Through the Crack in the Door

As Hope made her way down the dark hallway, she could see the light coming through the crack of the nursery door. She just wanted to say goodnight one more time. As she rested her cheek against the cool wood of the doorframe, Hope listened to her mother’s voice in the sing-song hum that she used when she put her and her brother to bed. Hope looked through the narrow opening, feeling safe in her surroundings.

That was when everything shifted. She heard her father’s voice slicing through the softness. It was too loud and sharp. She was not even sure what he said; she just knew that it was the kind of voice that stopped her heart in her chest.

She heard something small hit the wall, and her little brother began to cry. Hope’s hands squeezed the doorframe. She felt fear curl down to her toes, and she could not move.

When her mother finally spoke, it was too quiet to hear, or maybe Hope’s heartbeat in her ears made it seem that way. Then her father moved forward. It was not a movement of comfort.

Hope saw a change in her mother’s posture and expression, and then watched her mother take a step forward toward her father. She stood tall, staring up into his eyes.

The light shifted across his face just enough for Hope to see his jaw clench, his eyes sharp and mean. The stillness was worse than if they were shouting. Then his expression changed. There was a flicker of either recognition or maybe shame, and then he turned away.

She did not understand what she was seeing. All she knew was that her stomach hurt and the air felt wrong, but more importantly, he had changed. She backed away from the door, careful not to make it creak. Her heart beat too fast for her small chest.

Hope heard him mutter something under his breath, and then she heard her mother’s hum return. It was strained but steady.

When she crawled back into bed, she pulled the blanket over her head and whispered goodnight to the dark. But the house did not feel the same. It felt tilted somehow, like the floor might give out if she moved too quickly.

In the morning, her father smiled at her like nothing had happened and everything was as it was before. Her mother hummed while making pancakes and asked her about her dreams, while her baby brother babbled away happily.

Hope tried to talk to her mother about what had happened, but she could not get all the words out. Everything swirled away in her mind. Her mother smoothed her hair, kissed her on the forehead, and told her, “Sometimes Daddy gets upset. It’s okay.”

That was the moment she learned to let silence settle where questions should be.

As the years passed, she learned many things that began that night. Hope smiled in pictures even when the room felt wrong. She navigated which sounds meant it was safe to come out and which meant it was not. There was one phrase that was always in her mind, It wasn’t that bad.

When the time came for Hope to go off to college, she thought she was finally leaving it all behind. She finally had the freedom not to feel like she had to walk on eggshells. The constant watching of what she said and being mindful of mood shifts would finally be a thing of the past.

She would not have to stifle her voice like her mother.

Hope met him during her junior year in college. He was so charming and gentle—the kind of man who opened doors and called her “sweetheart” in a tone like he thought he was the luckiest man alive to have her. The best part was that he never raised his voice.

After they got married and had their first child, the small things started to creep in. He would sigh when she took too long to answer him. His hands would tighten on the steering wheel when she disagreed with him. Then came the tiny corrections that sounded like care.

“It was only a joke.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“That didn’t happen.”

He started stepping closer to her when she tried to speak up. Not to touch her or hurt her—just too close. She felt unsafe in those moments. Each time it happened, she kept telling herself that it was not the same. He is not my father, and I am not my mother.

Then, one night, while Hope was folding the baby’s laundry in their small apartment, the tone in her husband’s voice brought back the memory of that night so many years ago—the one that changed her life forever. The light from the nursery door in the dark hallway. Her mother’s step forward — and ultimate silence. The sound of something hitting the wall.

Hope’s breath became uneven. He was still talking to her, but she could not be sure what about. The words were just a blur in her mind. All she could see was the look on her father’s face that night—the moment he realized what he had done and still did nothing.

She knows how this ends.

No matter how strong her convictions were that she would not allow herself to be small like her mother, here she was. She looked at her daughter sleeping in her crib next to the bed and knew that her mother taking that step forward that night was her way of fighting back. But Hope knew she needed to do more for her daughter. This is where it ends.

This realization caused Hope to start packing her things. That night, she told her husband she was leaving. He did not understand why—not really. He told her she was overreacting, that he would never hurt her, and that she was just being “dramatic.”

She had already stopped listening.

Hope knew that danger did not always start with fists or bruises. Sometimes it began with a tone or the way someone stepped forward when they should have stepped back.

She left the key on the counter and, for the first time in years, she slept through the night.

Years later, she stood outside her daughter’s bedroom door. The bedroom light spilled across her bare feet from the crack in the door. Her daughter was whispering to her stuffed animals and tucking them under a blanket like little babies. The soft rise and fall of her voice was the sweetest sound.

Hope entered the room to tuck her daughter in for the night, and when she read to her and kissed her on the head, her daughter asked, “Can you leave the light on?”

She smiled. “Of course I can.”

Her daughter nodded, satisfied, before rolling over. Hope lingered in the doorway for a moment. The light pooled around her like a warm blanket.

Her thoughts flashed to the other door from so long ago and the little girl who stood behind it, frozen in place. She wished she could tell her that it is okay to leave the room and that it's okay to say this isn't love.

Instead, she whispered it now, to no one and to everyone.

“You get to choose peace.”

Then she closed the door gently, leaving the light on.