Hannah
Rambunctious shouts fill the air of my silent condo as the girls come barreling in.
The smile that lights up my face is a genuine one, not only because I’ve missed them but because my day had been absolutely terrible.
Noelle and Breanna hurtle into my arms as I stand from the rickety kitchen chair I was just occupying.
I kiss the tops of their heads. “Oh, I missed you! How are you doing?”
I try to infuse lightness in my tone, when every muscle in my body feels everything but. This was their first visit with Shane since the emergency hearing for my restraining order. I’d gone with my lawyer, the morning after the assault, to the courthouse to request a restraining order against my husband. We petitioned to have the girls fall under that, but since there was no prior recorded history of violence on his part, and he’d never harmed the girls, the judge denied that portion.
The leaden anvil of that defeat still sits heavily within my stomach. So instead of keeping my girls close, I had to send them to visit the man who put me in the hospital mere weeks ago. Who had caused me physical and emotional pain for years on end.
And since he’s Shane Giraldi, baseball superstar, the judge hadn’t even mandated that there should be a supervisor present. So for the first time since either of the girls were born, my husband was spending four hours of uninterrupted time with his children. I had no idea how that would go, but it tied my stomach into knots and left me barely able to breathe for the majority of today.
“We’re good! Daddy bought us ice cream, and then candy at the store! And we watched Frozen, twice!” Noelle fills me in.
Great. So Shane just doped them with sugar and sat them in front of the TV. Figures he has absolutely no idea how to be a parent, considering he was never around long enough or had enough patience to deal with our children.
My smile is so big and fake it hurts my cheeks. “That’s great!”
I pick my two-year-old up. “How is my baby?”
Breanna nuzzles into my neck and then holds up her thumb. “I got a boo-boo.”
My gut plummets to my feet. “How did you get that?”
Because now I’m imagining my abuser taking his anger out on our little girls.
“She got it stuck in the door, because she was playing with it.” Noelle flashes her sister a tattletale face.
I lower my eyebrows at Noelle and smooth a hand down Breanna’s back. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to play around like that. Would you like me to kiss it?”
My littlest one nods, and I smack my lips against her finger.
“Daddy says he misses you so much, and for us to tell you every day how pretty our mommy is.”
At Noelle’s adorable little voice, my stomach drops again. Like a heavy stone into a black lake, dread prickles at my neck, giving me the feeling of sinking. My fingers go numb as I realize, for the thousandth time, that my husband will not be going down without a fight. And knowing how he likes to brawl, it will be a no holding back, knockdown, drag out.
When someone tells you something enough times, you’re going to believe it. Not only believe it, you’re going to write it into your life as fact, carry it as a personality trait, make it a part of yourself. With Shane, it was him telling me I was never enough. That I wasn’t enough of a wife, a lover, a mother, a cook, a supportive partner, a fan of his. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t enough, but he made me feel like a charity case nine times out of ten. My husband would tell me that another man couldn’t possibly love a screwup, a weak, lazy woman like me. That if I left him, no one else would take me in. That I’d be homeless, out on the streets without his generosity.
And yet, I miss him. Because it wouldn’t be a toxic, abusive relationship without the highest of highs. I know that now, having been in therapy for almost three weeks and researching all kinds of articles after Noelle and Breanna are fast asleep. Wives or women in abusive marriages are often reeled back in for a variety of reasons, but one of them is that when their partner turns on the love, they dial it up to twelve. It’s off the Richter scale kind of affection, adoration, and worshipping.
My marriage is the textbook example. Shane would smack me, split my lip, cause me to bleed. I’d hobble away crying and lock myself in a room. I’d almost be at the brink of bravery, swearing in my head that this time I would leave him. And then he’d coo and whisper sweet words. Caress my body with such effortless care that I’d feel like the most revered woman on the planet. In really horrible cases, he’d spring surprise vacations on me, whisking me away to an island or on a romantic weekend getaway to a Rhode Island bed-and-breakfast.
There are nights I lie awake craving the warmth of his body next to mine. Mornings that I miss his kisses. Even in the worst of times, I still get butterflies thinking about the way his mouth met mine.
I make myself sick, that I could still deeply love and yearn for an absolute monster. Shane is a vile human being, one with no remorse and the capacity to love the size of a thimble. But he’s effective in his tactics, even now, when he sends our daughters home with praise for Mommy, directly from Daddy.
“Okay, that’s enough, rascals! I told you it was bath time, so scram!”
My younger sister, Dahlia, walks into the condo like a drill sergeant. The girls squeal and make off toward one of only two bathrooms in the whole place.
I have to thank my lucky stars that Colleen Callahan found this place for me. I’m ashamed to admit she’s footing the bill, but if it weren’t for her, my girls and I would be living out of my car right now. Which, technically, isn’t even mine. Shane controls everything, including the passwords and reins to our entire financial portfolio.
The condo is something that looks rather sterile and corporate, with its white walls and IKEA furniture. But it’s a roof, and it has working plumbing and appliances, two things I didn’t realize I’d ever need to be thankful for.
Sooner though, as in this week, rather than later, I’d need to find gainful employment. I can’t keep being Colleen Callahan’s charity case, no matter how much I need it.
I spent a majority of the day calling around to salons and searching open chair positions online. It was no surprise that there weren’t any hair parlors or spas looking to hire a hairdresser who has been out of work for close to six years and hadn’t renewed her license or taken continuing education courses in the same amount of time.
But I have to find work, some kind of way to provide for myself, and that was the only thing I knew I could go back to. I never went to college, as it wasn’t really a goal my family pushed.
Growing up, I started my life on the island of Oahu. Born into a family of coffee farmers, my grandfather and father worked tirelessly to provide for our large extended brood. My younger sister and I might be the only children of our parents, but my father is one of seven children. There were always dozens of cousins running around barefoot through the coffee plants and gathered around card tables on holidays. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich … not that it ever mattered to us. My memories of the early years are of jungle, sand, and surf. Hawaii is a magical place, one I don’t get back to often enough, and even though it has been nearly a decade since I’ve been on the island, I miss it terribly.
The year I turned eight, my father was offered a job opportunity with a farming organization in California, and took it. We left our home, and most of our family, behind. Over the years, some of the family has moved from Hawaii to California, after seeing my father’s mild success in holding down a traditional job. And I grew up, going to a regular suburban high school, and eventually enrolling in the best beauty school I could find.