Why Didn't She Leave?
Ch. 1 - A Life Lost in Abuse With Only a Child's View
Looking out the back door at the trees’ first buds of spring. Thirty-five lost years settled over you as heavily as the patio's broken retaining wall.
When you finally see it clearly, but it’s too late to change course now. Truly too late. Too late financially. Too late in time. You’re safer where you are for the time you have remaining.
The time to have left was half a lifetime ago.
When all the behaviors, insults, backhanded humor, lack of accountability, and conversations through gritted teeth coalesce into picture-perfect, bold clarity.
Why couldn’t you see it for what it was back then?
You look back and wonder what your life may have been like if you’d gone with your gut instinct years ago.
There was never any physical abuse. No, he was clever. He had never hit you. He used that as his fallback claim anytime you tried to mention abusive behavior.
But he had once threatened to.
You remember it like it was yesterday. The aromas of the cafe. Still early evening. He wanted to go to Best Buy next door in a strip mall. You were tired from the day and didn’t want to listen to everything he wanted to buy and thought he needed.
You encouraged him to go and take his time looking. You’d go back to the vehicle and happily wait.
His head and shoulders pressed against his side of the table, pushing it toward you. It came out low: “If you don’t do this, I might really physically hurt you.”
The shock and spine chill converged on you at the same time. You froze, your mind having gone blank.
What did he just say? Where did that come from?
What kind of man says that to his wife!
The events of the rest of the evening are a blank. You assume you went with him but remember nothing…
This wasn't the first time you had felt this small. The feelings and fragmented memories were older than you could ever fully reach, and they were only now beginning to find their way up. Slowly. Insistently.
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My first attempt at story writing: If you enjoyed this first chapter, I’d appreciate knowing.
Thank you for reading,
T.L. Tulipane, M.Ed.