Diane's Remembrance (Second Chance #4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

if you don’t answer me I swear I’ll kill you.”
     
    I know he means it so I crawl out from under the blankets and answer in a sleepy voice. “Nolan, honey, what’s wrong. I was asleep.”
     
    “I walk through this door after a long day at work and you’re asleep? You are a useless bag of flesh!” He says and slaps me across the face. “Now get your ass in that kitchen and get me a beer. Than get supper cooked before I throw you out on your lazy ass.”
     
    “I’ll get it done right away.” I respond and quickly walk into the kitchen. A few seconds later I hand him his beer, but before I can go back into the kitchen he grabs me around the waist and pulls me onto his lap.
     
    “Mmm… you feel so good pressed up against me. Tonight we’re going to try something different and you’re going to let me do whatever I want. Is that understood?”
     
    I gulp deeply and quickly answer. “You can do anything you want.”
     
    “ That’s what I thought. Now get my supper so I can eat and then we can go to bed. It’s gonna be a long night.”
     
    I hurry back to the kitchen and open a can of beef stew. We don’t have many options because he won’t let me work and he always has to have the best beer, no generic beer for him, but as long as he eats he’ll be happy.
     
    “What’s taking so long? After a long day at the yard I just wanna come home, drink a few beers, eat my supper and go to bed. Is that so wrong?” He’s always talking about his long days at the lumber yard, but I never see any of that money. He gives me a grocery allowance every week, but I have to spend every cent on food and beer because he demands the receipt and any money I don’t spend he takes back, usually by beating it from me.
     
    “It’s almost ready, honey.” I tell him and he grins. If I call him anything other than honey or baby I get punished. I learned that the hard way.
     
    “Good, because I’m hungry and I’m not meaning just for food.” He grins when he says this and an evil sparkle shines in his eyes. I know tonight is going to be bad. I know what he wants and it scares me to death.
     
    Later that night I lay in bed and think about the life I left. I think about my children and I am so glad they will never be exposed to Nolan, or any other man like him.
     
    Diane was jarred from sleep by Carol jumping into her bunk. She lay there silently and remembered the dream she had. Nolan was the man she hooked up with after her last visit to Texas. She wasn’t with him but a few months before he found someone else, but he broke her.
     
    Once Carol was settled into her bunk Diane got up and walked to the small desk in the cell. She had a couple more pieces of paper and felt she needed to write Karla another letter.
     
    My Beautiful Karla,
     
    I am writing you another letter, which you will probably never read, to tell you about some of the things I went through before your Grams and Pops died.
     
    Right after I left Texas the last time I met a man named Harrison. He was a good man, a strong worker, a kind soul. Or so I thought. About three weeks after I moved in with him things changed. He lost his job and started drinking heavily. Then he started hitting me. It was just a few slaps at first, but then it became more. I won’t go into details because you lived through enough to know what I’m talking about, but I will tell you this, Harrison almost killed me. One night he came home drunk and I confronted him. He had taken the rent money I had worked for and spent it on whiskey at the bar. I confronted him when he got home and the next day I woke up in the hospital and he was in jail. I don’t remember much about what he did, but I had several broken bones and a collapsed lung.
     
    My life continued like this for a few years, until the day I got the call from Daddy about Mom dying. I was afraid to return home because of what my life had become. I didn’t want to bring you into this world, I didn’t want you to