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Previous Chapter: No One Has Clean Hands
Isla could barely handle the attention from the kids at Kim and Phil’s, but she knew the distraction was good. For one thing, it kept Kim from asking any pointed questions, at least as long as the kids were up. After bedtime stories were over and the grown-ups were sitting in the living room, Isla suggested she might make an early night of it.
“It’s 7:30.” Kim’s look saw right through her.
“I’m tired. Can you blame me if I’m tired?”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” She patted Isla’s shoulder. “I’ll bring some clean sheets.”
Isla grabbed her bag. “Good-night, Phil.”
“Good-night,” Phil said, and then added, “Listen, Isla. If any justice needs to be served . . .”
Isla half-smiled. “Thanks, Phil. I don’t know what justice is anymore.” They exchanged sober looks.
Kim was quiet as she smoothed the sheets meticulously over the bed in the guest room. Isla didn’t think to help; she sat limply in a chair, soothed by Kim’s ritual. Fitted sheet, flat sheet, pillowcases. Blanket, quilt, fuzzy throw blanket at the foot. Isla could smell the freshness. Kim turned down a corner.
“Want a bedtime story?” She smiled.
“No monsters. I’ve had enough monsters.”
Kim sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her hands. “Isla, did he . . . did . . . did things turn violent?”
Isla snorted. “Yeah . . . yeah, they did.” A visceral memory zapped through Isla’s teeth, her fists; she pushed it away.
“I’m so sorry.” Isla didn’t say anything. “And I’m so angry with that man,” Kim said. The contrast between her passionate words and her mild manner drew a slight smile from Isla. “Who would ever have believed? I never thought he could be like that, Isla, never.” She put an arm around Isla’s shoulder, yet Isla remained a bit rigid. “How can I help?”
Isla laughed ruefully and flopped on the bed, kicking off her shoes. “How about a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for each of us and a romcom on my laptop?”
Kim nodded. “I’ll send Phil out and get two spoons.”
“Thanks.” Isla wondered if she could squeeze in a tiny cry while Kim was out of the room; suddenly simply being loved was so beautiful that she couldn’t bear it.
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Kim must have quietly left when the movie finished; Isla had dozed off near the end and missed the big finale. The room was dark when she woke up under the fuzzy blanket that Kim must have pulled up over her shoulders. The door was slightly ajar and Kim had left the light on in the bathroom across the hall. By its dim light, Isla rummaged in her hastily packed big purse for her toothbrush and contact solution, then finally gave up and snapped on the bedside lamp. Its low wattage was cozy and homey, but she still couldn’t find her things. She hauled the bag up onto the bed to rummage properly and ended up removing the contents. Ah. There they were.
Teeth clean and glasses on, Isla tried to reorganize the pile. It was late. The house was quiet. She folded her change of clothes and put all her toiletries to one side. There remained some wadded up papers and other small bits of purse debris. Ugh . . . the papers were from the therapist visit. Now she remembered stuffing them down in there, feeling obliged to read them yet secretly hoping they’d disintegrate.
She’d tried to tell herself that it was late, she was tired. And it was, and she was. But the words “power and control” drew her eye to one pamphlet. Yes, that was what she was looking for. She was sick of being powerless, she was sick of her life careening out of control.
But as she read it, she realized it wasn’t offering power and control, but calling out the abuse of them. Still. This should be good. It would make her angry at Danny, and she wanted to be angry at Danny.
It worked. Nearly every thing mentioned related to her so-called marriage. Yes, he had called her names. One did not call Isla Campbell a “freaking idiot” or a “stupid cow” without consequences. He had made her feel shame--ashamed of him, ashamed of their trailer park marriage. She’d wanted to tell the world that this isn’t who she was, that this had happened by accident, that she’d just married him because she felt bad for him but she wasn’t really like him, she didn’t belong there, it wasn’t what she thought it would be.
Had he pretended that their relationship was fine, that nothing bad was happening? She wasn’t sure if he’d done that exactly—the memory of him groveling on the couch—so sorry, sorry, sorry, much too late—floated to the surface. But then there were times he didn’t take responsibility. Like how it was wrong to buy the house without asking and he never said he was sorry, and it was stupid to keep backing into the road and not to pay his fines. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And he dragged her down with him—had he ever apologized for that? Had he ever accepted responsibility? He’d blamed her, he’d blamed her plenty, sure she was behind the fines and citations, and she wasn’t. He wouldn’t listen to her. He deserved everything that had happened.
Isla felt uneasy. She shoved the paper back in her bag and lay down for a restless night. It was just dawn when she stuck her hand in her bag for some Tylenol and found the paper again instead. Her eye fell on it again, drawing her back in. In bold letters, it said that abusers fail to take responsibility. She tried to close her eyes, go back to sleep, but the bold letters were imprinted on her eyelids. Abusers make people feel guilty, insecure, ashamed.
