Who he really is, part 2

    It was the usual weekend scene, the sister was getting in her car. Her three rowdy boys were having the daily tussle, arguing over who sat where.
    She said her goodbyes to dad, he smiles and say his goodbyes to her, and off she drove.
    It was these weekend visits the sister wrote of in moms obituary, painting the happy scene of grandma and grampa with all the grand kids.
    She never saw what happend after she left, even when I would try to tell her, she would dismiss my words.
    I could still see her tail lights, when his anger came on. His smile vanished in an instant, the angry glare I have seen so many times, came on.
  “Come look at this”  he barked
  “Come here and look at this”  he ordered, as he lead me into the house.
    He points to the sink, “look what they did.”
One of her boys had dumped cereal in the sink, creating a mess he would have to clean. His rant continued onto the fact they had wasted food, one of the many things that set him off.
    All I could think of was, why am I hearing this? The sister was just here, it was her kid that poured the cereal in the sink.
    I now see this sister is just like him, he lives in fear of her anger the same way mom and I feared his. If he makes her mad, she won’t come for their nice visits.
    I automatically tried to change the subject. If I could not get him to stop, mom would have to be subjected to this latest tirade. How many of these tirades did the sister cause, leaving mom to hear the consequences?
    Mom did not need to hear this, she was not well. Years of smoking had taken its toll on  her. Her oxygen came through a tube, she spent most of her life on the couch, watching TV or sleeping..
    She would be on edge when ever she knew the sisters were coming over. I know it bothered her to feel this way, to not want them around, but she knew how the visit would end. I know the feelings she felt, I lived with them too.
    I don’t know if the sisters ever noticed that mom was a happier person when dad was out of town. We both were, the weight from our shoulders was in some far away land, for days at a time, we could relax.
    The sisters  would turn their kids loose to do as they pleased. Messes left, things moved, what ever they did that dad did not like, mom was stuck listening to the  tirades after they left.
    The nieces and nephews grew up fearing me. It wasn’t that I was the evil aunt, I was the one who had to try to keep the peace for mom. It became my job, to keep dad happy so mom would not subjected to his anger.
    It got to the point I quit going down there, I could not help her. I missed mom, but could not handle him anymore. 
  If she was sleeping, he would wake her. If mom and I would try to have a conversation, he would cut in, oblivious the fact were talking, like a two year old needing to be the center of attention. 
    Dad still rants about her smoking, he claims it is what killed her at such a young age. I now see her smoking as her way of putting up with him. To this day, if there is even a chance I might see him, I chain smoke. Even when he calls, I light up.

    Mom loved the farm, working on it made her happy. She loved the cows, the wildlife and the natural beauty. She had the same vision I did, making this farm, a real farm.  Dad killed that vision for her,  bit by bit.
  She loved hearing about the farm, new calves, work done and wild life spotted. Dad never kept her up on the happenings around the farm. I remember her glare, when I told of a new calf that he never bothered to tell her about.
  She told me of the time he yelled at her for not having any “cow sense”.
  Working cows is like making water run down a hill. You open up where you want it to go, you close off where you don’t.  You have to have patience, trying to rush it, causes more problems.
    He crosses in front of them, then wonders why they didn‘t go where he wanted them too. He whoops and hollers, then he claims the cow is nuts, when it tries to jump a fence to get away from him.  I don’t even tell him now, when I’m working the herd. He is the one with no cow sense, his actions endanger me and the cows. .
  He blamed her smoking one time, for the cows agitation. I’ve smoked around the herd for years, they really don’t care. His ability to blame others is remakable. 
    Mom had cleaned one of the lower fields. She worked for days,  stacking sticks on the four-wheeler and driving them to her fire. I helped her pull the barbed wire he left behind, to become part of the ground.
    That field looked so good, like a real pasture should look like. A place the where the cows could find food, not nosing around under sticks to find a few small blades of grass.
    When some brush cutters came in, dad let them leave the branches laying wherever they landed. The field now looks worse than when mom started working on it. 
    I know the hopelessness she felt when ever she saw that field, she tried so hard to make this a real farm. She hated seeing what he was doing to the farm, but she did not say a word to him, was she afraid too or did she just give up?
  We watched together as the fields turned to swamp rush. Dad bought all the necessary equipment to fix the fields, but never used them. I asked one time, for him to  put the  mower on the tractor so I could start mowing, stopping the invasion of swamp grass. He yelled at me, telling me I could not handle it.
    He used the field being "rough", as an excuse for not using the equipment he bought to flatten the rough field? This is just one of the many sad excuses he used to justify allowing this farm to crumble. Did mom see this fact too?.
    Mom watched him buy the equipment, she handled the money.  He would spend the money, never asking if they had it. He keeps telling me she never bought herself anything.  She never knew what he was going to buy from one day  to the next, she was afraid to spend on herself.
  I remember mom and I  were standing at the kitchen sink one day, just talking.  Dad had gone shopping, it was peaceful. When we saw his truck come down the drive, the tension came with him.
  The scowl on his face told us he was mad at some one, for something. Each armload of groceries he carried in, brought in with  it bits and pieces of the story, told in a raised voice. She did not deserve the anger that came with it..
  I still see it, when look at that stupid sink, Mom  hunched over, her eyes closed in pain, she looked as though she was about to cry.  I felt the same  way,  you can’t run, hide, or tell him to stop, that will just bring on another tirade. This was the life she lived all these years.