Mistake

One of my biggest regrets, is not being able to tell the deputy that helped me, "Thank You." He changed my life and the lives of my boys in a way that I can never repay.

Twenty-five years ago, I was married, had two little boys. I remember sitting at the neighbor's kitchen table. A cup of coffee in my hand. I see the cup shake ever so slightly. My vision is blurry, one eye is partially swollen shut. Bruises are starting to show on my face, fingerprints show clearly on my neck. The screen door opens and closes. I hear voices and glance up.

The deputy that I have seen several times before is coming through the porch into the kitchen. He takes off his hat and places it on the counter. He doesn't look at me at first. Just clears his throat and asks if I am ok. I try to think of a response, something that will keep him from questioning me about why I'm here.

He finally looks at me, I see his eyes narrow. He looks tired, frustrated, annoyed. "You know this is only going to get worse. How many times have officers been out to the farm in the last three or four months?"

My reply makes me feel so stupid. "Four since he came home from rehab." He's been home two months.

I look at my hands, I don't want the deputy to ask anything else. I just want everything to go away. Mud is starting to dry on my skin, my jeans are still wet, there's a rip in my shirt. I can smell the wood fire in the neighbor's fireplace. I have seen this deputy five or six times since I married my husband.

I've had more bruises over the last years than I care to think about. I don't remember most of the arguments. The food was too cold, the laundry wasn't done right. The boys were too loud, I talked to mom too much. One day we argued because I had a job, the next week he was upset because I didn't. I had quit because he wanted me to be a stay-at-home mom. I walked on eggshells. Afraid to speak. I apologized for everything, even things that were out of my control. I felt crazy, I felt alone, trapped.

The first four years were not bad, maybe it was a great love. I don't think so because I smiled so much less after the wedding. I remember being young and so thrilled to be getting married. Having a home of my own, a family. He had kids, an ex-wife. I should have known, seen the signs. Oh, not me, I'm going to fix him, make him happy.

The first time he stayed out overnight, came home drunk, we had been married about six months. That was the first time he slapped me. He apologized, over and over. Sent me roses, took me out to dinner, we danced the night away. I pushed it to the back, he loved me, right?

After that he started to be more controlling. But it was a slow process, when I think about that time, I can see the pattern. He wanted me to stop seeing some of my friends. They ran with a dangerous crowd was his reasoning and we needed to worry about "us". Before I knew it all my friends where the friends he had before we married.

Next, he started complaining that I spent too much time with my family. I needed to be more involved with his family. My mom was too needy. My sisters to bossy. So, the time with my family got to be less and less. We spent more and more time with his family or alone on the farm.

He didn't hit me again until we had our first son. I was over the moon, our baby, he was perfect. I thought he would be just as happy. Instead, he seemed upset because the baby took time away from him. He hit me that time because the baby woke him up. Then the roses came, the dinner and the dancing. I couldn't leave then, couldn't take the baby, he'd die without us he said. Besides, he reminded me that I had no place to go. No one cared about me but him.

It happened about once a year for a while, then every six months and then just whenever he was angry. He drank way too much, stayed out late way too often. But always there were roses, dinner, dancing and the promise that he would never do it again. When I tried to leave, which I did several times the last two years, he always threatened to take the kids. I was exhausted most of time.

When we had been married eleven years he agreed to go to rehab. I was so excited; he was going to change. He was gone a couple of months. The boys and I started to settle into a more normal routine. No late-night screaming matches. His counselor said he was making good progress. We had joint counseling twice a week. He made a list and apologized. "Making amends", he said it helped. That he knew he had been wrong and that I wasn't to blame for his drinking. He loved us, wanted to be a family.

He came home on Monday, he stayed sober two days. The cops came on Friday. He was mad because I had talked to the banker. From there on, it just got worse. The boys didn't want to stay home. I lost my job when he took the car and didn't bring it back. He was arrested for DUI and I didn't have the money to get him out. His mom had talked to me earlier in the day and hadn't planned on giving him the money. I don't know what changed her mind. Maybe he had called and made her feel guilty. He was good at the guilt game.

I had let my guard down that day, thought he wouldn't be out since there was no money for bail. He slammed through the front screen door breaking it off the hinges. He was cursing, screaming that I was going to pay for embarrassing him. Making his mom come get him. I remember him sliding his belt off, the snap after he folded in half. My heart was pounding in my ears, I felt the first few blows and curled into a ball. At some point I passed out.

When I came to, I was in the front yard, and it was raining. I wasn't sure where he was as I staggered to me feet and walked back to the house. Not finding him in the house, I called my neighbor and she met me at the road. That's how I came to be in her kitchen.

The deputy asks me a question, I just look at him blankly. Then he says something that changed everything. "You know he is going to kill you someday. But it isn't going to be just you that he kills. Those boys are old enough to talk. He is going to kill them, too." I remember gasping, it felt like the air was sucked out of me. I felt tears on my cheeks. How long had it been since I had cried last? A real cry, not just from being frustrated or being afraid. Months, years, I'm not sure. I felt like a dam had broken, I couldn't stop. The deputy left, he called to let us know that my husband had been arrested.

I had the neighbor drive me home, I packed two suitcases. One for me and one for the boys. Called my sister to come get us. She was at the house by the time the boys got off the bus. We went to mom's and then to CASA. The boys and I stayed there for several months. I got a job, an apartment and finally an old car. I never went back. The boys saw him for supervised visits.

That was our life. We started to re-build. The boys started a new school, made friends and started playing baseball. By the time the divorce was settled, I had started coming to terms with the fact that I had allowed my life to be changed so much. I had given up my identity, lost myself. I had put my children's lives in danger and allowed them to witness things that they shouldn't have ever seen.

I remarried several years later. He worked really hard to make us feel safe, have the things that we needed. He was involved with the boys, helped with schoolwork and coaching football teams. He took kids to ballgames, listened to endless video games. We had a daughter: the boys loved their little sister.

I pushed him so hard in the beginning, tried to find things that made him angry. It took a while for me to realize that he wasn't going to hit me. It took even longer for my oldest son to trust him. I'm not sure that happened until he was grown with children of his own.

Over the years, I realized that I hadn't protected the boys from the memories. I hadn't left soon enough and that is one of my biggest regrets. My oldest son to this day, won't buy his wife roses. He buys her lots of other flowers, but she loves roses. She asked him why one day. He told her he didn't need to. He hadn't cheated on her. I still feel the shame of the day that she told me what he had said.

I shouldn't be surprised that they have more memories than I would like. Even after all this time, a wood fire takes me back to that kitchen. Roses make me angry. The sounds of a screen door slamming, or the snapping of a belt terrifies me into silence.

I hope the deputy knows he made a difference and saved three lives that day.