on down the road in his sporty new Infiniti, leaving behind a cloud of dust in his trail. But what’s more, he also left behind a wife who was in desperate need of a strong pair of arms to hold her.
As upset as she was, Plante still managed to retrieve a broom from the closet the minute her husband made his grand departure so that she could sweep up the fragments of glass from the floor before her daughters cut themselves; and alas, as destiny would attest, this routine cleanup chore, this simple back and forth sweeping motion, gave birth to an unintended cathartic effect which would take hold of her with the same intensity as her husband’s viselike death grip.
“Fine…go ahead and shack up with one of your little bitches. Well two can play at that game,” taunted Plante, who had resorted to talking to her broomstick.
Meanwhile, at the first sound of the commotion drifting out from the open windows of their regal dining room, Plante’s frightened daughters huddled inside their backyard playhouse and cowered in each other’s arms, while at the same time, somewhere within the stifling confines of their real home, their mother was in the process of tearfully sweeping away more than just the chards of glass from a broken vase.
> For ready or not, Marianne Plante was also sweeping up the battered remains of her love; for ready or not, she was sweeping up all visible traces of her husband and depositing them out the back door forever; for ready or not, she was symbolically sweeping him out of her life for good, like a pair of muddy footprints mopped up off the floor of a dirty kitchen.
And just like that, with the last push of the bristles clearing the way, Marianne Plante made a sweeping pronouncement which was meant to whisk away more than just the years, more than just the miles; from this moment forward, it would be out with old and in with the new, so to speak.
Marianne Plante abruptly decided that it was high time she took a chance or two; she abruptly decided that the time had finally come to relive her past; she abruptly decided that the time was right to do what she should have done a long time ago; she abruptly decided that it was now or never; she abruptly decided that the moment was ripe to make a long overdue, but immensely empowering, phone call; a phone call from which there would be…no looking back.
From the Eyes of a Juror Page 69