Never Surrender

This is in response to the Daily Prompt: Devastation

There were a few Christians counseling her on the sly. They pointed out scripture that said she should submit to her husband in whatever he required. “Even if it’s wrong?” she asked.

“Yes.” They answered.

She couldn’t accept that. She wouldn’t accept that.

Last night, things came to a head when she leveled with her husband, “He said that if I choose to go to work tomorrow, he will rape me. I  don’t want to go!”

“You will go!” He slammed his fist down on the kitchen table. She flinched.  Her stomach suddenly felt queasy. Her ears rang. Why were they ringing? Shock? Denial? He drummed his fingers on the table and continued. “We need the money.  You can handle it.”

This wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument/conversation.  Grasping for a twig of a word that would somehow make everything right she began, “But  . . .”

She shut up as he shot her a look that hardened into steel and he said, “Handle it.”

Verbally gut punched, she leaned against the wall, devastated.

As her husband showered, she packed up what she could, stood on the front porch for a moment feeling the rain beat against her face, then closed the door behind her and stepped into the void off the edge of the earth.