Two days before my second son was born, Charles decided to go downtown to visit some friends. He did not return home that night nor the next. Watching the Late Night Show on the second night, my labor started with a vengeance. I had been uncomfortable all day, now it was just plain unbearable. I called my neighbor, Jan, and then a cab. They both got to my house at exactly the same time. Jan agreed to take my son over to her house and would babysit him until I returned home. Off I went in the cab headed to the hospital. A ride that cab driver surely will never forget, I guarantee.
The day after our beautiful baby was born, Charles staggered into the hospital room looking like he had been ran hard and put away wet. He looked a fright. His clothing was a muss and he looked and smelled as though he hadn’t showered in days. He drooled as he spoke and slurred his words so badly that neither the nurses on staff nor I, could make out what he was saying. He was not drunk though he staggered as a drunk would. He was yelling that this was not his child because “his” child would not have black hair. Having no thought, that I was part American Indian. I was dumbfounded by his behavior and started crying. The nursing staff quickly had him removed from the hospital room and taken to ER. There it was confirmed that Charles was severely overmedicated. Not just on his own medications but they found other drugs in his system as well.
Three days after I was home, Charles came in through the front door and proceeded to slap me around violently. How dare I have him locked up in the hospital? How dare I embarrass him that way? From that day, our suffering just grew. Several times over the next two years I left Charles, only to return after he begged me and said he could not go on without me. I felt so sorry for him, that I kept trying. Besides, I had his children and they needed a father.
