It hits him in the nose as he shouts and grabs it. “Fucking shit, Zhanna!” Blood pours from underneath his hand as he reaches for a paper towel.
“Fucking shit, Zhanna, huh? Fucking shit, Zhanna? Fuck you! You’re a piece of shit!” I take two steps to the left, open the cabinet door and pick up the first dessert plate my hand touches, and then I throw that motherfucker across the room at his ass. And it feels so damn good when it hits him in the head and bounces across the way. In fact, I relish bringing the pain to him as I see red and start throwing plate after plate at him. And when I run out of those, I reach for the appetizer plates. At first, he attempts to block the incessant blows that just keep coming.
“Fucking stop!” he howls.
“Stop? You want me to stop?’ I ask as I reach for the salad bowls.
He dives behind the bar, but it doesn’t deter me from my mission to cause him a fraction of the pain I feel inside all the way down to my bones. “Baby, you have to stop. We’ll talk. Let me… fuck!” He yells as he takes a bowl to the brow bone and ducks down below the bar again. “Zhanna, I’m drunk. Can we talks about this in the morning?”
“In the morning?!! I won’t fucking be here in the morning!” I shout so loud my voice cracks. “Oh my God! What the fuck did you do?!! How could you do this to us?!!” I scream and sob through my now hoarse voice. “You killed us!!!”
“No, baby,” he says, his own voice heavy with emotion, and stands up from behind the bar and almost falls over again. “We’re never gonna be done.”
I drop the large dinner plate and let it crash to the floor. It rolls across the kitchen and stops at the back door where it spins to a stop like a bottle top. The fight leaves me. I’m fatigued beyond measure, and my heart suddenly isn’t in it anymore.
A knock sounds at our front door, but neither of us moves. It comes again, but I can’t seem to move the muscles in my body. It’s too painful just to breathe oxygen into my lungs. It quite simply hurts to be alive. I’d welcome death if it knocked on my door just to ease my excruciating pain.
The knock sounds again and Bryant moves to answer it, but before he does it opens. “L.A.P.D.! Anyone home?”
“Here,” Bryant says, but he’s around the corner now so I don’t see.
“We have an assault complaint from an unidentified female. She claims to have been inside the home when your wife assaulted her,” says a male officer. “Holy shit,” he adds. “What happened to your windows?”
“It was an accident,” Bryant advises.
“Sir, have you been drinking?” asks the officer.
“Yes.”
“Wait, aren’t you Bryant Hudson?”
“Yes. Listen, my wife kicked a guest out of our home, but she didn’t assault her. Is there any way we can clear this up later this afternoon?”
Several flashlights shine across the living room that I can see from my place in the kitchen. “Did your wife break the windows?”
“It was an accident.”
“Where is she, sir?”
I step around the kitchen into their view. “Here.”
“Mrs. Hudson?”
“Hale,” I answer.
“Zhanna, baby, no.” Bryant starts for me, but one of the five officers now in our home steps between us.
It seems like five officers turn into ten in a heartbeat. And there’s a flurry of activity around me, but I’m not here anymore. I’m somewhere deep in my mind where it’s safe, where it doesn’t hurt, and where the world still makes sense.
I’m not sure how long I stand there staring at my shoes before a set of hands gently grip both of my wrists and pull them together in front of me. “Zhanna Hudson, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”
— 28 —
Then
THE LOUD, OBNOXIOUS BUZZING of the jail door opening wakes me. The sound of heavy footsteps grow closer with each step, and Otto comes to stand in front of my cell. “I’ve heard the old saying ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. Never seen it until now. Don’t like the look of it. So I imagine he did something pretty rotten to deserve that level of ire from you.”
I can’t find my words to tell him what Bryant did. I can’t even bring myself to move from the cot. I can’t find one fucking word to tell him I’m sorry he has to bail me out of jail.
