A Thread of Truth (21 page)

Charlie threw up his hands, “But isn't that just what I'm saying? You say we need more time together before we marry, and I agree. But how are we going to do that if we never see each other? That's my point! I'm not some chauvinistic, knuckle-dragging caveman who expects you to let your business fail just so you can wait on me or because I feel threatened. Nothing could be further from the truth. But somehow or other, we've got to figure out a way to make more time for each other. That's all I'm saying.”

“All right. Fair enough. You're right.” Charlie gave his chin a quick jerk, vindicated. I took another drink of my coffee. “And I'm sorry I lost my temper with you.”

“Me, too,” he mumbled. Saying sorry didn't come easy to Charlie. That was as close to an apology as I'd ever get out of him, but I knew he was sincere.

“So. We need to figure out a way to spend more time together.”

“Right. And still give our businesses and our friends the time they deserve, but short of giving up sleep, I don't see how, at least not until the tourists leave. This time of year, the restaurant has to stay open every night. And even though Cobbled Court closes at five…”

I shook my head. “Six. I've decided to expand my hours through the summer. It's foolish not to. Late sunsets mean that shoppers are staying out late, too. If I close my doors at five, I'm just turning away business. But, you know, the answer really is right under our noses. We used to find time to meet here every morning. Why don't we just start doing that again?”

Charlie lifted his cup and wiped off the coffee that had splashed over the side before taking another drink. “Well, it's not exactly a month-long getaway to a tropical isle, but for the moment I guess it will do. I've got another idea. How about if you come and have dinner with me at the Grill a couple nights a week? If you come after the rush—say, nine o'clock—I should actually be able to dine without having to get up every fifteen times. What do you say?”

“It's a deal,” I said.

He smiled, reaching across the table to take my hand and lift it to his lips. The soft, feathery sensation of my fingers brushing across his lips caused a thrilling flutter to rise in my chest and spread through the rest of my body. Charlie was right. It had been too long since we'd made time for each other.

With his head still bent over my hand, I leaned my own low and whispered, “Why don't you order Abbie's coffee now. Let's go.”

Charlie looked up at me. “It's only seven-thirty. Visiting hours don't begin for another hour.”

“I know. So if you take ten minutes to get the coffee and fifteen to drive to the hospital, that gives us thirty-five minutes alone in the car. Want to steam up the windows?”

Charlie grinned, reached into his pocket, and handed me his car keys. “Go warm up the engine. I'll be right with you.”

 

Visiting hours began at eight, but by the time we walked past the information desk and entered the elevator carrying Abigail's now-cold latte, it was a quarter past. We'd lost track of the time.

“Your lips are chapped.”

Charlie didn't say anything. He just put his arm around me and kept it there during the ride to the fifth floor, home of the cardiac care ward.

When the doors opened, we took a left at the nurses' station and walked down the long hallway. As we rounded the corner we saw a gray-haired man wearing a black shirt, clerical collar, and a solemn expression leave Franklin's room. He didn't look up when he hurried past. Charlie's eyes grew dark as he watched the retreating figure in black. I clutched at his hand.

“Wasn't that the hospital chaplain? Did you see the look on his face? What was he doing in Franklin's room? You don't think…”

But before I could ask the question that was so fearsome—just thinking it made my heart pound—we saw Abigail leaving the room.

Abigail's face was pale, drained of color. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, as if she'd just received a terrible blow.

Charlie and I quickened our pace, the sound of our steps echoing through the empty, sterile corridor. I reached her a split second before Charlie did.

“Abigail, what's the matter? What's wrong?”

Charlie put his arms out to support her and she practically sank into them. For a moment I thought she might faint.

Charlie gave me an alarmed look and jerked his chin in the direction of a wooden chair that was sitting a few feet away. I pulled it closer and helped him guide Abigail toward it.

