It

Tom Rogan rushed at his wife, not bellowing this time. He came as silently as a torpedo cutting through the water. His intent now was probably not merely to beat and subjugate but to do to her what she had so rashly said she would do to him.
He thought she would run. Probably for the bathroom. Maybe for the stairs. Instead, she stood her ground. Her hip whacked the wall as she threw her weight against the vanity table, pushing it up and toward him, ripping two fingernails down to the quick when the sweat on her palms caused her hands to slip.
For a moment the table tottered on an angle and then she shoved herself forward again. The vanity waltzed on one leg, mirror catching the light and reflecting a brief swimmy aquarium shadow across the ceiling, and then it tilted forward and outward. Its leading edge slammed into Tom’s upper thighs and knocked him over. There was a musical jingle as bottles tipped over and shattered inside. He saw the mirror strike the floor on his left and threw an arm up to shield his eyes, losing the belt. Glass coughed across the floor, silver on the back. He felt some of it sting him, drawing blood.
Now she was crying, her breath coming in high, screamy sobs. Time after time she had seen herself leaving him, leaving Tom’s tyranny as she had left that of her father, stealing away in the night, bags piled in the trunk of her Cutlass. She was not a stupid woman, certainly not stupid enough even now, standing on the rim of this incredible shambles, to believe that she had not loved Tom and did not in some way love him still. But that did not preclude her fear of him . . . her hate of him . . . and her contempt of herself for choosing him for dim reasons buried in the times that should be over. Her heart was not breaking; it seemed rather to be broiling in her chest, melting. She was afraid the heat from her heart might soon destroy her sanity in fire.
But above all this, yammering steadily in the back of her mind, she could hear Mike Hanlon’s dry, steady voice: It’s come back, Beverly . . . it’s come back . . . and you promised . . .
The vanity heaved up and down. Once. Twice. A third time. It looked as if it were breathing.
Moving with careful agility, her mouth turned down at the corners and jerking as if in prelude to some sort of convulsion, she skirted the vanity, toe –stepping through the broken glass, and grabbed the belt just as Tom heaved the vanity off to one side. Then she backed up, sliding her hand into the loop. She shook her hair out of her eyes and watched to see what he would do.
Tom got up. Some of the mirror-glass had cut one of his cheeks. A diagonal cut traced a line as fine as thread across his brow. He squinted at her as he rose slowly to his feet, and she saw drops of blood on his boxer shorts.
‘You just give me that belt,’ he said.
Instead she took two turns of it around her hand and looked at him defiantly.
‘Quit it, Bev. Right now.’
‘If you come for me, I’m going to strap the shit out of you.’ The words were coming out of her mouth but she couldn’t believe it was her saying them. And just who was this caveman i n the bloody undershorts, anyway? Her husband? Her father? The lover she had taken in college who had broken her nose one night, apparently on a whim? Oh God help me, she thought. God help me now. And still her mouth went on. ‘I can do it, too. You’re fat and slow, Tom. I’m going, and I think maybe I’ll stay gone. I think maybe it’s over.’
‘Who’s this guy Denbrough?’
‘Forget it. I was — ‘
She realized almost too late that the question had been a distraction. He was coming for her before the last word was out of his mouth. She whickered the belt through the air in an arc and the sound it made when it smashed across his mouth was the sound of a stubborn cork coming out of a bottle.
He squealed and clapped his hands to his mouth, his eyes huge, hurt and shocked. Blood began to pour between his fingers and over the backs of his hands.
‘You broke my mouth, you bitch!’ he screamed, muffled. ‘Ah God you broke my mouth!’
He came at her again, hands reaching, his mouth a wet red smear. His lip s appeared to have burst in two places. The crown had been knocked from one of his front teeth. As she watched, he spit it to one side. Part of her was backing away from this scene, sick and moaning,
wanting to shut her eyes. But that other Beverly felt the exultation of a death-row convict freed in a freak earthquake. That Beverly liked all of this just fine. I wish you’d swallowed it! that one thought. Wish you’d choked on it!