Was it her fault if he felt bad about himself? Could you really make someone feel a way? Wasn’t it his choice to be insecure? Maybe she hadn’t bolstered his ego, but wouldn’t that have been a lie? He was guilty of things. He had reason to be ashamed. She hadn’t done it.
But he thought she had, didn’t he? He thought she had humiliated him on purpose.
A thought struck Isla that made her sick to her stomach. What would Danny think if he was reading these materials? Who would he think was the abuser?
She glanced at it again to reassure herself, and as she read, she became more confident that she was off the hook.
Now that, she had never done, tried to tell him who he could see or where he could go or what he could do. The odd question now and then about what he had done during the day or whether he had fixed anyone’s cars or when was he going to get a job or where did the money come from or why was there a new oil spot in the garage or how much time had he spent playing video games or why didn’t he take that rare game down to the pawn shop because he certainly wasn’t making money sitting on his butt all day . . .
You wouldn’t call that control. Those were normal questions to ask a spouse.
She was the breadwinner. It was perfectly natural for her to make the big decisions, when she brought in almost all the money and his track record had been one of ruinous decisions. Why would she consult someone like that? And anyway, he’d made big decisions without asking her; he had. Maybe she had occasionally hinted that his “macho” ideas about being a “real man” caused their problems. She couldn’t remember. Certainly, she had never said that the reason he was bad at handling money or making business decisions was because he grew up poor in a home with uneducated parents. Even if she had thought it.
She had not prevented him from working. His own stupid decisions did that. But if you were to ask him, what would he say . . . but anyway, it was his own fault that he couldn’t run his garage and wouldn’t apply elsewhere. It was his own fault that the landlord thing fell through. If he could just be more organized. And the same with the money. He just didn’t have the acumen to handle it and anyway it was her money. She did all the work. Of course she should handle it. This was just stupid.
She had never done anything premeditated. Striking out in the adrenaline of the moment was understandable; it wasn’t a mind game like threats were. Sure, she’d had to tell him she’d report his legal violations if City Hall put on too much pressure. And she may have encouraged him at other times to just go ahead with it regardless of the law, but that wasn’t pressuring him to commit illegal activities. Anyway, how could it be abuse to both encourage compliance with the law and rebel against it? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?
She hadn’t left him or threatened to leave him, just told him he had to leave. There was a difference.
He had broken things, too. His laptop? What about his laptop? What about his toolbox and his rental house and their own house?
“Refuses to accept responsibility.”
Well? See if she were abusive, that’s what she’d do, refuse responsibility. So she had to NOT do it, had to look hard at her own part. Ok. No problem.
She had thrown things, yes. But not usually at him. He was so irritating, so hurtful, so thoughtless, so inconsiderate. Always so deaf to what she said she needed. She had to do something with that frustration. But she hadn’t thrown things at him. Dumping his laundry, breaking the stupid mug she’d brought him—those were just little releases of tension, releasing everything inside of her into the crash, the chaos.
Except for the coffee she had thrown right in his face. But that wouldn’t have hurt. That was more humiliating than anything.
Although . . . humiliating was on the list, she unwillingly remembered.
There was just that one time.
Except for the red-hot woodstove lid. She’d burned her hand in the process, grabbing the cast-iron lid lifter bare-handed. The lid was hot; it was heavy. But she missed. Maybe she never intended to hit him, really.
So, just “threatened”? Still an abusive trait.
Oh.
Did he feel unsafe? She couldn’t or wouldn’t do any real damage. She had ripped things from his hands, maybe, but he had exaggerated how violently she had done it. She had pushed him hard into the wall with her body as she passed by, pretending it was an accident, and never with her hands, as if it didn’t count if it wasn’t her hands. He hadn’t really felt unsafe, had he?
Was home a safe place? Was she a safe place?
That wasn’t the question.
Had she threatened him?
It was self-defense back there at the house yesterday. He had threatened her, standing close to her like that, cornering her. That was her story; that’s how she remembered it.
But no.
Suddenly, she truly remembered the way it had happened, the thing she had not wanted to look at.
She had been glad when he stood up. She had wanted to hurt him, to tear into him, to finally give him what he deserved for trapping her, destroying her, embarrassing her, disappointing her.
Refuses to accept responsibility.
Refuses to accept responsibility.
Refuses to accept responsibility.
Isla knew that Carmen was wrong when she said that abuse was one-sided. Isla herself saw Danny’s missteps all too clearly. But she knew, too, that he would genuinely see himself as the one on the defensive, as the one merely reacting to trauma. And would he be right?
She had wanted good things for him once; she had seen vulnerability, yes, but also value in him, long ago. She had fought for him back in the early days, even when he hadn’t always been good to her.
But in the end . . . it was grotesque to say it.
Hurting him had given her pleasure.
She was the monster.
Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson