Story 1

A scene from divorce

I'm typing this into my iPad because I can't bear the thought of opening my computer. You'd think that there would be nothing left to say after six years. That after sixty some odd therapy sessions that all of the words would be gone or sorted out. But they're not. They rattle around in my head like a rock in the bottom of my shoe causing my brain to spiral out of control and me to compulsively eat the cherry blow pops my ex in laws brought to the last visit. I'm disgusted with myself but I can't stop.

There are so many things I'd like to say. I wish someone would just sit with me for hours and listen to my stories like it's the first time they've heard them. I wish someone would nod at the right times and join me in my outrage at others. Not these fifty minute sessions where I fool my therapists into thinking I'm better and drive home feeling worse because I've failed at therapy.

I have gotten better. I rarely think about hurting myself now and I can't remember the last time I had a crying fit and locked myself in my room. But it's the leftover emotions no one tells you about. The residual damage from events so traumatic you're sure you will never be the same. There is not enough time to tell the stories that would heal me. To tell them over and over until I'm desensitized and sure of myself again. I feel like I'm hiding things, especially from my kids. They have no idea about what my life has been like what I've faced despite paralyzing fear. "We hope you have a good day tomorrow Mommy" they say after I've lost my crap at their childish disobedience. I can't tell them. I can't. I won't.

The image that refuses to leave me this week is Sophie at the kitchen table in my old house. Hair chopped short like a boys so she can't grab it by the root and pull it out. Nine years old. It was dark by the time he brought them home. She was wearing a tank top and leggings. She ran into the house.

"Hi Mommy he didn't feed us again," she chirped her tone consistently inconsistent with the information she was giving.

They sat down at the table. Liam was two. His blonde ringlets springing out from his head. I sniffed them partly for my own comfort and partly to see if he'd been around smoking. I started dinner.

"Guess what?" Sophie sang.

"What?" I said.

"Daddy hit me!" she proclaimed with a smile on her face.

I dropped the knife I'd been using to make their peanut butter sandwiches.

I tried to breathe my chest was tight.

"What's that love?" I said, remembering the pink paper rules.

"He hit me!"

"Today?" I asked.
"Yup just right now. Can I have goldfish?"

I got her goldfish and called my mother who lived three doors down. She was at my house in less than a minute.

"Grammys going to stay with you guys for a few minutes I need to make a phone call upstairs ok?"

I ran up the stair with my red phone and dialed the all too familiar number.

"Hello?" he answered his voice like gravel sounding like he just woke up.

"Did you hit her?" I half screamed into the phone. I could see myself in the bathroom mirror my neck splotchy and the creases in my forehead deepening. I was trembling. With rage. With excitement. With fear.

"Well yeah," he said.

"Why?" I asked trying to get ahold of myself.

"She was popping her knuckles," he said "she wouldn't stop so I had her put her hands on the counter and I hit them. It's not like I put her in the E.R or anything. You really need to get a grip."

"Get a grip?" I screamed my spit saturating the screen of my phone, "get a grip? You hit our daughter!"

"Yup," he said "and I'll do it again."

"Watch," I hissed, "what happens next."

I hit the end button and immediately called my lawyer who filed an ex parte denying Richard visitation for the next thirty days. At the hearing he fought for the right to hit our daughter.

"It's my understanding," his lawyer said, "that this child is frequently defiant and could use some discipline."

My attorney almost grabbed my shoulder to keep me from going across the table after him. This man was fighting for my ex husband to hurt my child! It's his right, he said.

The mediator intervened stating that neither of us could use corporal punishment on either child.

"Then we'd like to revisit the issue of increasing husbands time share percentage," his lawyer said. Funny they still refer to him as husband even though we've been divorced for over a year.

The mediator apologized citing some rule about that issue not being in the filing and he shuffled out of the room on his cast and crutches.

And that's just one. One of hundreds of instances like that. They sit there and just when I think I'm gaining control and confidence they break loose and rattle around.

I wonder sometimes where that girl is, the watch what happens next girl, I wonder if I'm still able to fight the same way. But the truth is I'm tired f fighting. I'm tired of being bombarded by these memories that should be gone by now. I'm tired of the stomach cramps that are forming just at the thought of this stuff. It's like I'm back there in two seconds the adrenaline the fear the letdown all coursing through my body all at the same time. And I don't understand why it isn't gone. And I hate myself that I can't make it go away and that my daughter was hit in the first place and that I married someone who would go to court for the right to hit her and I can't tell her. I'm trapped by decency and too much time having gone by and I realize I should probably go back to therapy.