A Butterfly Formed in the Desert

I patched up the holes on my body like the holes in the walls; a little concealer for spackle, a little sparkle in my eyeshadow since my eyes had none. But there was nothing that could patch up the shattered pieces of my heart. Those broken shards stabbed at my mind and my body creating an echo of pain that ricocheted within the chasm that had become me. That void made from loneliness and hopelessness mixed with fear and loathing - loathing of him, of my life, what it had become, and loathing of myself. If that chasm had a smell it would be that of a body in decay. I was decayed.

The makings of those holes echoed within it as if on repeat. They burned and twisted everything within me inside out and upside down until I could no longer see the world the right way up - as if I was looking through the reflection in a spoon amongst bits of cracked mirrors. It burned until I was nothing but ash and smoke inside - the semblance of a person. I was a body. I had breath. But I wasn't alive anymore.

Perhaps I thought I was Belle in the beginning, believing the Beast could learn to love as I loved. Perhaps it was that the abuse wasn't like it is in the movies - violent and in your face and obvious from the beginning. Perhaps it was more like a mold in the walls of a freshly painted house, always there but growing unseen behind the surface, infesting everything behind the scenes with rot. You brush off the little things here and there not knowing that your lack of speaking up is acceptance enough to encourage it so it festers and grows with your silence.

Moving states away to Phoenix, away from my family, losing my support network and leaving behind every comfort only made it worse. But I stayed silent. His lack of success and financial struggles made it worse. I stayed silent. He started to break things. I stayed silent. He started to grab me. I stayed silent. He would yell in my face. I became the root of every problem. Still I stayed silent.

My feelings were wrong. I shouldn't push his buttons. If only I didn't interrupt him. If I just thought differently. If I would only blindly support his every move. If I'd just stop crying. Stop worrying. If only I'd just stay silent... always.

Out of so much fear - fear for my children, fear of him, what he would do if I tried to leave, fear of being able to make it as a single mother, fear that I had failed, fear that maybe it was really all my fault somehow... I stayed silent. Out of embarrassment and shame and guilt I stayed silent.

I was silent until the silence was so loud in my ears I could not hear anything else. I was broken and the chasm that was within me had swallowed me whole, a greedy demon that's appetite was never satiated. That was until the quiet delicate voice of one of my children looked at me, sad, and questioning, “mommy, why is he hurting you?”.

It was as if those words held up a future telling mirror in front of my face and I saw the episode of dateline that would come from this. I saw my children’s future marred by violence, forever holding them back with the bounds of trauma. I saw myself and the shell of who I had become. Every illusion and pretense that I had installed defensively to protect myself from facing reality shattered.

An hour later I rapped a tentative knock on an unmarked alleyway door, hands shaking, legs pillars of jello, my sleepy 18 month old heavy in my arms in need of a nap. My other three children clustered around me tightly, clinging to me like a lifeboat. We were all, the 5 of us, in this perilous ocean together, sink or swim from now on.

A middle aged woman with soft blonde hair that curled just so around the frame of her face answered the door. Her pool blue eyes were warm, like the shade of the sky in summer time. A gentle knowing smile that whispered of encouragement lined the edges of her mouth.

“I need help” I uttered, my voice as shaky as my hands and legs, finally - FINALLY breaking the silence.

No hesitation - she opened the door.

Inside unfolded into a sea of cubicles, plain gray and unassuming. One might assume that financial audits were done in this place, and perhaps that was the beauty of it. The gray walls didn't judge, didn't play pretend, they just listened.

She led me into an office; another young woman joined with a clipboard and a pen. I sat - a sense of relief flooded through my gelatin limbs which now seemed to have decided to spasm - trembling with worry, quaking with fear, an engine that had gone nowhere in years sputtering as it desperately sought to turn itself over. Would they believe me? Would they help me? What would they do if I didn’t.

“How can we help you?” her soft voice asked - that gentle knowing smile again.

It was enough care and compassion to embolden my quaking heart and break down the plywood board within me that had been guarding everything I had been bottling up - the black ugly truth hidden from the world, corked with shame and labeled with regret. I told her of my fear. I told her some of the things he did and more of the things he said. “If I ever tried to leave - he would have me arrested, charged with kidnapping the children” He’d told me - hands on my neck, eyes glaring with murderous warning.

