My father-in-law, the bitter and unapologetically impotent enabler of his wife's daily drunkenness, cornered Mrs. KintlaLake last night for a round of ritual belittling. His parting shot to his daughter was, "You all need to move out of here as soon as possible."She's no longer cowed by the old man's relentless antagonism -- none of us is. We're not ungrateful, either, but we're past feeling obliged to demonstrate to his satisfaction that we're grateful enough for having his roof over our heads.
As we prepare to make tracks toward sanity we'll be neither bum-rushed nor intimidated. Right now, in fact, we're in the strongest possible position.
If only he knew.
Today we await the outcome of a promising attempt to secure a place of our own. Everything is set except the other parties' agreement, and we should get word on that within the next week. The hoped-for formalities would be another week or so after that.
If somehow this one doesn't come together, we'll keep looking, confidently, as before.
But with just a little bit of luck, when our host-tormentors walk back through this door two weeks from Thursday, we'll be able to greet them with knowing, suitably righteous smiles.
