leave him. I talked to another woman who had to change both her and her daughter’s names and Social Security numbers, effectively erasing their identities, because her ex-boyfriend, a cop, had stalked them all the way across the country. There were women who were forbidden to switch on a lightbulb while their lovers were out of the house, and mail-order brides who had been raped so severely that they required reconstructive surgery just to take a pee. One woman called simply to say, “The police won’t help me. I have to tell
someone
—if I’m found dead tomorrow, I want you to know this man’s name.”
I kept these women on the line as long as I could, afraid of what might happen to them when they hung up. I got repeat callers who knew me by name, and for whom I would beg the local shelters to find a bed. At home I would fold my hands against my heart and ask Someone, Anyone, to protect these hunted women scattered across the country, then throw in a quick, half-superstitious Hail Mary for good measure.
If only all battered wives could be so conveniently sympathetic. The monoliths of abuser and abused cast stark shadows across the American conscience, when the real picture is something more complicated, a prism that captures the full spectrum of good and evil and shatters it into fractured pieces of color and light. I spoke to several women who balked at the idea of state-subsidized housing; they informed me that they would rather be called “fat bitch” on a daily basis by their boyfriends than downgrade in apartment square footage. A sense of racist entitlement prevented many women from seeking shelter in a domestic-violence safe house. “I don’t want to share a bathroom with some Hispanic lady and her ten kids,” I heard more than once. “Can’t your organization just give me some money so I can stay in a motel for a couple months?”
Some callers had an obstinate love of material comfort that made me want to slap them myself. These women were not slaves to their lovers or even to a violent, twisted concept of love. Their bondage was to a man’s steady paycheck and the meaningless
things
it bought.
I heard stories of fear and self-hatred that echoed my own. I heard a lot of broken records. Sometimes I would be so numb at the end of an eight-hour shift I’d find myself stabbing my thighs with an uncoiled paperclip while the caller on my headset described being beaten with a power cord. This particular caller didn’t want to involve the police or get a restraining order or even break up with the man who did this to her. She told me she’d stolen his credit card and treated herself to a shopping spree instead. I could feel my eyeballs twitching as I listened to her, and buried somewhere inside my chest the beating of a cold, mad heart.
——
I WAS FOUR YEARS old when my father married his girlfriend, Carla. My mother was forbidden to attend the wedding. It was a slight she never forgot.
“They made this big deal, telling everyone in Danvers not to tell me where the ceremony was,” she told me. “Like I was going to burst in and stop the show.” My mother rolled her eyes. “
Please
. I just wanted to see you in your little flower-girl dress.”
Kathi had known Carla in high school. In the shallowest sense, they were women of the same ilk—short, Italian-American brunettes. Girls like this can sniff each other out from across the room at a party, and either become best friends or instantly, rabidly despise each other.
“Carla thinks she’s won some big prize,” my mother said when she heard about my father’s engagement. “Ha! She’s getting exactly what she deserves.”
And yet when my father was in one of his moods, clearing the kitchen table of dishes with one impulsive sweep of his arm, punching holes into the walls, swinging a baseball bat inside the house, it was my mother’s kitchen where Carla went to recoup. A couple of times a year, my stepmother would appear at the front
someone
—if I’m found dead tomorrow, I want you to know this man’s name.”
I kept these women on the line as long as I could, afraid of what might happen to them when they hung up. I got repeat callers who knew me by name, and for whom I would beg the local shelters to find a bed. At home I would fold my hands against my heart and ask Someone, Anyone, to protect these hunted women scattered across the country, then throw in a quick, half-superstitious Hail Mary for good measure.
If only all battered wives could be so conveniently sympathetic. The monoliths of abuser and abused cast stark shadows across the American conscience, when the real picture is something more complicated, a prism that captures the full spectrum of good and evil and shatters it into fractured pieces of color and light. I spoke to several women who balked at the idea of state-subsidized housing; they informed me that they would rather be called “fat bitch” on a daily basis by their boyfriends than downgrade in apartment square footage. A sense of racist entitlement prevented many women from seeking shelter in a domestic-violence safe house. “I don’t want to share a bathroom with some Hispanic lady and her ten kids,” I heard more than once. “Can’t your organization just give me some money so I can stay in a motel for a couple months?”
Some callers had an obstinate love of material comfort that made me want to slap them myself. These women were not slaves to their lovers or even to a violent, twisted concept of love. Their bondage was to a man’s steady paycheck and the meaningless
things
it bought.
I heard stories of fear and self-hatred that echoed my own. I heard a lot of broken records. Sometimes I would be so numb at the end of an eight-hour shift I’d find myself stabbing my thighs with an uncoiled paperclip while the caller on my headset described being beaten with a power cord. This particular caller didn’t want to involve the police or get a restraining order or even break up with the man who did this to her. She told me she’d stolen his credit card and treated herself to a shopping spree instead. I could feel my eyeballs twitching as I listened to her, and buried somewhere inside my chest the beating of a cold, mad heart.
——
I WAS FOUR YEARS old when my father married his girlfriend, Carla. My mother was forbidden to attend the wedding. It was a slight she never forgot.
“They made this big deal, telling everyone in Danvers not to tell me where the ceremony was,” she told me. “Like I was going to burst in and stop the show.” My mother rolled her eyes. “
Please
. I just wanted to see you in your little flower-girl dress.”
Kathi had known Carla in high school. In the shallowest sense, they were women of the same ilk—short, Italian-American brunettes. Girls like this can sniff each other out from across the room at a party, and either become best friends or instantly, rabidly despise each other.
“Carla thinks she’s won some big prize,” my mother said when she heard about my father’s engagement. “Ha! She’s getting exactly what she deserves.”
And yet when my father was in one of his moods, clearing the kitchen table of dishes with one impulsive sweep of his arm, punching holes into the walls, swinging a baseball bat inside the house, it was my mother’s kitchen where Carla went to recoup. A couple of times a year, my stepmother would appear at the front
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