The morning of their final argument. The rain falls heavily dropping little bombs on the ledges, forming streams of water down the windows, Maggie's phone rings at 7 am, it's her sister Anne, Maggie unplugs her Samsung mobile phone from the grey bedside charging table lamp and heads downstairs to answer the phone. Bypassing the silver square mirror on the wall at the bottom of the staircase she gets a glimpse of her black eye, sore and having to squint just to see out of it she puts on a brave voice. "Hello, Anne" whispering calmly as she closes the kitchen door slightly. Anne quickly responds "Maggie, are you okay if I need to ring the police on that arsehole, I will" raging in her voice from last night's disaster at their family dinner. Maggie pours herself a fresh black coffee from the machine and sits quietly at the kitchen table. "It's not necessary, when we got home we just went straight to bed without any talking" Maggie sips her coffee. Her face is full of guilt from lying to her sister. Anne mutters 'do you want to go shopping today, get you out of the house for a bit?' Maggie touches her bruised face and declines her sister's attempt of getting her away from Michael. "I don't have money and I need to tidy the house I have so much to get done today I need to get food for the pigs, may…"Anne cuts Maggie's excuse short and says with a harsh sigh "forget it, you want to stay under that monster's spell then fine, but if you do change your mind call me and I'll come right over". Maggie agrees and they end their call as Michael walks through the kitchen door. "What did she want?" He asks stubbornly wearing a white vest and thick grey Adidas shorts, "she was just wanting to know if I wanted to go shopping later" Maggie replies reading the newspaper from off the table "you don't need to go shopping, you only spend your money on crap we don't need" he snaps. He looks in the fridge and gets a beer out. As the can opens Maggie works up the courage to say how she truly feels, "Michael.. Darling, please sit down we need to talk" she begins to shake nervously oblivious to what mindset he's going to be in. He pulls the chair from the side of her and sits down, plonking his beer on the table, she offers her hand for him to hold and he asks "what's this about?" she moves in closer and reaches for his hand again, this time he holds hers tightly and she says "Michael, we need to talk about your anger, you're turning into a monster" standing up to leave, she starts to cry; he slams his hand down on the table viciously and yells "don't you dare, try to talk to me about anger" he swipes the newspaper knocking the coffee over, the cup rolls off the side smashing as it hits the floor. He hisses once more "clean up and stop with the crying will you". He exits the kitchen, taking the paper and beer with him. Timidly shaken she steadily glides her scrunched up arm sleeve to erase the multiple tears from her battered face. Standing up from the table she gets the brush and pan out from the cupboard and cleans up the shattered ceramic Wiping the coffee with the kitchen roll she puts it in the bin and washes her hands. Looking out the window at the pigs in the mud grunting happily as they eat the grains from the ground. She dries her hands on a tea towel, and heads upstairs to get showered and dressed.
Going past Michael in the front room, slouched on his recliner leather brown chair, his beer locked in his left hand. The tv controller on the right armrest. His eyes shut but he is not asleep. "You better had cleaned that mess up" he snarls. "I did, if you go look for yourself you would know" she quickly responds. She goes upstairs before he says anything else. Turns the shower on and gets clothes out of the wardrobe ready to dress into. She spends an extra five minutes under the hot water thinking of what to say to him, deciding what's the right way to go about asking for a divorce without him hurting her. Her fingertips stroke along the abusive scars she never shown anyone, yet with every touch reminded her more of how much she needed to get out. Maggie acts out her leaving episode in the shower, she closes her eyes and talks as though she's confident in herself to stand up to him. "I want a divorce, I am leaving you. I want a divorce I am leaving you, I want a divorce…" her voice gets louder, she stops and shuts the water off to get out of the shower, wrapping the towel around her body and another around her hair. She looks at herself in the mirror and gets her makeup bag from under the sink, applying the makeup to her bruises she messages her sister "I changed my mind" out of service it sends but doesn't deliver.
With no weather change to the heroic rainstorm, Maggie enlightens a plan remembering how Michael never goes to the garage when it rains because of the floods they get. when she leaves the bathroom she hopes to pack a bag and leave without him catching her. Maggie walks out of the bathroom fresh with makeup on about to unwrap the towel to get dressed "when did you start taking longer showers" Michael wonders as he lays full stretch on the bed, Maggie's freshly ironed clothes dumped on the floor now creased. "Michael, I didn't hear you coming up the stairs," she says startled, her plan has backfired. "Do you think I'm stupid?" He asks. She doesn't respond heedless of what he heard when she was under the shower he gets off the bed and stands over her. With his intimidating power, he asks her once more "do you think I am stupid?" She looks down and shakes her head "no Michael" she looks up at him slowly, reaching eye contact he immediately slaps her across the face leaving a red hand mark. Upset and confused she asks "what did I do to deserve this?" he comes back to her and shakes her body like a rag doll. "I know you've been texting!" he screams at the top of his lungs. "I am allowed out of my own home," she says calmly. Not wanting to show him how feared she is she grabs her clothes and walks away from him. He demands she comes back but she continues to walk. In an utter state of rage, he yells abuse as she walks away. At this moment he learns to understand his poor wife he has used as a punching bag all this time has finally stood her ground. He dares refuses to accept what she wants and he follows her downstairs.
In the living room once dressed, she grabs her handbag from the side of the chair and pulls out divorce papers, Michael watches her every move as he starts to clench his fists. She rushes over shoving the papers in his face she breaks out months of powerful anger and upset she too had bottled up for months. She shouts in his face "I am leaving you, you can't stop me I've bought the plane ticket and I am finally free from you!" She feels empowered. Michael comes out of nowhere, a fiery look in his eyes as he pushes Maggie to the side. His fists take the lead; the punched cupboard, the broken photo frames that once held happy memories, the flipped-over kitchen table, the smashed fish tank with the little goldfish in a small puddle on the floor flopping around barely surviving. The cracked window from where a wine bottle was thrown. "What have you done!" She falls to her knees heartbroken, picking up the dead goldfish in her hand, after less than a minute. Michael storms over to her with a glass vase in his left hand. She stands up to get away from him as she tells him she is leaving once more, she grabs the car key from off the side and turns her back to him. He looks at her and yells "Till death do us part!" he swings an aims for her head. Maggie falls to the floor on her chest, the papers go flying everywhere and the hard hit to the back of her head starts to bleed out.