Just leave

She had heard it all before. Words slamming out hard with insults to follow. The door slams shut. Walls start closing in. Nothing seems simple anymore. Nothing seems easy anymore. Nothing seems to make sense anymore. Difficult. Hard to manage. High action. Extreme passion followed with extreme hatred. Nothing ever in the middle. I listen. Advice. The life with the alcoholic. He blames her for the money troubles. Rarely home enough to even know what the bills are. He blames her for making their home no fun to come home to, but can't even remember the insults he hurls at the whole family around the table. He blames her for making him crazy. Funny, his friends say he was this way in high school. She did not know him then. He blames her for the stress in his life. She works, cleans the house, cooks the meals, irons his clothes, runs the children to endless practices and knows there is no one else to help her. She wants nice furniture to sit on. He wants bottles of whiskey with long endless roads, spent in his self-pity of yesterdays. She is difficult to get along with. He has had multiple fights with people. Lost jobs over outbursts and confusion. She has stayed when there was no one else even standing beside him. She has endured, endured, endured, for the reward to be what? To just leave. Three words that have rung in her ears for years and years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it could be so simple as to just leave. Marriages end for financial reasons he screams. Money means nothing and yet money means everything. Could she buy him a ticket for sobriety? No. Even if she did he would not get on the ride, for he is already on the farris-wheel and she watches him go around and around refusing to hop on beside him. I wish I could help her. Small towns afford the talk. She has taught the children well to hold their head up high. They are not responsible for this. She knows she will leave one day. The walls will echo back the hate of his words for the room will be empty with no one left to leave.