Too Late

At first I didn't understand why I felt uneasy around this lady. She was articulate, accomplished and reflected the image of a confident woman. I spent a couple of afternoons in her company on one of my trips out of town. We talked about world politics, books we've recently read and loved, family matters, different diets, dreams to be chased and hopefully realized. Through it all, a thread dangled in front of me, beckoning me to tug at it and see what secret weave it might unravel. A look in her eyes when she talked about her teenage son confused me. Not the twinkle of pride and love that I see in every woman's eyes I knew. But a sudden dimming of the soul, as if a switch turned off the lights inside her when she mentioned her son's name. A shadow passed quickly over her gaze, and then disappeared again.

I've met women who lost sons in wars, illnesses or car accidents. Some lost their sons to mean wives that kept them away for years. No matter what the reasons were, none of them had that strange hiccup of a look, an oddity so unique, I can't find the right word to describe it.

From then on, I paid more attention to the words she used, her body language, the nervous laugh she uttered when I asked specific questions. I repeatedly reached out to pull the end of that dangling thread, but held back. Every family has secrets. There was no need to chase hers, I convinced myself. The nagging feeling to find out why I felt uncomfortable with my new friend when she mentioned her son mushroomed inside me.  I kept it in check, hoping it was caused by my over active imagination.

On my last afternoon visit with her, she invited me over for coffee at her house. Though cautious, my curiosity triumphed and I eagerly obliged. With the aroma of rich coffee, and a wonderful slice of apple pie, I lounged lazily in her living room, chastising myself for my suspicions. This was a cozy house, a family home. Her other children roamed around with innocent vitality. Nothing seemed out of place. My friend joined me on the couch, relaxed and joyful.

I heard a rough voice behind me, a man clearing his throat.

My friend's face froze, that weird look returned to her eyes. The coffee cup in her hand shook.

Must be her husband, I reasoned, making an unexpected stop at the house in the middle of the day.

She jumped to her feet, coffee spilled on the cushions.

I turned my head and saw a young man towering over me behind the couch. His eyes fixed on his mother, ignoring me. She launched into a series of apologies. I couldn't understand why she was so flustered. My friend rushed to the kitchen, pulled out a plate from the fridge and put it in the microwave. So she apologized because she was late preparing his meal?

He didn't utter a word.

I rose to my feet to face him. And there it was, slapping me hard, gluing me to the floor. A look in this young man's eyes so severe, so strange. The only way I could describe it is to say his eyes were empty. As if looking into a doll's glass beady eyes. Lifeless. No emotion, threatening or otherwise.

I introduced myself, explained that I was the reason for his mother's tardiness, feeling silly for playing into this abnormal charade. I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. No, I needed to get out there before I witnessed something more awful. I saw it coming when he went to his mother's side, moving like a lion stalking his pray. He shoved her aside with his fist, took his plate and left. She kept her back to me, head bowed, hands rubbing her upper arm.

This woman was afraid of her own child. What a twisted world she lived in. I spent the remainder of my visit discussing ways to help her. She listened, nodded her head and then offered to drive me to my hotel. Helpless, I left, knowing she would not follow any of the suggestions I presented. Not until something tragic happened, to her or to someone else. Too late. Way too late.


Lilas Taha is a novelist, winner of the 2017 International Book Awards  and is the author of Shadows of Damascus and Bitter Almonds.

No.

I had to say it. I hated to say it. I wanted to crawl under a rock and not have to say it. I stayed up all night, working out scenarios in my head on how to say it. I dreaded the morning’s arrival when I eventually needed to say it. I knew the kind of impact it would have on my client, 32 years-old and mother of three. But in the end, I looked her straight in the eye and firmly said no.   

I had been her advocate for nearly two years. The bond we formed together during that time was difficult for me to break. I saw myself as her sister or her best friend. But on that particular morning I recognized my selfish desire to be more than that. I needed to feel effective. I wanted to be in control. I searched for ways to make her agony count for something better.

She told me that when she called for help, she was sure no one would believe her because her husband never left visible marks on her body. She didn’t know what she would do if someone did step in to help her. And when I showed up at her doorstep, she had a panic attack. Hyperventilating and crying, she pointed repeatedly at her head and kept saying, “Inside. The bruises are all inside.”

Most people don’t realize there are many forms of domestic abuse. Physical abuse is the easiest to detect. But emotional abuse is another type of monster. It destroys the victim from the inside, like termites eating up the house structure without anyone taking notice. An emotional abuser tears down his victim by convincing her she’s worthless, that every thought in her head is questionable and needs his approval, and that she is the cause of her own misery, not him.

Isolation was the first step. My client told me her husband prevented her from communicating with family members. Neighbors were off limits. She had a car, mind you, and she was allowed to take the kids to school and get groceries. He wrote down the mileage before each trip and calculated the distance to her destination. Had she gone anywhere else, he would have known. He monitored the home phone and her cell phone, so she couldn’t make an unapproved call. He convinced her he could watch her online through surveillance cameras when she went to the grocery store, and demanded to see the receipts. He knew her email account password and stood watching over her shoulder whenever she used the computer. If she used it in his absence, he would track the browsing history and know where she went online. The list goes on.

Intimidation came next. When she took an miscalculated step, or traffic caused her to come home later than expected, he would walk out to the backyard, spray paint a big “X” in one area, then three smaller ones adjacent to it. She knew those “X’s” marked her grave and her children’s.

And so she complied and remained his prisoner. She thought no one who interacted with her would think she was in danger because, after all, she had the freedom to leave the house, had a car and money to spend. No one saw the shackles around her ankles.

I’m not going to tell you how she eventually managed to call for help, or what exactly happened that pushed her over the edge. But she did, and her long journey to independence began. She probably cried every day and every night. Sometimes I was a witness to those episodes of emotional breakdowns, but I knew that the real horror happened to her when she was alone, when she physically felt her world falling apart.

The morning I said no to her marked the end of her case in court. I had to tell her that her abuser, her ex-husband at that point, would not go to jail. She couldn’t understand why the judge would allow him to walk away. I had to explain that his actions were not considered criminal in the eyes of the law. He never laid a hand on her or the children. It was her word against his.

Having won her divorce case with enough child support was not her ultimate goal, I found out. She wanted to see him in handcuffs so he would experience what she went through during her thirteen years of marriage.

“Not even for one day?” she had asked. “One day in jail would be enough for me.”

“No, not even for one day,” I had to say.

You may find yourself judging her, thinking she should have been content in her new life. She had escaped with her children and was finally free with a secure future. She should thank her lucky stars - you may want to say. If you think that, then you really do not understand the devastation of abuse. It was not about revenge in her case. It was about restoring balance. In her mind, seeing him behind bars, even if for just one day, would give her closure.

However, there are no “just” solutions when it comes to domestic abuse problems, neither is there redemption. The damage is always irreversible, and balance is never restored even with counseling. She must continue on with all the holes in her soul wide open. If emotional abuse is a different type of monster, its victim is certainly a special kind of survivor.