The Escape

Today we escape! Years in the making. Weeks of collaborative planning. My children, coworkers, and friends sworn to secrecy. All those years I lied to everyone about the abuse but worst of all was realizing that I had lied to myself about the impact on my kids. The truth bared itself to me that fateful Saturday morning.

I awoke to sounds of cabinet doors slamming, glass shattering, and him yelling about the dirty dishes. I cowered under the covers hoping he wouldn’t come looking for me.

“It’s a fucking pigsty! Not even one clean cup for my fucking coffee!” he yells as he slams the back door on his way out.

I listen to the roar of his Panhead as he rolls out the driveway and down the street. I’m safe, for now. He’ll be gone for the day, riding with his friends. I breathe a sigh of relief, pull a sweatshirt over my pj’s and head to the kitchen to see what damage he’s done.

As I step out of the bedroom my teenaged daughter and her best friend – damn! I forgot about the sleepover last night – run over and hug me tight. I’m not sure if they’re scared, wanting comfort, or comforting me. We stand there hugging and starting to cry for a moment or two when my younger daughter joins us.

“Where’s your little brother?” I ask as we stand in our hug circle. The girls say they haven’t seen him since last night before they went to sleep. I let go of them and walk over to his room but it’s empty. The window’s open. He is a mischievous nine-year-old so I try to calm myself as I call out for him.

“I’m here, Mom” he says, crying, as he comes in the front door. “I was hiding down the street until he left because I had dirty dishes in my room and I was afraid he’d ”

I grab him in a big hug so he doesn’t have to finish the sentence. The girls join us and we all sit there on the foyer floor for a few moments. My mind is racing, as it always does in these moments. There have been so many over the years. Why am I still here? I used to say it was to keep the family together, he’ll get better, it’s my fault. All lies. The biggest lie of all, he doesn’t hurt the kids, exposed when I realized my son jumped out his bedroom in fear of his father’s wrath.

And so, we begin planning our escape. I have a friend in Colorado, a lawyer, who will let us live in her basement apartment so we have a destination. My abuser and I both get paid by direct deposit on the tenth of the month so I’ll have ready cash to run with. Lucky for me that he has always trusted me to pay the bills – unusual, I later learn, in cases of domestic violence. The kids have a day off from school mid-week for Veterans’ Day so we’ll plan around that. Over the ensuing days we begin packing our most precious belongings into boxes. Not everything, just whatever we feel we cannot leave behind. I tell the abuser we’re getting rid of stuff at a group garage sale in a couple of weeks and he believes me. I open a new account in a different bank and reserve a rental truck for the morning of our escape.

I can’t make this happen alone and so, for the first time, I admit to other people in my life what is happening. It seems I didn’t have to tell them. Everyone already knew, or at least suspected as much. At work we concocted a story that I will be at an all-day training session on that day so if the abuser comes looking for me, or calls the office, everyone has the same story. One coworker invites the kids and I to come to their house the first night. The abuser doesn’t know them at all so it will give us a safe place to catch our breath before heading out on our 1,300 mile road trip to Colorado.

Finally it is the eleventh. The abuser has already forgotten what I told him so, as he drinks his morning coffee, I remind him that I’m headed to a training today so won’t be in the office all day. School’s closed for the holiday so the kids are sleeping in. Of course, he’s particularly sweet and charming today as he says good-bye with a big kiss. I shudder as he walks away.

His shift at the bus depot starts at 8:00; I wait until 8:15 to make sure he hasn’t circled back for anything. The kids are eating breakfast so I sit with them a few minutes. We talk about how hard it’s been to keep the secret and how scared we all are now that the day is here. I let them each talk for a few minutes as they remind themselves how this is much less scary than his violence. A big group hug before I jump in the car and head to the truck rental agency while they finish getting ready for the day. I leave the car a few blocks away and walk in to pick up the truck. So far so good.

I park the truck in front of the house. It’s already 9:30 and there’s a chance the abuser will come back for lunch so now it’s a mad dash. Each of us is grabbing whatever we can and getting it into the truck as quickly as possible. No order – just get it in there! Bags and boxes, small enough that anyone could carry them, flung into the cavernous box of the 20’ moving truck. No one’s even saying anything really. Just running back and forth until there’s nothing left to take. The house looks like it’s been robbed – remnants of our lives strewn around as we close the door behind us and run away. Eleven o’clock as we pull away from the curb. Safe!

I am leaving behind my beloved San Francisco but I know that a great geographic distance is the only way this will work. I try not to think about what will happen if he catches me.

Three days later we arrive safely at our sanctuary and begin the long healing process necessary to build our new lives.

He did finally find us about a year later. By then I had grown strong enough, and had the support I needed, to stand firm. I met him for coffee, in a public place where I knew I’d be safe, and we chatted amicably for a bit. Then he asked, contritely, if we would ever again have a relationship.

“The only relationship we will ever have is that we are mutual parents of three wonderful children” I replied. I turned and walked away. I never looked back.