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how he felt about it all. Ashamed and disgusted. Mary knew him better than anyone. She knew that how people saw him was everything to him. In his world, he had to be seen to be in control, in control not only in his work, the people he employed, but his family set-up too. He was respected because he and his family had always been beyond reproach. Gerald had always lived by a moral code that was only understood by their peer group. By the people who lived by the same code. The rest of the world had their way of living their lives, and that was fine, but they also had their own way of existing, and that was also fine. Until something like this happened. Imelda’s situation had thrown Gerald’s whole existence into chaos. He saw his family, especially his daughter, as an extension of himself. His children had to be beyond reproach. They had to live within his boundaries and his guidelines. Until Imelda’s latest escapade, Mary had never had to deal with a husband who was suffering a major disappointment. He blamed her for this aggravation, she knew that he did. Even though, deep inside, she knew that was not fair, she also knew that he had always brought the money in and left her to bring up the children as she saw fit. Something she had done very well, until now. Until this.
    Now she was left to sort it out, make it all better, and she didn’t know how the fuck she was supposed to do that, because he could not know who had brought his daughter down, not yet, not until he could be a bit more rational about it and that did not seem as if it was ever going to happen. In fact, he seemed to be getting angrier by the hour. Her husband was like a stranger to her, to them all. He had changed overnight from a caring father and husband to a man who was violent and aggressive. He had been her rock, her man, the guiding light for their family. Now, it was as if she didn’t know him any more, didn’t know how to talk to him, how to control him. Because until now, she had controlled them all. Her whole family, and her husband had been quite happy for her to do that. It had worked for him, it had saved him from having to actually take part in the whole family set-up. He could stand back and take the credit for his family, he had been happy. Over the fucking moon, in fact. Now though, he was acting like she had brought up some kind of viper, acting as if she had done that deliberately, had set out to destroy him and his perfect life. It didn’t seem to occur to him that she might be hurting as well. That she might be as bewildered as he was. That she was as frightened as her daughter was of his reaction to the father’s identity was not even an issue with him. He saw Mary as stonewalling him, saw her as a co-conspirator. Felt that she was as disloyal as their youngest child. In short, he saw her as the enemy.
    Gerald had always been possessed of a certain paranoia, but that had worked for him, worked for them all over the years. She had never been on the receiving end of it, even though she knew that a lot of people had been. She had never thought she would be the recipient of his anger, of his hate. Until now, though, she had never done anything to bring his wrath down on her, or her children. And, knowing what he was capable of, she was not going to give him the chance now. While he had kept his violence outside of their house she could accept it. Now though, she was seeing the man everyone else saw. The man that everyone else knew so well. She had glimpsed this side of him before they had married, and in her youth had liked it, had seen it as a strength. She had believed, like many a woman before her, that she could control him. Could change him with love, and she had, until now that is. She had never once crossed him, and he had given her complete autonomy over their family and their home. How could she have been such a fool? How could she have allowed herself to believe that she had ever really had any kind of power over her