“There now. Sit down, Abbie. Are you all right now?” Abigail nodded. “All right. Then just take a deep breath. That's right. Now tell me what happened.”

Abigail's gaze was wide and unblinking, but she looked right past us as if she were talking to herself. “Franklin had a rough night. He couldn't sleep. Said he was in terrible pain, but he wouldn't let me call the nurse. But he just kept groaning and I was so worried. Finally, about an hour ago, he asked me to call for the chaplain and I did. And when…” She paused for a moment and then shook herself before going on, as if trying to collect herself. “When the chaplain arrived, Franklin asked me to marry him. And I did!”

Charlie and I looked at each other, our faces mirrors of disbelief.

“You did?”

“You got married? Here? In the hospital?”

I laughed. “Abigail, you must be joking.”

Eyes still glazed, she moved her head slowly from side to side. “I'm not. Two of the nurses stood as witnesses. Franklin's voice sounded so weak when we were repeating the vows that I could barely hear him say ‘I do,' but as soon as the ceremony was over the color came back into his face and he sat right up in the bed. He's in there now right now, calling his daughters to tell them the news.”

She looked from me to Charlie and back to me. “I can't believe it,” she whispered. “I'm married. I am Mrs. Abigail Burgess Wynne Spaulding.”

I leaned down to give her a congratulatory hug but stopped when her lip began to quiver and she suddenly burst into tears.

“Now what am I supposed to do?”

D
onna Walsh facilitates the twice-weekly support group at the women's shelter. Even after four weeks, she makes a point of greeting me personally when I arrive, as if slightly surprised to see that I've shown up yet again. To tell you the truth, I find it a little surprising myself. After all, I was the one who swore I'd never, ever go to one of these things and, for a year and a half, I kept my vow. But a lot of things have changed in the last month. It's nothing anyone would notice by looking at me, but on the inside? I'm definitely doing some remodeling.

Finally telling Evelyn, Abigail, Margot, and the others the truth wasn't easy, but sooner or later, it had to happen.

For so many years, Hodge told me that I was worthless, that no one who really knew me could care about me, and I believed him. Of course, it didn't start with him. Secretly, I'd believed it all along. But I
wanted
to be loved. That's what made me take a chance on the truth. I had to know if there was anything in me, the real me, that anyone else could care about.

When I sat down at the workroom table and told them my story, my real story, I fully expected Margot, Evelyn, and Abigail to reject me. When they didn't, when the voices of the past—Hodge's, my mother's, my own—turned out to be wrong, it made me wonder how many other lies I'd been telling myself.

The answer, it turns out, is a lot. Let's start with one of the big ones: I stayed in my marriage as long as I did because I had to. This lie has many variations involving kids, finances, safety, et cetera; pretty much the same justifications the other women in our support group list when trying to explain why they stayed in their abusive relationships. Sitting in this circle for the last four weeks, I've heard every stupid excuse in the world. Funny how easy it is to spot the lies other people tell themselves about themselves—the more you do, the harder it becomes to believe your own.

So here it is: the truth. Finally.

Besides my father, Hodge was the only one who ever loved me, or at least gave the appearance of loving me. Yes, Hodge beat me, physically and emotionally. He broke my spirit as well as my bones, but he wasn't always like that. Sometimes he could be kind, even gentle. That was especially true during the early years. I kept thinking that somehow, if I could just figure out what I was doing wrong and be what it was he wanted me to be, then things would go back to the way they'd been before. I wasn't trapped in my abusive marriage; I
stayed
in it. I stayed because I wanted Hodge to love me. That was the truth and, in a way, it still is.

I understand now that Hodge didn't, doesn't, won't ever love me, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be loved. I still do, but I don't see how that will ever be possible. Love takes trust and that's something I don't have anymore. I don't mean lack of trust in men so much, though I
don't
trust them. What I'm talking about is a lack of trust in myself. Let's face it, when it comes to men, I have terrible judgment.

