violence nonprofit, where I volunteered, was tucked away in a nondescript office park by the railroad tracks in Mount Vernon. I wasn’t just a hopeful volunteer receptionist, I was a client. The back room where I met with my domestic violence advocate had high windows near the ceiling that let in just enough sun to keep alive a scattering of houseplants. Christy, my advocate, had moved from Missoula in the past year. She talked about missing it a lot, especially after I told her the town had been wooing me for several years.
“Well, why don’t you visit?” Christy said.
I was talking about the brochures from the University of Montana, the ones that showed up in my mailbox every few months like a persistent ex-boyfriend who wanted me back, the postcards and booklets about the creative writing program with bearded, smiling men in Carhartts fly fishing.
Christy nodded her head and smiled. She set down my application for a scholarship, which I’d asked her to help me with, and looked at me.
“You should go visit and see what you think,” she said. She always sounded calm and peaceful. “My kids loved it there. Missoula’s a wonderful place to raise a family.”
“Why put myself through that?” I asked, almost in a huff. “I mean, what if I really like it? It would just make me feel bad.” I picked at the mud on my pants, dirty from weeding a client’s yard that morning.
“Why couldn’t you move there?” Christy challenged, leaning back in her chair.
“He wouldn’t let me,” I said.
“Mia’s dad?”
“Yes, Jamie,” I said, crossing my arms. At our first meeting, I’d recited my script—the one I repeated again and again to therapists or anyone who asked about my history. It began in the homeless shelter, covered the no-contact orders, court case, and panic attacks. That Jamie lived three hours away and Mia saw him every other weekend. Today I added that I wondered if Mia wanted to live with him.
Christy’s voice dropped a little. “Whether or not you move to Missoula is not his decision to make.”
“But I’d still have to ask for permission to move.”
“It’s not asking for permission. You give notice of relocation, and he has a chance to object,” she said, making it sound so simple. “If he does, you both present your case, and a judge has the final word.” She looked down at my application again. I stayed quiet, letting her words wash through my mind. “It’s really rare that they won’t allow mothers to move,” she added. “Especially if they can prove they’ll have better opportunities for education.”
I set my jaw and stared at the floor. Just thinking about going to court again gave me heart palpitations.
“Don’t think of it as asking for permission,” she said. “It’s giving notice.”
“Yeah,” I said, turning my attention to the fibers in the chair cushion.
“So, explain to me how this works?” she said, picking up the application packet.
Another advocate, the one in Port Townsend who had helped me when we were homeless, introduced me to a scholarship for survivors that she called “The Sunshine Ladies,” but I hadn’t qualified for it at the time. If it hadn’t been for that name, I never would have remembered it. Even though it was formally called the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program, an Internet search of “Sunshine Ladies” brought me to the right place.
A scholarship specifically for survivors of domestic violence wasn’t without an overwhelming amount of paperwork and a long list of qualifications. I hadn’t qualified for one major reason when I considered it before—recipients must be out of the abusive relationship for at least one year. But I also needed a sponsor, preferably through a domestic violence program, to handle the money for me. WISP would send the organization the scholarship funds, who then worked with me on the best way to spend them. I suppose this was a way to have some idea of where the scholarship funds went, but the process sounded daunting.
“Ask for five thousand dollars,” Christy suggested as we made our way through the paperwork. “The worst that can happen is you get less.”
“I wonder if I could reach people with my writing,” I said, more to myself than to her.
She nodded and smiled in encouragement. “The University of Montana has a wonderful creative writing department!” she exclaimed, turning to pull up the homepage. “I think it’s one of the top in the nation?”
“I know,” I said. “That was my plan, before I was pregnant.” I tried not to