Sherryl Woods - Honeysuckle Summer

“Planting flowers, watching the yard fill with color, even pulling the weeds. The doggone honeysuckle nearly drove me mad, but it smelled so sweet, I even loved that. And I loved the way the sun felt on my shoulders.”

In the year before she’d finally ended her marriage, she’d stopped gardening. Even now she shuddered at the memory of the rampage her husband had gone on, destroying all her hard work, leaving the rosebushes ruined, the flowers wilted and dying in a chaotic heap before he was done. In some ways, his savage attack on her garden had hurt as much as any of the physical attacks she’d endured.

Even after all this time tears filled her eyes at the memory. Suddenly she felt a warm, solid hand covering hers.

“I’m sorry,” Carter said, his expression apologetic. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. This is really none of my business.”

She forced a smile. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

She said the words, maybe even managed to sound convincing, but the truth was, she was anything but fine. The memories had touched a place deep inside that she’d almost buried and left her filled with longing.

The minute Carter Rollins left, she sank down on the sofa to await the arrival of Dr. McDaniels, relieved that she’d finally made the call, even as she was dreading what the psychologist might tell her.

Because if Carter Rollins had done nothing else with his well-timed visit and probing questions, he’d reminded her that there was a life outside these four walls—even if only as far as the backyard—that truly might be worth fighting for.

Dr. McDaniels was a thin woman in her fifties with a hint of gray threading through her short dark hair. She had the kind of reassuring smile that invited confidences and a warmth in her eyes that suggested compassion. Though Raylene had only crossed paths with her casually years ago during Annie’s hospitalization, she immediately felt comfortable with her.

“Thank you for agreeing to come here,” Raylene said as she led the way into the living room. “The sitter’s taken the kids to the park, so we won’t be interrupted.”

“Under the circumstances, I’m happy to come here,” Dr. McDaniels said. “Hopefully we can figure out what’s going on and determine the right treatment. If we can accomplish that, it won’t be long before you can come to me.”

“I don’t know,” Raylene said skeptically. “I haven’t left this house in a very long time.”

“How long?”

“I first moved in here right after I left Charleston. Back then, I could at least sit out back in the evening, but eventually even that got to be too much. I suppose it’s been a year or more since I’ve left at all.”

“Have you tried?”

Raylene shook her head. “Once I was back in Serenity and inside this house, it was like I’d used up every bit of bravery I had. I saw this as my safe haven. Thankfully I didn’t have to go back for my husband’s sentencing. He’d pleaded no contest once the D.A. showed him my deposition, along with the medical records that documented how many times I’d been to various emergency rooms, plus the condition I was in the night I lost my baby. Though the prosecutor opted not to charge him in the baby’s death, Paul didn’t want the whole messy incident coming out in court and causing an even bigger scandal for his family. The plea bargain lessened his sentence, as well.”

There was no visible reaction on the doctor’s face as Raylene reported the abuse that had driven her home to Serenity. “How long were you married?” she asked.

“Too long,” Raylene said fervently.

“And you were abused throughout the marriage?”

Humiliated, Raylene nodded. “It was mostly verbal at first, temper tantrums from the stress he was under as an intern.”

“And you thought it was your fault for triggering these bursts of anger,” the psychologist said.

Something in her matter-of-fact approach and her obvious understanding made Raylene feel less ashamed. “You’ve heard this before,” she guessed.

“Too many times,” Dr. McDaniels said. “You do know it wasn’t your fault.”

“I do now. I think I even understood that on an intellectual level back then, but when the man you love keeps hammering it home that you’re responsible if he gets angry, on some level you start to think it must be true. I was too young—barely eighteen when we married—to know better.”

“Did you consider leaving him?”

“I did leave once. I went to my mother and told her what was happening. She thought I was exaggerating. She convinced me to go back and work on my marriage, on making Paul happy. She honestly believed, I think, that I must have been doing something wrong for him to act that way.”

“How’d that make you feel?”

Tears streamed down Raylene’s face at the memory of walking away from her parents’ house that day, her suitcase in hand, what she’d seen as her only hope for an escape dashed. “Alone,” she said at once. “I’d never felt more alone in my life.”

“Couldn’t you have called someone else, Sarah or Annie, perhaps?”

“I’d lost touch with them, and I was too embarrassed, anyway. I hadn’t made any real friends in Charleston. Most were the wives of Paul’s friends, and I didn’t dare go to them.”

“So you were scared and isolated,” the psychologist concluded.

“Pretty much.”

“What finally changed to get you out of the house for good?”

Raylene swallowed hard. “We fought,” she said, not wanting to remember.

“But you’d fought before.”

“This was worse. I…was pregnant. Just a couple of months along.” Paul hadn’t been happy about the baby, but she had been. She’d wanted someone she could love unconditionally, someone to protect the way no one had protected her. In a way, she’d convinced herself that the baby would give her the strength to leave. Ironically, that’s exactly what had happened, though not in the way she’d envisioned.

Raylene buried her face in her hands and wept as she thought about that night, about the punches deliberately aimed at her stomach, the blows that had brought on a miscarriage days later. Paul hadn’t wanted her to go to the emergency room when the bleeding started, but for once she’d defied him, threatening to run screaming from the house if he didn’t let her go quietly. Naturally the threat of exposure in his own neighborhood had given him pause.

She hadn’t gone to the hospital where Paul had privileges. She’d feared his associates would help Paul to cover up the abuse. Instead, she went across town. The doctors there had been horrified. They’d known at a glance what had happened and taken enough pictures to guarantee that Paul would be convicted of a crime, even though sentencing guidelines for a first offense, even of aggravated felony abuse, were next to nothing.

When she’d declared she was leaving him, two doctors at the hospital had physically restrained Paul to keep him from following her. The moment they’d released her, she’d driven straight to Serenity and walked into The Corner Spa to see Annie.

“You’d been living in Charleston?” Dr. McDaniels said, glancing at her notes. “Is that right?”

Raylene nodded.

“How did you get over here? Did you drive yourself?”

She nodded. “I think I was in a state of shock. I barely remember making it to The Corner Spa. Then Annie brought me here.”

“And you literally haven’t left since?”