questioned me. And again I had to humiliate myself—or so it felt at the time—by telling him about Derrick. My superior spoke with his superior, and all hell broke loose.”
Now she took a long, careful breath. “Nasty little things at first. Having my tires slashed, my car keyed. My phone ringing in the middle of the night, repeatedly, with hang ups, finding someone canceled my reservations for lunch or dinner. My computers, work and home, were hacked. The man I was seeing casually had his car windows smashed, and anonymous complaints—ugly ones—sent to his boss. We stopped seeing each other. It wasn’t serious, and it seemed easier.”
“What did the cops do?”
“They talked to him, and he denied everything. He’s very convincing. He told them he’d ended things with me because I was too possessive and had gotten violent. He claimed to be worried about me and hoped I’d get help.”
“A decent cop should’ve seen through that.”
“I think they did, but they couldn’t prove he’d done any of it. It kept going, little things, bigger things, for over three months. I was on edge all the time, and my work was suffering. He started to show up at restaurants where I’d be having lunch or dinner. Or I’d look out my apartment window and see his car drive by, or think I did. We ran in similar circles, lived and worked in the same general area, so because he never approached me the police couldn’t do anything about it.
“I snapped one day when he strolled into the place where I was having lunch with a coworker. I marched over, told him to leave me the hell alone, called him names, created a terrible scene until the woman I worked with got me out.”
“He broke you down,” Eli stated.
“Completely. He stayed absolutely calm through it, or I thought he did. And that night he broke into my apartment. He was waiting for me when I came home. He was out of control, completely out of control. I fought back, but he was stronger. He had a knife—one of mine from my kitchen—and I thought he’d kill me. I tried to get out, but he caught me, and we struggled. He cut me.”
Eli stopped walking, turned to take both of her hands.
“Along my ribs. I still don’t know if it was an accident or he meant to, but I thought I’d be dead, any second, and started screaming. Instead of the knife, he used his fists. He beat me, he choked me, and he was raping me when my neighbors broke in. They’d heard me screaming and called the police, but thank God they didn’t wait for the cops. I think he might’ve killed me, with his bare hands, if they hadn’t stopped him when they did.”
His arms came around her, and she leaned into him. She thought a lot of men backed off when they heard the word “rape.” But not Eli.
She turned to walk again, comforted by his arm around her waist. “I had more than a black eye this time. My mother had been in Africa and came straight back. You’d know all about the process—the tests, the interviews with the police, the counselors, the lawyers. It’s horrible, that reliving of it, and I was angry to be viewed as a victim. Until I learned to accept I was a victim, but I didn’t have to stay one. In the end I was grateful they worked out a plea so I didn’t have to go through it all again in a trial. He went to prison, and my mother took me to this place in the country—a friend’s summer house in the Laurel Highlands. She gave me space, but not too much. She gave me time—long quiet walks, long crying jags, midnight baking sessions with tequila shots. God, oh God, she’s the most wonderful woman.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“Maybe you will. She gave me a month, and then she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. The stars are coming out. We should walk back.”
They turned, walking now with the evening breeze at their backs. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I wanted to live at the beach. I wanted to see the ocean every day. I told her I wanted to help people, but I couldn’t face going back to an office, going back to appointments and meetings and strategy sessions. I blubbered because I was sure she’d be disappointed in me. I had the