Fred celebrated the turn of the year 1971 by crumpling in pain from a greatly enlarged prostate. No real surprise, since he'd been seeing his girlfriend during the day and seeing his wife at night. The surgeons jokingly referred to it as honeymooner's ache and agreed to adding a vasectomy at no charge when Fred saw the ignoble hospital stay as an opportunity to solve one of his problems. So far, his girlfriend had not gotten pregnant, but he wasn't too sure she was using birth control as she had claimed, and wanted no poor girl to get him in her clutches with a baby. It wouldn't matter to Dinah anyway, since she had what she wanted and wouldn't ever conceive one of her own. Fred decided not to tell her though, making certain his doctors understood that the extra service wasn't to be discussed with her, telling them it would just be too dangerous for her to get pregnant, with her epilepsy and all, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings about it. They agreed, man-to-man, and performed the surgery.
Fred wasn't overly fond of children as it was, especially since Peter was growing to be a child from hell, completely spoiled by his mother and totally undisciplined. He'd passed his terrible twos and rolled right into the horrible threes without ever being sweet or cute. It disgusted Fred that Dinah still patiently spoon fed a child quite capable of eating on his own, and wiped his butt when Fred felt by that point the kid should be doing it himself. To add insult to injury, Peter still wet the bed at night, which threw Fred into rages, stripping the sheet off the bed and grinding the urine soaked center in the three-year-old's face. Dinah flew to Peter's defense in these moments, but never saw that Fred's desire to hurt her had simply transferred to a desire to hurt her son instead, so while she defended Peter, she excused Fred to the child, trying desperately to get the boy to grow up faster so his father wouldn't be so upset. This had the reverse effect, and the terrified child grew backwards in his maturity, some days reduced to sitting in a corner, sucking his thumb and babbling nonsense. Most days, though, he was throwing feral temper tantrums, beating on his mother, biting her, and kicking her until her bruises began to make Victory wonder if Fred was hitting Dinah again. Dinah was at a loss to explain the bruises, insisting Fred was not the cause, but ashamed to tell her mother that her baby son was the one abusing her.
This came to light one day when Dinah was visiting Victory, and Peter was upset that Victory wasn't allowing him into her cookie jar on the counter, for it was close to dinner and Victory did not want the child's appetite spoiled. Peter threw himself on the floor and started a kicking, screaming, slobbering tantrum. Victory stood there for a minute, surveying the theatrics, disgusted to note that Dinah did nothing, claiming it was best to just let him run his course. Victory disagreed. The fifty-six year old woman flung herself down on the floor facing the boy and began a tantrum that made his look like a spring shower.
Dinah initially watched in shock, convinced her mother had lost her mind, then a giggle rose up from her heart that nearly exploded from her as she slowly grasped what her mother was doing. Peter stopped dead in his tracks, looked directly at Victory face to face on the floor and stared her down. Victory didn't give. Peter launched himself at her and bit a chunk out of her shoulder. Without a hitch Victory rolled and grabbed his thigh, and bit his butt hard enough to make the boy cry out, but not hard enough to break the skin, then stood, dusted herself off, and excused herself to go into the bathroom to tend to her wound. It turned out her injury was bad enough to need a doctor's care, and they called Doc Smith, an old family friend and retired physician, to come over for dinner and tend to Victory's shoulder.
Peter was strangely quiet for the rest of the visit, and never acted out around Victory again.
For a long time, he behaved at home too, a peace that Dinah had not seen since she first held the squalling child. She sent her mother a simple filigree necklace, a silver ball with herbs inside, with a cryptic note that her mother had earned it. Victory never understood the reference, but accepted the gift and wore it innocently from that point on.
Peter behaving better gave Dinah the freedom to resume some of her social activities, and she returned to church avidly, bringing the child with her and depositing him in the nursery for the other ladies to worry about. She took a liking to the new Pastor, a bright single man with shining gold blonde hair, who treated her with respect and found ways for her to volunteer to kill some of the long hours of life as a housewife. Dinah soon was attending church several days a week, sometimes staying later, past the time when Fred came home. Fred initially was miffed since his supper wasn't ready, but saw that as an opportunity to spend more time on the road, and the two settled into a marriage routine of separate lives under a shared roof. It worked for them so neither questioned it, and within a few years had ceased having any form of marital relations by mutual unspoken agreement, while Peter sullenly grew into a now subdued mama's boy, hardly knowing his father and terrified of his grandmother. Dinah discovered Hemingway and soaked up the beautifully clear writing of the troubled author, identifying with how his characters exhibited grace under pressure and finally proud of herself that she had found a solution to the marriage from hell.