If I ever did meet a nice man, someone I could really care about, how could I ever trust that he really was what he appeared to be? When I met Hodge, I saw what I wanted to see: the looks; the style; the dashing prince on the white charger who rescued me from the gutter and seamy, steamy clutches of the disgusting Jerry—whom I also trusted when I first met him. How is it that I never thought to ask myself what Hodge was doing at the Atlantis Club? It wasn't like he'd just wandered in off the street by accident. He was a regular, a good customer; good enough that he could come backstage and call Jerry by his first name; good enough to run a big tab for the table full of leering clients. Hodge was in the gutter that night because that's where he liked to spend his time. How could I have failed to see that?

And that wasn't my only blind spot. For so many years, I thought Hodge hit me because of what I'd done or not done, that I deserved what I was getting. But when he turned on Bethany and started hitting her…I knew. Hodge didn't hit me because of who I was, but because of who he was. Hodge hit me because he liked to.

Realizing this is a big step for me, but it doesn't mean I've suddenly freed myself from guilt. If anything, I have new things to feel guilty about, like the effect all this will have on my children. For years, they were silent witnesses to the abuse. They watched as Hodge dished it out and I stood there and took it. I exposed them to the rules and roles of abusers and victims. What is that going to mean for them and their future relationships? Will Bethany grow up to be an easy target for men like Hodge? Will Bobby grow up to become an abuser himself? I don't know. I'm doing my best to make sure they don't inherit this destructive family legacy. But there are no guarantees. The odds are less favorable for them than for other children and I've got to live with that. It's my fault.

Also, taking big steps forward doesn't keep me from trying to retrace my footsteps. There are times, especially when I can't sleep, that my mind will hit the rewind button, playing and replaying the tape of my marriage, freeze-framing this decision, that omission, the careless words that escaped my lips, the wiser thoughts that were never voiced, trying to figure out where I made my first mistake, and my second, and all the mistakes that came after, and I try to figure out what I should have done differently.

Hodge hit me because he liked to.

No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make sense. And so, years after that light dawned in my mind, it still flickers uncertainly as I lie alone in the darkness, looking for reasons, wondering if the blame lies with me.

But when I go to the meetings, sitting in a circle on an unsteady folding chair and wondering what to do with my hands, and listen to the stories of other women like me, I'm not so sure.

We're all different: some are poor, others are rich; some have advanced degrees, others are high school dropouts; some like to talk, others prefer to listen; some have unblemished faces; others are marked by purplish bruises fading to sickly green. All of us have scars. All of us are trying to heal. All of us have a long way to go.

In a way that is different from talking with Abigail, or Evelyn, or even Margot, it helps me to tell my story to these women and to listen to theirs. When they tell their stories I can see them trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to figure out how they got to where they are. And often, especially in the case of the newer arrivals, they still think it was their fault and that if they'd said something different, or done something different, or brought the coffee more quickly, or remembered that he'd switched to half-and-half instead of cream, then the man they thought loved them wouldn't have hurt them so.

“He just lost his temper, you see? He's really not like that,” they say.

The rules of the group say we have to be quiet when others are speaking, and I am, but sometimes it is everything I can do to keep from screaming, “You're wrong! He
is
like that! You didn't do anything wrong. Even if you did, a broken jaw is not a fair exchange for a flubbed coffee order. You're innocent. You didn't deserve that. No one deserves that.”

No one deserves that. Not even me.

Sometimes, more often than you'd think, I'll come to the meeting to find one of the chairs in the circle empty; the woman who used to sit in it has gone back to her abuser. It's so sad. She still believes it is her fault and that if she changes, he will too.

But it's not true. I see that now. And while there are still plenty of things for me to feel guilty about, though the road I must travel stretches beyond the horizon, too far for me to discern where it ends, and though some days I take one step back for every two that lead forward, there is one thing I am certain of: none of my circle sisters will ever come into the room to find my chair empty.