A Thread of Truth
Authors: Marie Bostwick
A SINGLE THREAD
ON WINGS OF THE MORNING
RIVER'S EDGE
FIELDS OF GOLD
“A High-Kicking Christmas” in COMFORT AND JOY
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Dedicated to women of courage everywhere
who have gone from victims to victors
in the battle against domestic violence
This book could not have been written without the guidance of some very special people, including Barbara Spiegel and Nancy Rogers, who, along with the rest of the staff and volunteers at the Susan B. Anthony Project (sbaproject.org), work tirelessly to free families from the scourge of domestic violence. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and for giving me a more complete understanding of the issue of domestic abuse against women.
Also many thanks to Annie Dranginis for helping to clarify the complexities of the legal system in Connecticut.
And, as always, my thanks to “the team”âAudrey LaFehr, Jill Grosjean, Nancy Berland, and associates, Sherry Kuehl, and Adam Kortekas. Without you, I'd just be a lady with a computer and a suitcase of unfulfilled dreams. Thank you for helping make my most audacious wishes come true.
T
he counselor is young, blond, and pretty, and obviously nervous. She glances at her reflection in the wall mirror when she enters the waiting room, adjusts her collar, and clears her throat before extending her hand toward me with a wide, rehearsed smile and a request for me to follow her back to her office.
After a quick kiss and a promise that I'll see them in a few minutes, Bethany and Bobby obediently accompany a volunteer to the playroom where they will wait until I finish the intake interview. I follow the counselor down a wide hallway with recessed lights in the ceiling and thick, fawn-colored carpeting on the floors.
This is a strange place. More like an upscale hotel than a women's shelter, at least not like any shelter we've been in before. Everything is so quiet and everyone on the staff is so welcoming, as if they've all been recruited from the ranks of retired desk clerks and children's librarians, kind and purposely calm. Well, almost everyone.
As we approach a turn in the corridor, I hear the sound of two women arguing, politely but heatedly. One voice is strained and restrained, trying to appease another, slightly louder voice that belongs to someone skilled in the art of employing clipped, educated enunciation to intimidate those who disagree with her, the voice of a woman who is used to having her own way.
“Abigail, I'm on your side. You know I am,” the first voice says. “But this is a shelter, not a balloon. You can't just blow more women into it like so many extra puffs of air and think it will just keep expanding to make room for the additional volume. I wish we could accommodate everyone who comes through the door, but we can't. We've only got so many beds.”
“And
that
is exactly my point. Every month we have more people coming through the door than we did the month before. It's the worst sort of foolishness to think that trend is suddenly going to reverse itself. So why is the board dragging its feet? No! Don't interrupt me. You don't need to say it. I've heard it all before. âThese things take time. We should do a feasibility study. Or take a poll. Or hire a consultant.' Rubbish! We don't need to do any of that. We need to hire an architect and a bulldozer. Today! I am sick and tired of sitting in meetings, listening to Ted Carney drone on about stiffening intake standards while the rest of the board sit and stare at their navels and do nothing! If it's a matter of money, I'll write a check tomorrow. I⦔
“Abigail,” the first voice says wearily, “it's not just about the money. You know that. It's a question of space. We simply don't have it⦔
My heart sinks. It's the same old story; no room at the inn. I should have expected this. Every shelter has more requests than it can handle, but everyone has been so pleasant since we walked in the door that I dared to hope there might be room for us right away. Maybe if we wait a few days. I dread the thought of sleeping in the car again, but what else can I do? Besides, this is such a nice place, so clean and quiet. If we could stay here, even for a week or two, maybe I'd be able to clear my head long enough to figure out a plan to exit the revolving door that leads from one shelter to the next and get the kids into a real homeâat least for a while. I'm so tired of sleeping in a different spot every night. I'm so tired of being so tired, but from the sound of things, there is no place for us here. I should have known better than to get my hopes up.
As we round the corner, I see the counselor consciously straighten her shoulders and smooth her hair. The women halt their conversation as we approach. The counselor's voice lifts to a slightly higher register as she introduces us. The first woman, I am told, the one with a genuine smile and dark brown eyes that match her short cropped hair, is Donna Walsh, the shelter director. The second woman, who doesn't wait for the counselor to do the honors, informs me that she is Abigail Burgess Wynne and she is on the shelter board. They are both attractive, but Abigail Burgess Wynne is beautiful, strikingly so. Tall, well-dressed, and imposing, with platinum white hair drawn into a blunt-edged ponytail at the base of her neck, high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and a smooth complexion, she might be any age from fifty to seventy.
