When Dean rushed to the kitchen, he found Cynthia, her hands to her face, in tears, grease covering the floor. He comforted her, as best he could, trying to learn what happened. She swiped an arm across her face in an attempt to brush away the tears.
"The bastard! She growled. "I hope I killed him!"
"What in God's name happened?"
Cynthia just shook her head, not answering, until Dean held her at arm's length and insisted on a response.
"He grabbed me," she finally blurted out. "He thought he was being funny. He grabbed my breast. I...I whacked him in the head with the frying pan." She began to cry anew as Dean rushed from the room and out the front door.
He caught up with Shipton on the sidewalk where the man was holding a handkerchief to the side of his head while loading gear to his vehicle and chuckling to himself. Dean turned him around as he was swinging, knocking Shipton flying into a snow bank with a right hand that started at ground level. The other guests, standing nearby, gaped in utter shock. Dean leaped on Shipton, clawing away at the soft snow, pummeling him like an eighth grade schoolyard brawler while Shipton, still clutching his ice ax in one hand, swung at Dean, catching him on the cheek and face with the side of the solid handle. Two of the climbers clawed them apart, pulling Dean from him, just as Cynthia reached the front door, screaming for him to stop.
The next fifteen minutes were an embarrassed blur as Dean tried to stem his bleeding face at the kitchen table. The others beat a hasty retreat as soon as they learned there were no fatalities, finally leaving Dean and his wife alone, with only Janet obliviously scrubbing away somewhere above.
"Good God!" Cynthia whimpered. "How could you? He could have killed you! That's not the way a grown man would respond! He could sue us! We'd lose Bird Song! Everything! Everything I love! The bastard is just not worth it. Just leave it alone. It's my problem. It's my breast he grabbed. If I want to smash the bastard's head, that's my decision! I just want him gone."
Dean tried to hold his wife but she pulled away. "Just clean yourself up. You're bleeding on your Christmas sweater. And don't mop up the floor! It's my grease!"
Back in his bedroom, Dean wondered through a dizzy fog if his nose and cheek were broken. The nose felt like it. There was a loud bang as the front door slammed with Cynthia's violent departure. He felt helpless and ineffective in dealing with this scoundrel who dared grope his wife in Dean's own house! He couldn't even get the son of a bitch out of his and his wife's life. Now all he'd accomplished was to piss off the woman he loved and make a public fool of himself! God, he thought, as he laid back his aching head, get me through the next few hours and maybe they'll all be gone! Then maybe, thank God, we'll have a bit of peace.