"So how have you been feeling lately?" Shirley asked as she spun to face the rather unremarkable couch where I sat, my muscles tense and my heart beating exceptionally fast.
I met her bright smile with a scowl. "Fine." It wasn't a real response. "Just want to go home," I added darkly, setting my jaw and staring at nothing in particular on the plain office carpet beneath the plastic wheels of her chair.
The therapist nodded thoughtfully and glanced down at her paperwork. "I bet you do. How have you been getting along here? Have you made friends with any of the other kids your age?"
Smalltalk. This was stupid.
"Look. I don't need to talk to a therapist." Blunt.
Shirley shifted in her seat. "I know you don't need to. I'm just trying to check up on you, make sure you're doing okay." Fake smile. Lean forward. Facial expression shift to serious. "I know this must be really difficult for you. Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. I hate this place. The rules are so stupid. I miss my dad. I want to go home."
And I hate my mom, and I hate you
for being a part of this, I wanted to add.
Shirley smiled sympathetically (
FAKER!) and nodded, her fingers clutching the clipboard in front of her as if she could fix everything if only she squeezed hard enough. "It sounds like you're frustrated. But the rules are here to keep you safe, right? You're here so you can be safe."
"Safe from what?" I spat incredulously. But I knew what.
Concerned expression. "Your parents have some things that they need to work out. This is a safe place for you guys to be in the meantime."
Angry. So angry. Searing white. "I hate it here. I'm treated like a child every single day, I can't go anywhere or do anything, and I hate sharing a room with them. I don't understand why I can't just go home. This is so stupid. I'm not in any danger at home." The words spilled out furiously.
Shirley nodded (
stop doing that). "Your mom is going through a very difficult time. She needs you to be here with her so that she can know that you're safe, even if you feel safe at home."
I wanted to scream. This woman didn't know anything about me or my life. This was my first time being forced to see her, but my mom had been seeing her every day. This woman had no idea what the truth was, only the lies that my mother had undoubtedly spewed during those sessions. I felt so angry and helpless. I couldn't even begin to make this woman understand.
"She is not going through a difficult time. She is lying. She kidnapped me and she is lying about my dad." Bold accusations through gritted teeth.
A frown from Shirley. "What do you think she is lying about?"
"My dad doesn't HIT her." I seethed sharply. Even as a child, the intensity of my anger must have been intimidating. Shirley shifted in her seat again and tilted her head slightly, her eyes softening as if she had recognized something familiar.
UGGGGGGH STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE YOU KNOW BETTER THAN ME! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"Paula, you don't know that. You're not always there..." Shirley said softly, carefully, her sad eyes filled with a pity than only enraged me further.
"Yes, I am! I know everything that goes on in that house! I know him! I would know if he ever hit her!" I was well aware that I must have sounded deranged and naive but also knew that there was nothing I could do about it.
But it was true. I had known for a long time that my parents didn't get along, and it was less painful to know why than to wonder. I sat quietly in the hallway and listened to their fights. I learned that listening through the ventilation system was clearer than listening through the floor, and I heard every word of every fight even when they sent me to my room and fought downstairs. I learned how to pick up the phone and listen in on conversations so that no one else could hear me. I looked through paperwork in both of my parents' desks after they went to sleep. I listened to voice messages on the answering machine and marked them new again when I was done. I was awake when each of them went to sleep, which was always at different times, but sometimes after the door would close for the night I would lurk outside, my face near the crack between the door and the floor, watching and listening to see if anything ever happened. I looked through all the files on my dad's computer. I went through my mom's purse. I went through my dad's briefcase. I went through their closet when neither of them were around and looked through the pockets of their clothing. I opened suitcases and drawers, probed through bookshelves, and watched them from another room whenever I had the chance.
I have no idea what I thought I was looking for. But I had no doubt that nothing that happened in that house escaped me. Instead of interacting with my parents I spied on them. Instead of asking questions I observed the answers. I knew they weren't having sex, even though I wasn't quite sure what that was. I knew they slept as far away from each other in the bed as possible, facing opposite walls. I knew they thought that I had ADHD and had secretly asked all my teachers to fill out evaluation paperwork without telling me. I knew that my mom had stolen some of the valuable jewelry my family had given me on my first trip to India, but had lied and told me I lost it. I knew that there was porn on my dad's computer, but I sort of wondered if he even knew that it was there since he had inherited the computer from work and didn't really understand how it worked very well. I knew that my mom had a secret stash of money hidden in their bedroom... and it was a LOT of money. I knew how much my dad made in a year from looking through his paperwork, even though he refused to tell me. The list went on and on. But most of my knowledge was uninteresting or irrelevant. If something as serious as physical abuse were happening, I would know. I knew them better than they knew themselves, I felt. Listening to two people who knew each other intimately fight for several years was extremely revealing.
But that was not normal, and I knew it. I knew that there was no way to make this therapist understand that I was not a normal eleven-year-old, and that I knew things about my parents that they didn't even know about each other. I knew that I couldn't convince her that my mom was lying about the physical abuse to get back at my dad for not giving her what she wanted. I knew what my mom wanted- an easy way out of this marriage- and I didn't want her to have it. But there was no way to say that. Shirley looked at me as though I were a wounded puppy gnawing on my tail and crying by the side of the road.
I don't remember clearly how the rest of the session went, but I do remember that it didn't last much longer. I didn't try to argue with her about it any further, and I'm sure she dismissed my assertion that I would surely know if my father was abusive. I felt crushed by statistics. I had been overlooked by second-wave feminism, and there were at least seven years until I would even understand what that was.
I was eleven, and the world did not care what I had to say. The shelter's rules (for children under 12, which I would turn only two months later) mandated that I stay with my mother at
all times while in the shelter for abused women and children, so I spent the entire duration of my time there tethered to my abuser while she spewed lies about the only parent I felt safe around. No one bothered to follow up with me on my therapy session. No one bothered to ask why I was so certain that my mother was lying or so eager to return to my dad.
I lived in a shelter for abused women and children for weeks and no one bothered to ask me if anyone had ever hit me, only if my DAD had ever hit me. I felt very much as though I had been kidnapped, and I was terrified. My entire life had been thrown upside-down, and suddenly my abuser was the victim and I an insolent child. The world was an injustice, and my voice disregarded. I tried to email and call my dad to beg for help, but I was kept under sharp watch.
The shelter was my prison, and sexist assumptions kept me gagged. My mother would continue to abuse me for almost two years after we left the shelter.
Eventually, we left the shelter and returned home. My mom sold the food stamps we had gotten to a friend. My dad went on trial and was declared innocent. The world swirled manically in a blur of confusing events, until suddenly, we were pretending that everything was normal again. No one ever asked me for details about what had happened, and I didn't talk to anyone about my time there. I had kept a journal while in the shelter, but unfortunately, that journal is long gone.
I was buoyant. I put the events of that summer behind me once things started to feel normal again. I forced myself to forget a lot of the details. But two things from my experience at the abused women's shelter I will never forget. One is the feeling of sheer terror and helplessness that came from being quite literally imprisoned behind locked doors and security guards. The complete helplessness I felt during the therapy session was nothing compared to how I felt when curfew hit each night and the doors to the shelter locked shut from the inside. And that was nothing still compared to being twenty feet away from my mother outdoors but knowing that if I just started running the security guard would catch up to me in a matter of seconds and force me back inside.
The other thing that I will never forget is a story for another day.
