“Let’s watch this movie together tonight,” I had suggested to David a few weeks before this event. I remember distinctly watching the movie “Ordinary People”. “That was exactly what it was like for me growing up,” I said to David. “You’re just stupid,” he retorted angrily. He got up and left the room. How does the person in whom you could confide your deepest secrets become the last person in the world you can or would confide in?
“Get out,” I told David again the day after he had smashed the toys. I said it every day for weeks after that. He simply ignored me. He pretended nothing out of the ordinary had happened. How can he do that? It made me feel like I was crazy. Was I imagining what happened? I knew Jessica had seen it and that gave me comfort and strength. I couldn’t afford to move anywhere with the children. I didn’t have the money for the deposits needed to move into an apartment. I didn’t have money to go to a hotel. I didn’t have money to hire a lawyer and I am not sure that would have helped if I did. The next several months passed without any further incidents of violence. Then the violence returned with even more force. It was now directed at me. I am not sure the children really knew the difference.
“You are out of control. You are crazy!” I yelled at him. “You make me do the things I do because you are such a lousy wife!” David shouted as he hurled something at me. I ran in the direction of one of the bedrooms. He followed me. I turned to face him in the doorway of the bedroom. He punched me and I fell down. Samuel was standing behind me and he fell too. I landed on top of Samuel. He was five years old.
“You are not going anywhere,” David said to me. He stood between me and the door. He wouldn’t let me leave the room much less the house. Every time I tried to leave he pushed me back into the room. I tried not to scare the kids more than they already were scared. I heard the kids in the next room playing together. They came in and said good night to me.
The next day David got Samuel and Jessica off to school. Ellen went next door to the sitter’s house. Eventually David dragged me into the car with him on some errands. He stopped for a red light. I jumped out of the car. I was fortunately only a few blocks from the office. I can’t really remember what I said or did at the office. I know I really didn’t tell anyone what had happened. I was too embarrassed. Somehow I got a ride back to the house. I called the police. David didn’t come back to the house that night.
“We can’t do anything m’am since your husband isn’t at home. If he comes back give us a call,” the police officer said to me.
I went to work the next day. The children went to school and the sitter. The children were understandably acting out at home. I was feeling totally overwhelmed. I called a few family lawyers but I didn’t have the money to hire one. That night David came home again. The next time David became violent and tried to keep me in the house I was able to run out the front door and get to my neighbors. My neighbor called the police. I ran back home immediately to see David pulling out of the driveway with Samuel in the back seat of the car. My heart sank.
“Do you have someplace you can go for the night?” the officer asked me. Finally I was talking to a compassionate officer who didn’t look at me like I had horns. Domestic violence wasn’t taken very seriously by police officers or even the courts back then. I frantically searched in my mind for someone to call. We had just moved to this city several months ago. This isn’t exactly something you want to talk to good friends about much less new acquaintances. “You need to call someone,” he insisted. Since David had fled before the officer arrived there was nothing that could be done to him right then.
“He is your son’s father and there is no custody order so I can’t do anything about him taking the boy,” the officer said. Very reluctantly I picked up the phone and dialed the person I knew the best in my new city. “Eva can the kids and I stay at your house tonight?” I heard myself ask. I felt like I was outside my body – like I was watching this happen to someone else. I knew Eva was going to ask why and I dreaded that. She did and I responded, “David has hit me and tried to keep me from leaving the house. The police officer does not want the children and I to stay here tonight. ” Eva hung up the phone without saying anything. “We will be all right here,” I told the officer. I spent the better part of the evening in a panic wondering where Samuel was and if he was OK. David dropped Samuel off at the house later that night and left. Maybe things are going to get better I thought.
I had a restraining order issued but I could never get David served with it so it was of no use. During that time I think he would have simply ignored it anyway. I filed for divorce. By some miracle David simply stopped coming back to stay at the house. That didn’t mean he disappeared from our lives entirely.
I was afraid if I told people at the office I would get fired maybe not right then but eventually. I kept everything a secret for a while emulating my upbringing. I must have made some excuses for leaving the office on occasion but I don’t remember anything about that. I know that I never told anyone about the violence. We never spoke about it with the children but I know that the children kept everything a secret as well. We were an isolated island of misery and despair surrounded by and functioning in a huge ocean of normalcy at least for others. I went to work. The children went to school. We carried on as if our life was not all about fear and violence. I felt disconnected as if I lived in two separate worlds. I had no idea how to help the children cope.
“I am going to kill you, cut your body up into little pieces and bury it in the desert so no one will find you. I am going to kidnap the kids and take them to Mexico,” David spewed this venom. He had barged his way into the house on the pretense of picking up the children for a visit. Suddenly he stopped. Jessica had entered the room. It had become a pattern that was repeated over and over again. He would say these things every time I had contact with him. Each time Jessica would enter the room David would stop. I know Jessica heard what he said. My poor Jessica! I was afraid David would really carry out his threats. I think Jessica was too. He was crazy enough, at that time, to do it.
The phone was ringing again. I looked at the clock. It was 2 am. “Who are you sleeping with tonight you whore?” I heard David scream. I hung up the phone. I double checked to make sure all the windows and doors were locked. I lay awake all night. I was afraid if I didn’t answer the phone he would come over to the house and do something worse.
David picked up my mail from the mailbox and read it. He broke into the house, answered my phone and ransacked my things. He stole my car. He called me at the office and at home accusing me of having affairs with every man I came into contact with. He would come to pick up the kids for a visit and punch me in the face when I opened the door.
How does one respond to all of this? Should I fight back? Should I be passive in hopes of placating him? Would it really matter what I did? Is my response really going to affect his behavior to any significant degree? It seemed no matter what I did he was hell bent on abusing me. Nothing could stop that. Any change that could have affected his behavior would have to have been done long before he first raised his fist to punch me. I knew he was in a rage and wanted to destroy everything. Things like courts and police have no power over such a person. That was perhaps the scariest thing of all.
I apologize to the reader if this all seems out of order or makes little sense. As I write this I am overcome by potent remnants of the fear and anger. I feel confused. It is as if my defenses kick in and my mind becomes foggy to protect me from too many bad memories. I have tried so hard to forget the details of what happened. I don’t even want to remember them here.
These events went on regularly for at least nine months during which David engaged in all of the above and more on a weekly basis. The children and I lived constantly, every minute of every day, with the fear generated by his actions. I was trying, perhaps mistakenly, to keep things as normal as possible for the children.
I don’t recall why I did not get more help from the courts or police. Was I right to feel bad about myself because I didn’t fight back? Or should I just judge myself as a victim who is helpless to change, at that particular moment, the course of events? I tried not to judge myself too harshly. In some way I sensed that if I fought David too much and involved the courts and police he would fight harder and maybe carry out one of his threats. I hoped David’s rage would eventually be spent and he would simply go away. That strategy didn't work all that well. (To be continued)
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