Danielle Steel - Journey

“Yes, it is,” Phyllis Armstrong reassured her.

“I believed her, although the first two people I told did not believe me. They were both men, one is my co-anchor on the show, the other is my husband, and both should know better.”

“We're here today, to discuss what we can do about the problem of crimes committed against women,” Mrs. Armstrong said as she opened the meeting. “Is it a question of legislation, addressing the public perception of abuse? How can we deal with this most effectively? And then, I'd like to see what we can do about it. I believe we all would.” Everyone around the room nodded. “I'd like to do something a little unusual today. I'd like each of us to say why we're here, either for professional reasons, or personal ones, if you feel comfortable talking about it. My secretary won't take notes, and if you don't want to speak, you don't have to. But I think it could be interesting for us,” and although she didn't say it, she knew it would form an instant bond between them. “I'm willing to go first, if you'd prefer it.” Everyone waited respectfully for her to speak, and she told them something none of them had known about her.

“My father was an alcoholic, and he beat my mother every weekend without fail, after he got paid on Friday. They were married for forty-nine years, until she finally died of cancer. His beating her was something of a ritual for all of us, I had three brothers and a sister. And we all accepted it as something inevitable like church on Sunday. I used to hide in my room so I wouldn't have to hear it, but I did anyway. And afterward, I would hear her sobbing in her bedroom. But she never left him, never stopped him, never hit him back. We all hated it, and when they were old enough, my brothers went out and got drunk themselves. One of them was abusive to his wife when he grew up, he was the oldest, my next brother was a teetotaler and became a minister, and my baby brother died an alcoholic at thirty. And no, I don't have a problem with alcohol myself, in case you're wondering. I don't like it much, and drink very little, and it hasn't been a problem for me. What has been a problem for me all my life is the idea, the reality, of women being abused all over the world, more often than not by their husbands, and no one doing anything about it. I've always promised myself I would get involved one day, and I'd like to do something, anything, to effect a change now. Every day, women are being mugged on the streets, sexually assaulted and harassed, date-raped, and beaten and killed by their partners and husbands, and for some reason, we accept it. We don't like it, we don't approve of it, we cry when we hear about it, particularly if we know the victim. But we don't stop it, we don't reach out and take the gun away, or the knife, or the hand, just as I never stopped my father. Maybe we don't know how, maybe we just don't care enough. But I think we do care. I think we just don't like to think about it. But I want people to start thinking, and to stand up and do something about it. I think it's time, it's long overdue. I want you to help me stop the violence against women, for my sake, for your sake, for my mother's sake, for our daughters and sisters and friends. I want to thank you all for being here, and for caring enough to help me.” There were tears in her eyes when she stopped talking, and for an instant, everyone stared at her. It was not an unusual story. But it made Phyllis Armstrong much more real to them.

The psychiatrist who had grown up in Detroit told a similar story, except that her father had killed her mother, and gone to prison for it. She said that she herself was gay, and she had been raped and beaten at fifteen by a boy she had grown up with. She had lived with the same woman now for fourteen years, and said that she felt she had recovered from the early abuses in her life, but she was concerned about the increasing trend of violent crimes against women, even in the gay community, and our ability to look the other way while they happened.

Some of the others had no firsthand personal experience with violence, but both federal judges said they had had abusive fathers who had slapped their mothers around, and until they grew up and learned otherwise, they thought it was normal. And then it was Maddy's turn, and she hesitated for a moment. She had never before told her story to anyone in public, and she felt naked now as she thought about it.

“I guess my story isn't all that different from the others,” she started. “I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and my father always hit my mother. Sometimes she hit him back, most of the time, she didn't. Sometimes he was drunk when he did it, sometimes he just did it because he was mad at her, or at someone else, or at something that had happened that day. We were dirt poor, and he never seemed to be able to keep a job, so he hit my mother about that too. Everything that happened to him was always her fault. And when she wasn't around, he hit me, but not very often. Their fighting was kind of the background music to my childhood, a familiar theme I grew up with.” She felt a little breathless as she said it, and for the first time in years, you could hear the remnants of her Southern accent as she continued. “And all I wanted to do was get away from it. I hated my house, and my parents, and the way they treated each other. So I married my high school sweetheart at seventeen, and as soon as we were married, he started to beat me up. He drank too much, and didn't work a lot. His name was Bobby Joe, and I believed him when he said that it was all my fault, if I weren't such a pain in the ass and such a bad wife, and so stupid and careless and just plain dumb, he wouldn't ‘have’ to hit me. But he had to. He broke both my arms once, and he pushed me down the stairs once, and I broke my leg. I was working at a television station in Knoxville then, and it got sold to a man from Texas, who eventually bought a cable TV network in Washington, and took me with him. I guess most of you know that part. It was Jack Hunter. I left my wedding ring and a note on my kitchen table in Knoxville, and met Jack at the Greyhound bus station with a Samsonite suitcase with two dresses in it, and I ran like hell, all the way to Washington to work for him. I got a divorce, and married Jack a year after that, and no one's ever laid a hand on me since then. I wouldn't let them. I know better now. If anyone even looks cross-eyed at me, I run like hell. I don't know why I got lucky, but I did. Jack saved my life. He made me everything I am today. Without him, I'd probably be dead by now. I think Bobby Joe would have probably killed me one night, pushing me down the stairs till I broke my neck, or kicking me in the stomach. Or maybe just because I'd want to die finally I've never said anything about any of this because I was ashamed of it, but now I want to help women like me, women who aren't as lucky as I've been, women who think they're trapped, and don't have a Jack Hunter waiting for them with a limousine to take them to another city. I want to reach out to these women and help them. They need us,” she said, as tears filled her eyes, “we owe it to them.”

“Thank you, Maddy” Phyllis Armstrong said softly. They all shared a common bond, or most of them, lawyers and doctors and judges and even a First Lady, histories of violence and abuse, and only by sheer luck and grit had they survived it. And they were all acutely aware that there were countless others who weren't as lucky, and needed their help. The group sitting in the First Lady's private quarters was anxious to help them.

Bill Alexander was the last to speak, and his story was the most unusual, as Maddy suspected it would be. He had grown up in a good home in New England, with parents who loved him and each other. And he had met and married his wife when she was at Wellesley and he was at Harvard. He had a doctorate in foreign policy and political science, and had taught at Dartmouth for several years, and then Princeton, and was teaching a class at Harvard when he was made Ambassador to Kenya at fifty. His next post was in Madrid, and from there he was sent to Colombia. He said that he had three grown children who were respectively, a doctor, a lawyer, and a banker. All very respectable and academically impressive. His had been a quiet, “normal” life, in fact, he said with a smile, a fairly boring, but satisfying existence.