A reassuring hand. A tissue offered like a white flag begging me to surrender. “It is the hardest step - choosing to leave, but you’ve come to the right place.”

Validation - the concept felt so foreign after seven years of living underneath gaslights. It felt like the sun was warming my face for the first time after a long winter and I clung to each and every sliver of it.

A few phone calls later and we were whisked away to a shelter, with gates and locks and security, but it didn’t feel like a prison despite all the bars and singular rooms filled with cheap bunks with even cheaper mattresses. It felt like safety and it felt sturdy - a foundation poured of concrete reinforced with rebar. It was a place meant for rebuilding and designed for transformation - a temporary cocoon. I wondered how many women had been through this place - too many. Even one is too many. And there I was among them, another story of domestic violence that the walls would hold sacred and keep safe. I was trembling still.

As my girls and I sat in our room, unsure and unsteady despite the solid ground we stood on, a kind woman with deep ebony skin and a beautifully round face came to us with her own young daughter. “The first day is the hardest” she proclaimed, “Why don’t you come with me so we can get you some things for you and your girls.”

She whisked us off to the store and without hesitation she filled a basket with things the girls liked, asking them questions of “this or that”, and tossing things in with a nonchalant flair. She picked up a yellow box of chamomile tea and placed it in my hands, “And this is for you. There’s nothing better than a good cup of tea sometimes.”

I clutched the box so graciously offered as if it contained the crowned jewels. The delicate tea bags within it, each one, a talisman of generosity, compassion, empathy, and kindness, trinkets I did not realize I had been longing for. I wanted to throw my arms around her instead of muttering a feeble thank you, my emotions twisted into knots of fear tied with relief were still holding me back from myself. “It takes time.” she smiled, as if she knew every fiber of my thoughts. And she probably did, she’d been walking this very same road and her journey started from some similar horrible place as mine had.

She paid for everything, sharing what little she had with little old me. “You don’t need to use your card honey, he doesn’t need to know you’ve been here. You need to get everything set up on your own first.” and then she bought my children an ice cream from the McDonald's next door, “They’ll remember the good parts.” she said, reassuring one of my many anxieties. She was so steadfast in her presence. I clung to the thought that maybe one day I would be able to be that way.

When we returned to the sanctuary, she and other women helped me go through piles of clothes, finding things that would fit me and the girls. “Oh you need this, this is your color and your size” one lady grinned, holding up an emerald green top that flounced as if flirting with a non-existent breeze. I felt myself sigh, a deep sigh like a body stretching after a long sleep, and I smiled. How long had it been since I had truly, gratefully, smiled?

Over the next week this small community of women who had nothing much in common but our circumstances found solace in aiding each other. A young woman rocked my fussing baby girl so I could get a few hours of much needed sleep. I watched children along with my own while women made important phone calls or took necessary meetings, and the same favor was returned without hesitation, expectations, or reprisals. There was no greed, no territorialism, no squabbling over resources. We took turns cooking and cleaning. We shared our stories. We lifted each other up, held hands and handed out encouragement. It was a small utopian oasis in the middle of the dry arid barren desert.

A week later I would leave, making the long journey across the country with my mom, towards a new beginning and what I hoped would be a brighter future. I looked back over my shoulder often waiting for the shadows of Phoenix to hunt me down and fulfill their cursed promises... but they never came. Mile marker after mile marker passed before me, knuckles white as they gripped the steering wheel with determination. I felt myself shift into something new, a butterfly fresh out of the cocoon - a survivor - with wings still wet, not yet ready to fly… but someday? Yes, maybe someday I would.

I will never forget those amazing women. The companionship, the gifts that they gave me in my heart rooted in the foundation of strength and sense of worth that I have rebuilt from shattered pieces. They gave me validation in believing me. They gave me security in getting me to safety. They gave me hope and love and light from their generosity and their companionship that sparked a fire that now burns - a quiescent inferno - and it all started with a knock, a shelter, and a box of chamomile tea.