Donna Walsh puts out her hand and, when I take it, she lays a second hand on top of mine. The gesture surprises me and I have to stop myself from drawing back. It has been so long since I was touched with affection. I don't quite know how to respond. “Hi, Ivy. Welcome. It's so nice to meet you.”
“Thank you. It's nice to meet you, too.” I haven't had much call for company manners recently, but I still remember how it works.
“Leslie's going to be conducting your intake interview?” she asks, looking at the young counselor, who nods. “Well, then you'll be in good hands. I hope we'll be able to help you.”
Abigail Burgess Wynne raises her eyebrows to their highest point as she interrupts the director. “Oh, don't worry about that,” she says pointedly. “I'm
certain
we will.”
Once we get to Leslie's office, I take a seat in a firm but comfortable armchair on the opposite side of the desk. I watch Leslie as she repeatedly presses the top of her ballpoint pen with her thumb while she fills in the formsâname, children's names, dates of birth, and the restâtapping the pen top several times after she writes down each of my answers.
The clicking sound reminds me of those cheap, plastic castanets Bethany had. She used to put the
Nutcracker Suite
on the stereo, grab her castanets, put her arms over her head, and clack them together, twirling in a circle to the “Spanish Dance.” She loved those things. I wish I'd thought to bring them, but there wasn't time. So much had to be left behind.
She notices me noticing the clicking pen, laughs, and admits what I'd already suspected. She is new on the job, just finished with her training. In fact, I'm her first client, well, the first one she's handling completely on her own.
“Must be exciting to start a new job.”
“It is, but it would be more exciting if jobs like mine weren't necessary.” She shrugs. “But, anyway, let's get back to you. You're from Pennsylvania? That's a long way. How did you end up in New Bern?”
I take a breath, deep but not too deep, and keep my eyes focused evenly on hers, pausing now and again as if to collect my thoughts, not wanting to sound rehearsed. I tell her the story I have prepared in advance, the details I've worked out carefully in my mind, the revised history I quizzed Bethany on before we arrived, reminding her that if she got confused or nervous, she should say nothing. After all she's been through, silence is a perfectly understandable response for a child. No one will question it.
Leslie bobs her pretty blond head sympathetically, bent over her clipboard, taking notes. She believes me. And I am struck by how easy it is. The lies just slip from my lips like thread from a spool and she believes every word I am saying.
I wish it didn't have to be like this, but I've got to do what I've got to do. With its white clapboard houses and trim green lawns, New Bern, Connecticut, looks like a town lifted straight from a Norman Rockwell painting, safe and secure as can be. But after last night, I don't want the kids to spend one more night sleeping in the car than they absolutely have to while we wait for an opening in the shelter. If it were just for myself, I wouldn't do it, but if lying to this woman is what it takes to protect my children, then that's what I'll do. I have no choice. Still, it bothers me to think how good I have become at getting people to see only what I want them to see.
But why wouldn't I be good at it? I've had so much practice. And it isn't like my life is a complete fabrication. It's close to the truth, just not close enough.
I married at eighteen. I have two children I love. Bethany is six. Bobby is eighteen months. All this is true and the rest of it is almost true.
We were almost a happy family.
But that word is an abyss that separates happy families from everybody else. Almost.
I wonder if she understands that, this newly minted intake counselor, fresh from training on the care and feeding of women in crisis? She wants to understand, I can see that, genuinely wants to help, but something about her, something about the smooth shape of her forehead and the crisp ironed creases of her trouser legs make me know she is merely an observer, standing on the edge of the abyss and peering into it. She has not been in the valley herself and probably never will. I hope not, for her sake.
That, too, makes it easier for her to take my story at face value. She won't investigate it and I have all the paperwork, or enough of it, to prove my claim. I am who I say I amâIvy Peterman. But what I don't tell her is that I never changed the name on my driver's license and Social Security card after I married. Maybe I forgot to. Or maybe, deep down, I knew it would come to this one day. Whatever the reason, I have the documents to prove that I am me.
