Thomas and Simon sat quietly at the mostly-empty bar, slowly nursing their drinks and occasionally chewing the fragments of ice that still lingered, floating languidly at the tops of their glasses, quietly diminishing. The bartender stood carefully just outside of their personal space, though still within earshot, pretending to be busy while he waited for more customers to make their way in. It was still a bit early, but he was accustomed to faster drinkers than this. It was looking like his tips would be a bit more meager than usual.
“Did you know,” Thomas said, casually swirling his drink, “that men are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse than women?”
Simon shrugged, taking a sip. “I’ve heard that,” he said. “I’ve also heard that men are less likely to report it, so it sounds kind of like a catch-22 to me.”
Thomas grunted once with a smirk. “Makes you wonder just how many spouses are in pain and yet refuse to say anything.” The two sat in silence for a moment longer before a sharp thought crossed Simon’s mind.
“Thomas,” he said suddenly, with a serious tone, glancing at his friend, “this isn’t something that someone just mentions out of the blue.”
Thomas shrugged indifferently, avoiding eye-contact. Simon’s eyes narrowed a bit.
“I knew you for a good three years before you married my sister,” Simon continued. “I can’t imagine that you would ever--”
Thomas looked up with a sudden expression of pleading deference, shaking his head vehemently. “Oh, God, Simon, no. I would never dream of it.” Simon sat for a moment, carefully studying his friend, then turned away and finished his drink, signalling to the alert bartender for another.
“It was Liz, wasn’t it?”
The words were flat and unsurprised, almost as though they were the first ones that had come to Simon’s mind, but had been the last ones he had hoped to say. Thomas sat in silence as the bartender refilled Simon’s drink. As he stepped carefully back out of their range, Thomas began to shake a bit.
“We had...a fight,” he mumbled, biting the inside of his cheek to stave off the trembling. “It was our...the first real fight we’ve had. I didn’t...I mean, I wasn’t expecting it.”
Simon looked at his friend and saw that he was clearly fighting back tears. He looked away out of courtesy.
“What was it about?”
Thomas clenched his eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths through his nose.
“That’s the thing,” he said after another moment. “I don’t really know. I mean, I don’t remember. I said something that I...I guess was...inappropriate. But it wasn’t intentional. It just happened so...so fast. One minute we were talking, and the next, I...I thought it was going to come to blows.”
The remaining bits of ice in Thomas’ glass rattled as his hands shook. Simon nudged him with his elbow and he looked down through blurry eyes, realizing what he was doing. He took another deep breath and finished his drink, pushing it forward. Simon signaled to the bartender for a refill on behalf of his friend. The bartender quickly mixed a new drink and disappeared from their immediate vicinity.
“Look, Thomas,” Simon said in an almost brotherly voice, “I know how Liz can be. I mean, I grew up with her. She’s always been hot-tempered, and I can recount more than a couple beatings I got from her. But I have no doubt that--”
“No,” Thomas said, cutting his friend off, “you don’t get it. We were in the heat of the fight and I saw this flash of anger in her eyes. Her fists clenched up like she was about to clock me, and I was almost a bit relieved, because I thought that would be the end of it. But then she...her eyes just...she just started crying -- and she put her arms around me, and she held me. And her hands were still balled up in fists, and I could tell she wanted to hit me, but she just stood there, hugging me, and crying. Simon, I don’t...I can’t make any sense of it. I thought for sure I was walking out of that with a few bruises, but that at least…” Thomas trailed off, taking a sip of his drink. Simon sat for a moment, chewing one of the fresh ice cubes, then set his glass onto the top of the bar.
“Liz and I were barely a year apart,” he said suddenly. “Being so close, it hardly mattered which of us was older and which was younger, but the fact that she was the older one meant that she never hesitated to hit me. And my father always told me, whenever she and I got into scraps, ‘It’s not right to hit a girl, even if she hits you first.’ Of course, that was a piece of wisdom I ignored on more than one occasion, and I got my share of beatings as a result. For a long time, I couldn’t really understand it, until one day I happened to see something that changed my mind. You see, my father practiced what he preached. When my sister threw a tantrum, he would scold her, but he would never lay a hand on her like he would with me. It was something I resented about both of them until I fully grasped it.”
Simon paused, taking a slow sip of his drink, swirling the ice around the glass thoughtfully.
“There was one time that they had gotten into an argument about something or other. Something small and petty, I’m sure, but Liz threw up a tizzy about it anyway. My father scolded her, as he had often done -- but for the first time, she responded by hitting him. Bear in mind, she was hardly ten at the time, so a punch from her would have done nothing to a grown man other than bruise his ego. But he immediately stopped scolding her, and he knelt down, and he put his arms around her. She struggled, and pounded his back with her fists -- but he just knelt there and hugged her until she calmed down. And then he apologized. And there were tears in his eyes. And for the longest time, I couldn’t understand that. But after weeks, months -- even years -- of agonizing over it, it eventually made sense to me. All those times I had been punished and chastised for meeting my sister’s violence with violence, it wasn’t because I was wrong to defend myself -- I had been wrong in not defending her. More violence would only be a temporary solution, and one that would never address the root of the problem. The only way to really end it for good was to meet it with love. So from then on, that’s what I did. Whenever my sister and I fought, and she had that flash of anger in her eyes, and her hands balled up into fists, I would imitate my father: I would hug her, and I would apologize, and the fight would stop.”
Simon finished off the rest of his drink, then lowered the glass again with a sigh, the last few ice cubes rattling as it came to rest on the bartop.
“Over time, the fights between us became less frequent. I daresay we even started to like each other. To this day, people still comment on how well we get along. Thomas, if you have reached the point where she can end a fight with you with an expression of love, then it means that she really does well and truly love you. I know from personal experience how hard that can be for her to do. You have only my word to go on, but I can say that the need for it will eventually vanish. In the meantime, I can only hope that you can return the gesture.”
Thomas uncovered his eyes from behind his hand, revealing a smattering of tears. He stood from his stool and placed a stack of bills -- which included a hefty tip -- beside his unfinished and heavily watered-down drink, then patted Simon on the shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said in a quiet voice. “I think I’ll go home and do that.”
Simon thoughtfully chewed a small piece of ice and smiled to himself, for the first time really knowing without a doubt that both his friend and his sister were in good hands.