The rest of the storyâthe true parts, that my husband abused me for years and that my children and I have been bouncing from emergency shelter to emergency shelter for months now; the almost-true part, that we've got nowhere else to go; and the lie, that my husband was killed in a construction accidentâshe accepts without question. Even with her training, training that surely included admonitions not to buy into the stereotypes of victims of domestic violence as being poor, powerless, and poorly educatedâin other words, not like people this woman lives next door to, not people from nice suburban neighborhoods, or even wealthy ones, with trimmed hedges and late-model SUVs in the drivewayâpart of her still finds it easier to accept my story precisely because it feeds into the stereotype: poor, teenage girl marries boozing, battering, blue-collar boy she thought would be her salvation, not realizing what she was getting into until it was too late. She finds it easy to believe because it's almost true and because she
wants
to believe it. The whole truth would hit too close to home, send her to the phones and files to verify my background, but this? It doesn't even cross her mind to check my facts. I can tell.
She smiles and gets up from her desk, excuses herself for a moment, and promises to be right back.
In spite of the elegant furnishings and plush carpets, the walls between the offices are surprisingly thin. I can hear Leslie's voice, high and uncertain as she speaks to Donna Walsh in the hallway, mixing with the director's calmer, deeper tones, intersected and frequently interrupted by the clipped, insistent voice of the older woman, Abigail Burgess Whatever-Her-Name-Was. I don't remember anymore. I can't understand what they're saying, so I turn my attention to the sounds coming from the playroom next door, where I can hear Bethany's and Bobby's muffled voices as they play with the volunteer. I like knowing they are so close and I like being alone in this room. Even with the murmur of voices coming through the walls, this is still the quietest room I have been in for weeks. It feels good to sit here alone and think. Peaceful.
Maybe, if I want to, I can stay here for a while. This seems like a nice town, filled with nice people. People like Leslie. She's just a couple of years younger than me. Twenty-two, twenty-three at the most. Fresh out of college. So weird. All she knows about the world is what she's read in books or heard from her professors. I'm twenty-four but I've seen enough to last three lifetimes. She makes me feel ancient. But stillâ¦If I lived here, maybe we'd be friends, go to the movies or shopping. Do the things that girlfriends do. It would be nice to have a friend, someone who knows the truth about me and likes me anyway, to stay here for a long time, to live here, maybe forever.
No, I remind myself. That can't be.
We can't stay. Not forever or for long. Even if I'm right and Leslie never checks out my story, or if I'm wrong and she eventually does, it doesn't make any difference. We'll be gone before the truth comes out. We must be.
If we stay too long in one place, he's bound to find us. It isn't safe to stand still. But if I'm careful? Then, maybe? For a while? I'm tired of looking over my shoulder, of carrying my life and my children's lives stuffed into a suitcase constructed of half-truths, and only as large as can be fit into the trunk of my Toyota.
I'm lost in my thoughts and don't hear the counselor when she comes back in the room.
“Mrs. Peterman? Ivy? Are you all right?”
The sound of her voice startles me, jars me back into the moment, and I realize that she's been gone for a good while, at least fifteen minutes. “Sorry. I was a million miles away. Guess I'm tired.”
Leslie tips her head to one side, and murmurs sympathetically, “I can imagine you are. Don't worry about it. We're almost done here.” She puts the clipboard on her desk and sits down again. “We'll get you and the children something to eat and see you settled in for the night.”
“You can take us? Tonight?” I can't quite believe what she's saying. Maybe I didn't hear her correctly. “You've got a room right now?”
She nods, pleased that I am so pleased, and beams when she tells me the truly amazing news, like she's handing me a wonderful and unexpected gift. And she is.
“Butâ¦I thoughtâ¦when I heard them talking in the hallâ¦I thought you were full.”
“Well, technically we are, but Mrs. Burgess Wynne absolutely insisted that we find you and the children a bed tonight. She said if we didn't, then she was taking you home herself, so Donna did a little shifting and asked some of the single women to double up a few days so we could make room for you and the children now.”
“Really? Thank you. Iâ¦I don't know what to say.”
“You don't have to say anything. I'm so glad we were able to find a place for you. And”âshe grinnedâ“the news gets even better than that. We have an opening in the Stanton Center. Not tonight but soon.”